Comments on: Oakland principals get layoff counts

By: David Laub

David Laub — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:56:10 +0000

Concerned OUSD Parent-

According to the prinipal at my school site, Tony Smith’s administration has already guaranteed a 7%
cut for staffing and programs at all sites for the upcoming fiscal year regardless of the outcome of the budget fight going on right now in Sacramento.

The rational for this deep impact results from OUSD budget shortages. The amount of money that OUSD spends on the “for profit” consultants, programs and contractors seems to correspond to this funding shortage.

In ballpark figures, OUSD’s annual budget is around $500,000,000.00. OUSD spends over $2000.00 per year per student on these consultants, programs and contractors. OUSD has approximately 40,000 students. So somewhere in the ballpark of $80,000,000.00 is what OUSD currently spends annually on “for profit” consultants, programs and contractors. This is between 6% and 7% of OUSD’s annual budget.

A 7% cut at the school site will still have severe negative impact on the capacity of the schools to optimize students cognitive and affectivedevelopment.

Perhaps Katy could look into this and I hope that Katy will take your request in post #44 as a serious one. We would all benefit from a serious and researched reply that answers the concern with concrete data.

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 06:42:48 +0000

Concerned OUSD Parent: I’ve been trying to pin down the exact number of potential layoff notices (538 represents the number of full-time positions, rather than actual people) and other data for the last week or so.

The district’s labor relations manager told me late this afternoon, via email, that there were some last minute changes (though it didn’t sound like they would affect the overall picture very much) and that he wouldn’t have the final count until tomorrow – the deadline.

But he confirmed that layoff warnings will go to more than one-fifth of the teaching staff. And at the last school board meeting, HR staff said that because of the uncertainty/timing of the governor’s proposed June special election, it is possible that a large number of actual layoffs (as opposed to notices of possible layoff) will happen in May and that some might not be rescinded until well into the summer.

That huge layoff rate is based on a “doomsday scenario” of losing $900 or more per student in state general-purpose funding, which would cost OUSD about $30 million and likely trigger many school closures. Individual schools, by contrast, have been budgeting on the assumption that the district will take a $349/student cut in general purpose funding.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:23:10 +0000

Trish,
I realize you feel that what I and others have witnessed(hills parent,frustrated parent)is just overblown, but unfortunately it is not an aberration and we are not alone. There would not be huge nationwide coalition of parents if we were just fabricating problems where they don’t exist. I’ll repeat what I asked in another post ” how can a teacher know that colleagues are incompetent or not if they are in their own classroom? An involved parent knows if and when children are making progress throughout the year, and they can tell when the teacher is spinning their wheels. This is just a part of the whole problem, but it is real whether you like it or not.

By: Concerned OUSD Parent

Concerned OUSD Parent — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:12:19 +0000

Katy,
Please update us. 538 notices seems like far too many. Why is OUSD so blase about this? Don’t they realize that the teachers who received these notices have had their entire lives disrupted? And the low morale is affecting the entire school communities. How were these notices sent? Is the district giving any indication of when they may being rescinding these layoff notices? Our teachers deserve better. At our school. some of the most energetic, dynamic teachers received these notices. What has OUSD done to cut its own bloated administrative costs?

By: maestra

maestra — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:24:33 +0000

Two questions for you, Katy:

1. Do you have the full list? what % of teachers are being laid off?

2. Someone told me it’s everyone who has been hired since 2005? Is that true?

This is absurd. I mean, I know budget cuts are horrible right now, but every year OUSD lays off way too many teachers and then has a ton of vacancies that they scramble to fill while all their teachers (many of whom wanted to stay even under less than ideal teaching conditions!) have found other jobs. Now they’re laying off even more?

By: Trish Gorham

Trish Gorham — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:04:13 +0000

I wanted to get back to the discussion earlier, but was too busy working (in my unpaid time) on report cards.

Hills and Frustrated: I’m sure you understand the problem with defining “effective” or “deadweight”. I’m sure you don’t mean to define these by test scores. I often have, by request of the Special Education teacher, those students with learning or behavioral disabilities placed in my class. Am I to be judged effective by how those test scores affect my overall average?

If we remove “just the lowest 5-10% of teachers – the bottom of the barrel”, wouldn’t there be a different bottom the following year, and the following? So when do we know we have succeeded in winnowing out the bottom?

I’m sure in Lake Wobegon, the teachers are all above average, as are the children. But in the real world there is a wide range of abilities and talents. If no learning is truly taking place in a classroom it is up to the administrator to document and follow the processes in place to remove those that are truly incompetent as opposed to those that are merely less than inspiring.

And when the majority of new teachers leave within 5 years,should we depend on that cohort for stability, or those that have already made a total commitment to your children?

JR: I’m afraid I don’t have time to address your red herrings (i.e., the whole gardener “analogy”) or straw men: “If you want to be mad, then place your anger where it belongs(not the taxpayers).”

Speaking of red herrings, though “bad” teachers is more like a red whale, I commend to you a quote by Thomas Pinchon: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.

“They” have done a pretty good job when the financial crisis in states is blamed on workers rather than Wall Street.

By: mali

mali — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:31:18 +0000

While I agree that seniority/tenure does cause problems, and everyone should be held accountable for the work they do, I do not agree that this is a reason to get rid of collective bargaining rights. Without collective bargaining rights, teachers would never be able to advocate for maximum class sizes, or the amount of resources they need in order to teach their students effectively. Without collective bargaining rights, they would not have access to health benefits for themselves or their families which would otherwise be impossible to purchase on a teacher’s salary. Would you rather have good teachers leave the profession of public education because they can’t afford to teach? Would you rather have the state say it’s ok to have 40 students in each class? Or that any teacher can be let go,for any reason, regardless of how well they do their job? Because that is what will happen if unions and collective bargaining rights are abolished.

By: mali

mali — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:22:09 +0000

As a former OUSD teacher, I can attest to the frustration. I was one of many who was let go after my first year of teaching. I have also been applying to edjoin OUSD job postings for the last two years, without much luck. The truth is teachers perform a necessary function- when you lay off teachers, you have to hire a replacement. My strong suspicion, which has been confirmed by my own experience, is that the school districts are laying of the more experienced and tenured teachers (aka the more expensive ones) in order to replace them with Teach For America candidates, because they are more cost effective. Only in public education does having a higher degree become a liability….(why hire someone with a masters/doctorate to teach an elementary class when you can get two briefly trained Teach for America candidates at the same price?)

By: gee yu

gee yu — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:42:11 +0000

Harold you got it
OUSD keeps telling us one thing and they do another….OUSD sent out early retirement incentive packets to ousd teachers in january..these packet are
controlled by an orgination called public agency retirement services (go to their web site and you will learn alot form their december 2010 hot sheet).. teachers, staff, and principals did take these packets but OUSD has not mentioned this in their lay off equation how come??

By: Harold

Harold — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:32:07 +0000

@#37 – WOW! What is OUSD doing wasting money, recruiting across the country while sending out 500+ pink slips?

What is our School Board doing about this?

Where are those stats that Troy Flint promised us, months ago?