Students fight to make sure their teachers aren't fired

06-03-2010

By Nico Pitney/Huffington Post

Tonight, in a little strip-mall office next to the local Safeway, a teenage student from Alameda, California will spend the evening dialing up strangers to make an earnest request: please save my school. The budget ax is about to fall on this Bay Area city. Seven million dollars in K-12 education cuts are planned this year, nearly $10 million will be lopped off next year, and a massive $17 million cut looms in 2012. A few weeks ago, Alameda's Board of Education handed out pink slips to 130 teachers, administrators and staff. "This is the worst yet," said Superintendent Kirsten Vital, a 20-year veteran of California's education system. "I've never seen anything like it." And so this month, Vital and a host of parents and students are fighting to pass a "parcel tax" -- basically a flat tax on landowners -- the latest trend in last-ditch efforts to save California's schools. (more...)

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Students fight to make sure their teachers aren't fired

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