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The Pink Slip Factor: Budget Cuts Threaten California’s Teaching Workforce

Policymakers should safeguard gains to ensure every student has a fully prepared and effective teacher

By Margaret Gaston

Once again, California schools are scrambling. Faced with a budget crisis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting $4.8 billion from the state’s education budget. To make ends meet, local school districts are considering program cuts, and contemplating laying off employees, including teachers. State law requires that school districts must send preliminary “pink slip” notices of potential layoff by March 15. These threats of teacher layoffs are harmful to the morale of local school personnel and greatly complicate the challenge school districts face in retaining and hiring staff to meet student needs.

But the threat of layoffs has implications that reach beyond the local classroom. The “pink slip” factor threatens the progress the state has made in strengthening its teaching workforce. Consider what occurred during the last budget crisis. In 2003, the education community was facing expected budget cuts of $5.4 billion and by the March 15 deadline more than 20,000 teachers statewide had received layoff notices. By June, all but 3,000 of the layoff notices had been rescinded, but the damage may have already been done to the state’s capacity to recruit and prepare teachers. The number of enrollees in teacher preparation programs during the 2002-03 school year was 74,203. The next year, that number dropped to 67,595 and the following year (2004-05) it was 64,753, a loss of about 10,000 teacher candidates in two years. Similarly, the numbers of teaching credentials awarded dropped from 27,000 in 2004 to 22,400 in 2006.

This is not a small issue. California needs to replace about one-third of its teaching workforce, about 100,000 teachers, over the next ten years due to retirement alone. We are going to need every teacher we can get. And if a weaker teacher pipeline is the result of this year’s budget problems, low achieving schools in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are likely to find it even harder to hire fully prepared teachers from a shrinking pool of available candidates, making an already inequitable situation even worse.

“Pink slipping” is not the sole factor responsible for the downturn in teacher production and availability, but given California’s need to recruit thousands of teachers, it is a message we can ill afford. As California policymakers make decisions about the budget, they need to consider the implications for the teaching workforce and take actions that safeguard the hard won gains California has made in developing a fully prepared and effective teaching workforce with the capacity to meet the needs of students.

Margaret Gaston is the President and Executive Director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. For further information on this issue, check out the latest CenterView at www.cftl.org

Posted on March 06, 2008

Comments

We are screwed as students.
Major props to the idiots upstate,
way to watch out for us.
Jerks.

Posted by: Haley Neal at April 21, 2008 01:08 PM

first of all we shouldn't be critizing the governer just yet. because the students in california have to stand together and fight the governer who promised the people of california. one person cant make a difference but if everyone pitches in then we will make a difference. please contact me if you believe in the education for students. because without education we may become nothing....

Posted by: Alisha Melman at May 9, 2008 12:42 PM

I'm currently writing a report on the budget cuts. I understand that some legislators don't want to raise taxes. Yet there are several loopholes in California's system that 'well off' people are getting away with. Such as no state sales tax on yatches or privately owned aircrafts that 'well off' Californian's own. The loophole is that the yacht or whatever expensive vehicle has to go out of state every 90 days or so. Please give me a break. A damn sales tax is not imposed because "the sales of yachts would decrease..." So education, healthcare and plethra of other social services (that benifit the Poor and those in need)are being cut while people in yachts can savor the extra cash...

I have to say that I am rather dissapointed in the system. I understand the cuts must be made for the deficit. But I think that everyone should be given an equal cut. And as for those who can afford yachts and private airplanes they will most likely make their purchases regaurdless of a sales tax. I just think that preferently treatment is most definately not an answer in a crisis like this.

Posted by: Katrina at May 21, 2008 12:57 AM

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