A brief reflection on the 2008-09 school year, from a middle grades teacher in Los Angeles:
When I reflect beyond my own classroom, I grow increasingly concerned about how next year will play out as we grapple with teacher layoffs and a state economy on the brink of collapse. Based on seniority, we're losing one of our terrific young sixth grade teachers and retaining a teacher whose students cuss at him and charge out of class with regularity. We're losing two of our administrators, our special ed coordinator, and our literacy coach to other schools because of layoffs and seniority issues.
And I continue to resent and reflect on how often I see the words "bad teachers" in local newspapers. Another one today...
NPR (June 17): LA's Urban Schools Hardest Hit by Teacher Layoffs
Unless parents get upset by the layoffs, displacements, and class size increases it will be business as usual next year.
Posted by: Mathew | June 17, 2009 at 12:34 PM
I hadn't realized the effect the budget crunch is having on LA's young teachers until I heard a story about it on NPR today. The loss of a generation of eager, non-traditional educators would be just one more devastating result of this recession...
Posted by: Matthew Brown | June 18, 2009 at 12:16 AM
Thanks, Matthew, for the NPR story tip. We've included it at the end of the post.
John Norton
TLN moderator
Posted by: John Norton | June 19, 2009 at 08:50 AM