With voters in charge, high anxiety about teacher layoffs

01-18-2011

By Louis Freedberg/California Watch

School districts are grappling with an excruciating dilemma: whether to plan for the coming school year based on the assumption that taxpayers will approve tax increases in a special election in June, or on an equally uncertain assumption that they will reject it. For school districts, this is not just a matter of political prognostication. By state law, they have to issue pink slips to teachers they don’t plan to rehire by March 15 – months before they know the outcome of the planned election. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the initiative hasn’t even been placed on the ballot yet. In order to get the needed two-thirds vote from the Legislature to do, some Republican lawmakers will have to vote for it – a dubious prospect in the current political environment. As a result, thousands of teachers could get layoff notices this spring, even though Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing a budget that contains no new cuts for K-12 schools for the coming school year. (more…)

Also: Ventura County Star

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With voters in charge, high anxiety about teacher layoffs

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