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1) The Eternal Stimulus.
Only now, as the edujobs bill has overcome its largest obstacle in the
Senate, are people beginning to ask questions about how this is all going to
work.
The Texas constitution may
keep that state from receiving $800 million.
Nebraska is in line to receive about $59
million, even though Jess Wolf, president of the Nebraska State Education
Association, said, "We
haven't lost a lot of teachers at this point, (but we're) certainly
fearful that we might."
I can't say I've read every statement
about the edujobs bill, but I certainly don't recall anyone saying the money
was needed to reduce fear.
Maryland should receive about $179
million, yet the Washington Post notes, "officials have
no estimate of layoffs for the school year that begins in a few weeks."
The Baltimore Sun reported "most
of [the state's] school systems are not planning to lay off teachers,"
and that several were hiring new ones.
The money can be used to increase
teacher salaries, which will be good news in Wisconsin, where education
employees are scraping by this year with
average compensation increases of only 3.75 percent, instead of the
average 4.13 percent they've enjoyed since 1993.
Even before the Senate vote, the
"yo-yo
effect" of pink-slipping then rehiring teachers continued.
In
California, 82 Santa Cruz teachers were called back and in Vallejo a total
of 58
teachers had their layoff notices rescinded, leaving only 20-30 still
out. In Scranton, Pennsylvania,
teaching positions will likely be safe for the fall.
Politico
reports on grousing from House Democrats, stating that "some
of their vulnerable members will feel like they have to walk the plank, yet
again, on a
politically unpopular economic-stimulus agenda, while reminding voters
of their failure to handle routine budget work this year."
What's a measly $10 billion out of
nearly $700 billion in annual spending on public education anyway? Well,
it's the notion that the people who are drowning in the ocean are bailing
out the people in the lifeboats.
A few weeks ago, the Nelson A.
Rockefeller Institute of Government
ginned up a neat little report, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics
data, on the nation's job situation. Figure 1 is a depiction of the change
in employment since the start of the current recession. The blue, yellow and
green lines are the public sector. The red line is the private sector.
There's more. After 30 months of
recession, local government education employment (the category where most
teachers and support employees reside) has yet to approach a one percent
decline.
Of the 35 states for which we have data,
13 lost jobs in the education sector from the spring of 2009 to the spring
of 2010. Mississippi was unchanged. The other 21 states had education
employment increases - including New Jersey, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
It is highly likely that many of the
teachers who were laid off this year - whose jobs we are now trying to save
- were only hired because of last year's stimulus money. They are
essentially wards of the federal government. If this is the road to economic
recovery, then we should simply hire as teachers all of the nation's
unemployed.
After such a huge victory in the Senate,
you might think the teachers' unions would be content to get out with the
$10 billion, but they're already raising the specter of perpetual bailouts.
Richard Iannuzzi,
president of New York State United Teachers, said the additional money only
allows districts to
delay the inevitable for a year because revenues are not suddenly going
to rebound anytime soon.
The
federal government is now firmly in the business of hiring and paying your
local school teachers according to the flawed and self-interested
projections of district administrators and teachers' unions. It won't be so
easy to go back.
2) Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas
District Spending Tables Posted. I've posted
updated spending tables for each school district in
Alaska,
Arizona and
Arkansas.
Not enough time for in-depth analysis,
but it seems that while Arizona and Arkansas had booming enrollments and
teacher hiring from 2003 to 2008, they still managed to increase per-pupil
spending by one-third. Alaska lost students and teachers, but it meant more
funding for those left.
3) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from August 3-9:
* $10
Billion Saves Jobs… at the Bath Iron Works. But the rest of us will take
a bath.
*
EduJobs Clears Senate While Schools Are Rehiring. Back to business as
usual.
*
"Cloudier Than It Seems". National Public Radio notices there's
something not quite right about edujobs.
*
Thanks for the Break, Milwaukee! Union stands firm.
*
Two More Days of Calls to Congress. Delay didn't matter.
4) Quote of the Week #1. "The days
of teaching as a safe haven are gone." - Tom Carroll, president of the
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, commenting on the
bleak job prospects for new teachers. (August 9
Chicago Tribune)
Quote of the Week #2. "During the
next four years we could lose a third of our most accomplished educators to
retirement. The wave of departures will peak during the 2010-11 school year,
when over one hundred thousand veteran teachers could leave." - from an
April 2008 National Commission on Teaching and America's Future report.
If veteran teachers retired in the droves NCTAF has been
predicting, wouldn't the new teachers have jobs? |
