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School districts across the state are in the thick of the painful process of handing out pink slips to thousands of teachers to meet a Saturday deadline for telling them about hiring plans for the next school year.
Big districts and small are enduring this ordeal. In Paterson, for example, school leaders began handing out 858 layoff notices on Wednesday, including 421 to tenured staff. Paramus gave out 19 on Wednesday, and Englewood handed out 88 earlier in the week. Bergenfield will give out 25 in coming days. The City of Passaic will send out about 130.
In past years, many teachers who were given "reduction in force" notices in May got rehired within months, as soon as colleagues retired and positions were juggled to accommodate seniority and "bumping" rights. But in this year's fiscal crisis, school leaders were handing out far more pink slips than usual and saying they were especially leery of estimating how many teachers would get their jobs back.
Source: The Bergen Record
Kevin Eason is a freelance editorial cartoonist and Illustrator from New Jersey. His brand of satire covers news events in politics, entertainment, sports and much more.
Comments: (10)
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By: liugui83 on 5/14/2010 10:55AM
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By: poetrysez on 5/14/2010 11:25AM
In Paterson 858 layoff and 421 of those were tenures? I've noticed that many professions are laying off people with years of experience and hiring less experienced at minimum wages. Unless a teacher is unfit to teach...teachers shouldn't be let go. You just can't cut corners when it comes to our childrens education. Find that money from somnewhere else. American schools are lacking so much already, letting qualified/professional/passionate teachers go is another injustice to our children.
I like the cartoon, it made me think about the " rubber room". When I first heard about the rubber room I thought what a waste of tax payers dollars. I hope all states find other ways of discipling their insubordinate teachers. If a teacher desearves to be taken out of the classroom, sending them home without pay is a better option. Teachers unions needs to know how to pick their battles because somne teachers deserve to be let go, not transfered to another school or sent to sit all day for several months with other teachers who are insubordinate.
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By: brian s on 5/14/2010 9:59PM
not all suspended teachers are "insubordinate" or lazy trouble-makers. Stresses, mental/emotional problems, family issues may play a part in suspensions(i know first hand). I was lucky to get a job at a shipping company so i can work towards benefits for me and my fam. if my teaching job/benefits tank. I was also lucky to be sus. WITH pay, but i still seeked out work.
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By: poetrysez on 5/15/2010 12:43AM
@ brian s,
I agree and I wish you and your family the best.
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By: Deut818 on 5/15/2010 2:09PM
..letting go that many teachers may be harsh..
..however, if for decades school districts sanction by "said" state board of education, aren't producing a competitive performance to education STANDARDS..is FAILING our children.
This is the second state to improve this nation's education system..Rhode Island I believe was the first to fire all teachers from a school that was closed down for having the worst test scores in the state..this school and U.S. schools elswhere who don't perform atleast in the average or produce students as a collective above average in performance, deserve not to continually receive federal dollars.. for the obvious reason..look at our youth today..we have failed them in the field of education.
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By: Arnold Wray on 5/15/2010 2:40PM
Everyone ought to be responsible for getting results. If a school isn't producing educated studends then something must be done. No one ought to continue with a system that is failing. Everyone in the private sector must produce in order to justify their jobs. Why should teachers be any different.
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By: docbuggs on 5/16/2010 12:05PM
The public constantly berates teachers because of the errant perception that they represent the real failure of the American educational system. While there are inarguably some failing teachers, they do not represent a significant statistical population within the profession. You want to see failure? Take a look at the overpaid geniuses on Wall Street who still get a pass from the American public. Teachers often work at or near the poverty line in their respective communities and have little control over the "raw material" from which we expect them produce perfect products.
Speaking of 'Raw Materials', teachers receive students, fed and unfed, emotionally stable and unstable, literate and iliterate, bright and dull, happy and unhappy, housed and homeless, wealthy and impoverished, interested and disinterested, yetare expected to achieve uniform "measurable achievement and improvement". These same students may have 2 parents or none, loving or abusive families, tee-totalers or drunkards to contend with. Teachers may request conferences with never a response from a responsible adult.
How many of us would reasonably expect a true 5 star quality meal from a chef whose pantry was stocked with spam, salt and pepper, and the occasional, mystery, luxury ingredient. A jeweler can polish aluminum to a platinum sheen or coat it with chrome, but the underlying metal not become platinum nor attain its value, but we do not blame the jeweler for doing the best job possible given the raw material. We would praise the chef for making the meal more edible than it would have been at the hands of the less skilled cook.
If teachers were like the garbage men of New York, they could leave our "raw material" piled up outside our doors, until we better prepared it for delivery and paid more for the privilege. Everyone using the public school system as a de Facto baby sitting and child training service, would be more than happty to add a community tax to improve teaching and learning conditions after their pay checks went short or disappeared for missing work.
We all need to get over ourselves. The successes and failures of our children are more closely related to what we do as parents, than the exposure to the rare "BAD" teacher. Send better raw material from YOUR home, and impact the lives of 'raw material' from the homes surrounding yours, THEN hold the Educational Chef accountable for the quality of the meal.
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By: sandra on 5/15/2010 7:56PM
I'm a former college adjunct professor. My wages were way below poverty level and I could no longer deal with the racism and ineptitude of the college administration. Even though I often recieved acolades from many of my students and collegues, I made the very difficult decision to quit. Because I could see the handwriting on the wall. Unfortunately, the general public fail to recognize that teaching is an extremely difficult profession. Skilled teachers with years of education and experience, wear many hats and, for the most part are underappreciated. Now days with most professions the young are favored,regardless of their lack of experince or expertise. Plus, if your a Black educator your twice as likely to be pushed out of the system.
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By: Lbell on 5/16/2010 1:14PM
Elections have consequences. You know that it's going to be the inner-city schools that suffer the most. The more affluent school districts are not going to let their school systems suffer. They will protest, raise their own money and do whatever they have to in order to have their schools succeed. Inner-city schools will continue to go down hill. Maybe this will be enough of a motivator to get people out to vote next time.
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By: poetrysez on 5/18/2010 1:05AM
The answer to under achieving schools in the inner-cities are called " charter schools". Yep, parents are flocking to them like people got online to get government cheese back in the day. Charter school lotteries are very popular. Even our president sing their praises.
I'm not much of a fan of charter schools because I feel that funding should go towards finding/solving what's ailing our schools and failing our children.
Remember, when it comes to our children, it's easier to get a teacher to step up to the plate than it's for a drug addicted parent.
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