The City of Austin and the local ISDs has been bitching and whining about the possibility of teachers and other educators having to join in on the shared sacrifice of Obama’s failed economic policies. While the rest of the nation has enjoyed much higher than the actually reported 10% unemployment rate (my own company has had significant layoffs in the last year, too), somehow or another teachers seem to have gotten it into their can’t-do-but-can-teach heads that teaching is a guarantee of a lifetime of full employment without the possibility of being laid off during tough times.
You know, like what happens in the real world.
Anywho…with all the hand-wringing, crying, and the using-of-children-as-political props during their lame-assed protests this legislative session (seriously ladies—what part of “we’re out of money” don’t you understand?), claiming that Gov. Rick Perry is “firing teachers” (he’s not — local grossly-overpaid Superintendents are) — one of the big points made by the folks on the reality-based side of the issue (Conservatives, especially folks like Peggy Venable at Americans For Prosperity) is that teachers don’t need to be cut because substantial cuts can come from the administrative/non-classroom instructor side of the educational payrolls.
Here in Austin there is one non-classroom instructor job for every teaching job.
And, while the city of Austin is threatening to fire teachers because of budget cutbacks — they’re still hiring. No, not more teachers to teach your kids, but rather a team of PR specialists. Maybe some laid off teachers can apply for these positions.
Who needs good teachers when you have a good PR team?
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The school districts can whine and complain all they want, but state funding for public schools under the new budget will actually increase by 5.6% (from $27.6B in the current two year cycle to $29.2B in 2012-2013). Their funding shortfall is due to the lack of additional federal money.
The districts were told not to spend one-time federal stimulus money creating new programs and hiring more non-teaching staff. What did they do? Create new programs and hire more non-teaching staff. Shame on them.
Expect them to want to raise your property tax base to cover this at the last minute
Wonderful. And I am taking classes to become certified to teach in public schools…
I was talking with a child hood friend recently and the topic turned to how things were going in my old home town. He told me about the cuts in the local school district and that they had let their $94,000/yr PR person go. He is pretty well tuned into what is going on in this town of 24,000 and he said he never knew they even had a PR person, much less one that made that kind of money.
Cut the fat, leave the essentials and let the teat suckers cry all they want.
Robbie, you know I disagree with some of your comments about teachers (the reality is that “those who can, teach; those who can’t bash teachers,” but we’ll save that debate for another day), but this particular post illustrates precisely the problem we have in education here in this state. Rather than authorizing salary cuts and furloughs for teachers, the Lege should have been mandating salary cuts and layoffs for Admin Building and personnel salary caps for superintendents — but instead the axe continues to fall in the classroom while the hiring goes on in the district offices.
We’ve had one district here in the Houston area just give their superintended a pay raise equivalent to a first-year teacher salary in the district while cutting teaching positions. But you know what? This move at AISD is probably even more offensive that that one.
Well, well, well, if it isn’t RymesWithRight, complaining about the ill treatment of teachers. Sorry RWR, school boards determine how many teachers they need and the salaries of their administrative staff. If you have a problem with the number of administrative staff in your school district, take it up with the school board. Tell us, how much do you earn with HISD for 187 days work?
Oh, and the saying is not how you put it. It goes like this: ” those who can, teach. Those who can’t teach, coach. And those who can’t coach, administrate.” The assistant superintendent of the Katy School district, and a former coach, used to have that on his desk. His name was Fred Calhoun.
Had to post this image, as El Arroyo was one of my favorite places in Austin 30 years ago. Those Barbeque chicken soft tacos, the jalapeno hushpuppies, the queso, ……..