As far as funding goes, if funds were distributed as they should be–classrooms first–the money would be available to compensate teachers fairly. That is what we are asking district officials to do. There is too much spending on outside consultants, unnecessary administrators, coaches, etc.

They have already failed.

California is a failed state. That will become obvious in the next six months. California’s public schools are failed schools in the urban areas and are schools in name only. The successes they do have are not “value added” successes but rather students that would have taught themselves anyway to the performance level they show in the public school.

When homeschooled children are reporting reading/writing scores as high as they do against the LA Unified and Oakland Unified averages, yes, the schools can and do fail.

And people are not going go vote for more money for failing schools.

It’s time for changes to be made back to policies that worked. Since that’s not going to happen either, all we have to look for is the complete collapse of these urban school districts in favor of the newer Charter Schools.

My point is that giving such a raise seems unrealistic in a state economy where the money to pay for it is shrinking. It seems doubly unrealistic in a district one foot out of state takeover. I’ve read a little about LA and some local districts and they are closing schools, raising class sizes, capping health benefits, taking furloughs and laying off teachers. If OUSD can give a raise in this environment – I say go for it. It just doesn’t seem realistic.

Of course companies can fail. And have. Unfortunately, it is their taxes and the taxes of their employees (Katy and ME included), that pay for those salaries you want increased. Katy appears to have less to contribute given the furlough days. I’m sure she’s not alone. That’s what seems to be missing from this discussion. Deserved or not, I’d be a little pissed if I had to take a pay cut and my teacher was on strike because she didn’t get a raise.

that’s the difference. if you play “hardball” with Teachers, you’re playing hardball with students. If you ask us to take a pay cut, some will stay, but the best will probably leave.

If the pie is shrinking, there are still plenty of us who think how the smaller pie should be divided is open for debate.

Even Gov. Schwartzenegger is looking at capping prison spending while putting a floor on higher ed spending — the kind of redistribution of resources we need, IMHO.

And yes, funding for public education is a different issue than whether a private company should or should not lay folks off, TheTruthHurts.