LAUSD budget proposal foresees up to 8,000 layoffs by next fall

School officials Tuesday unveiled a worst-case budget plan that could, if enacted, result in up to 8,000 layoffs by next fall. The tentative budget proposal, which responds to next year's projected deficit of $470 million, is an early salvo in a process that will play out over the next six months in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Teachers fired a return volley with an afternoon rally outside district headquarters that attracted more than 700. Participants said they opposed all cuts affecting teachers and classrooms.

The district had to approve a projected budget covering the next three years to comply with state law.

The district also would pursue revenue increases, including a parcel tax on property owners, said L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines. That tax, if approved by the school board and then by voters, would work out to $2 to $4 a week for property owners and raise about $150 million a year over a four- to six-year period.

-- Howard Blume

Comments

[Greg]

Read my lips; NO NEW TAXES!

No new taxes to pay for a wasteful system filled with do nothing bureaucrats pulling ridiculous salaries.

For that matter, let us get rid of ALL current legislators at the city, county and state level. We have heard every single one of them espouse the same old line, I will fix education, and here we are with the same ol' same old; and facing new taxes?

Wake up citizenry, we need to take our state back from the bloated fat cats!

[Who Dat?]

All these strong emotions yet nobody willing to stand behind them with their full, proper names (myself included). It's amusing. Why read these phantom postings?

[MSS]

LAUSD needs to be broken up. If it's "too big to fail", it probably shouldn't exist in the first place, and should be abolished and replaced with more manageable smaller districts. This would need to be done by the State Legislature because it is a state agency or by the voters via initiative, although there is rumor that the federal government will seize LAUSD. At the very least, it won't get worse.

[Big Jim Slade]

Let's see- there's been a 7% DECREASE in the number of kids entering LAUSD in the last five years and the trend continues.

A $470 million decrease from a $20 billion budget amounts to a 2.4% decrease in budget. Whoop-de-f'n-do.

Trust me "educators". Your taxpayers are suffering out there. Figure out how to do it and stop whining.

Live in the real world- at least you have a job and pension.
Many of the people paying your salaries don't!

[Dan]

Scapegoating is alive and well in LAUSD. The reality is that the student needs in LAUSD are far greater than in middle class and above socioeconomic areas. The vast majority of students in LAUSD do succeed....just look at the number of students graduating and going on to college. Sure, many don't, but they are not the majority and there are far more students going on to college now than 40 or 50 years ago in the "good old days". The problem is not the educators but rather the fact that for the last ten years, LAUSD has been run by non-educators. When is the last time that you heard a Board Member or Superintendent actually say anything about actual teaching and learning. All we hear is the constant politicizing of the schools for some politicians political gain like the Mayor or legislators.

[Steve-O]

Here's the bottom line, LAUSD is overcrowded and that's why it's out of money, the state does not make enough tax money because of too many illegals that don't pay taxes, too many taking from the pot and not putting in. Build more schools you say? Well, urban planning cannot plan for an unchecked population growth, that's what the illegals are. No one is pointing a gun to their heads and telling them to fail, nor are teachers not caring they are doing the best they can, but we don't have the funds because politicians are allowing this unchecked population growth and now the bubble has burst. Look at downtown LA, you can literally throw a football between the 3 new high schools bunched together. Here's the funny thing, if you look at a map, a lot of these schools are built in overcrowded areas with little tax revenue paid for by areas with large revenues but no new schools. Charters you say? Well here's a stickler, the new school built in my area to relieve the old overcrowded school was just given to a charter, so how is this supposed to relieve the old school? The new schools should be used first to relieve overcrowding, then is there's room you can have your charter. Lay-offs? Well it should be 1st hired, 1st fired, LAUSD needs new blood, keeping under performing teachers because of seniority is wrong, let the new teachers thrive and grow, you don't kill the newer green grass, you get rid of the old ones to make more room to make the lawn greener, all these new plans with old grass is like throwing manure on a dieing lawn, it just plain stinks and nothing happens. Bloated HQs you say? Well it takes a village and yes you need a large support staff for the schools, teachers and students, teachers have it bad enough trying to teach, let the office workers take care of the pay, retirement and everything else school sites don't need to worry about.

[Concerned Teacher]

West Valley Dave- You cannot do away with ESL classes and free breakfasts/lunches. How are students supposed to learn if they don't speak the language or they are working on an empty stomach??

Solution:
- Get rid of all additional "supplement" programs and reduce class sizes. I don't need materials that tell me how to teach. I have two degrees and a teaching credential that have given me that skill set. What I need is a smaller class size so I can actually teach instead of work on crowd control.

SMALLER CLASS SIZES = HIGHER STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT!!!

[homer]

A couple of points:

First of all, I don't know where someone got the impression that "Los Angeles collects more property taxes then anywhere else in the country"... I'd like to see that data... California actually has one of the lowest property tax rates in the country, in case you've been hiding under a rock since 1978...

Regardless, the amount of property tax collected inside the LAUSD boundaries is irrelevant, because education funding is not allocated by local entities... the state of California allocates education monies to the districts.

Therefore, if you want to have an education FUNDING argument, our state government in Sacramento is the issue, not LAUSD.

However, if you want to have an education SPENDING argument, LAUSD is fair game. As I mentioned before, this district consistently wastes money on programs and ideas that have little or NOTHING to do with educating students, and that obtuseness can clearly be traced to the fact, as someone else pointed out, that LAUSD has been run by non-educators for the last 10 years or so... the LAUSD is much too large to be run effectively and efficiently, and I agree with previous comments that the district should be broken up.

Lastly, for those of you bashing teachers, I'd like to see you step in the shoes of a teacher for even a day, particularly at a tough school... you wouldn't last until lunchtime, and you'd see that the problem is not that teachers can't teach, it's that the system is messed up, too many students come to school lacking basic supplies (not to mention requisite skills), and too many parents are abdicating their parental responsibilities and are relying too much on schools to be parents, babysitters, providers, and disciplinarians for their children. Man up and be a parent.

If you don't like the FREE, APPROPRIATE PUBLIC EDUCATION that your children are receiving in LAUSD, pay for a private school. My child is too young to attend school, but when he does, he will attend his local excellent public elementary school (there are many of those in LAUSD) until 5th grade, and then attend private school for middle and high school (there are few, if any, good middle/high schools in LAUSD, for a variety of reasons...)...

[AdoptiveFather, Los Angeles CA]

Ah.......finally a simple solution: VOUCHERS

Why vouchers? The control of the money is taken away from politicians and teachers unions and given to parents of students.

Pretty easy to calculate what it costs to educate a student since we have many private schools doing fine job now.

Pretty easy to calculate the number of students.

Pretty easy to multiply the cost per student times the number of students.

And then parents can 'go shopping' for the school that serves them best.

Transparency is excellent and politics eliminated.

Care to discuss? Email me at:

schoolvouchersnow@yahoo.com

[Maggie Maye]

There are other alternatives for raising money other than to increase property taxes. There is a website that will donate money to schools and all people have to do is shop and sell items on their website. We are all shopping online, why not use www.mainstreetfair.com and have them donate to a school of your choice? We can protest all day but the cuts are going to happen because it has already been decided. There are similar sites making millions of dollars in revenue and at the end of the year their CEO gets a big bonus. If only a quarter of us were to start using mainstreetfair.com our schools could stand to earn money 24/7 without fundraisers. With this website there is no need for our kids to be salespeople and go door-to-door peddling overpriced items. I started using it and it is very easy to use and it is for a good cause, education.

[B wilson]

All these unneede position need to be eliminated.I know someone who applied to be a sub in lausd.They had a different person for everything.One person took the birth cert another person took the tb result etc.And 1 person wasnt there so the application could not be finished! One person could do all this.There are too many of these BS jobs like shrinks and counselors.Private schools dont have these people and I think those kids are doing just fine.And another thing about most of these teachers is if they arent getting paid its screw you.They get paid to tutor even if noone shows up.They have no intrest in the kids whatsoever.Its just a job and once they punch out its seeya.You need to like kids to be a teacher.There are so many teachers not working in the public school districts who spend countless hours of their own time for the kids and they make half the money these bafoons do.The teachers do no work.They have aides for everything.They even has a machine now that grades essays.A machine!How the heck is that supposed to work.And a majority of these "credentialed " teachers cant even write an essay or spell.How the heck do they get through college? Its all these online univs. pumping out these credentials for these bozos.These teachers and the like have no idea what it is to actually work being a teacher.Until all these unneeded positions are eliminated the district will always have budget problems.One person can do the work of what they pay 4 people to do.these teachers need to not worry always about getting paid if they stay an extra few minutes or even an hour god forbid.Kids are getting Fs and have noone to help them.Their parents dont know or remember alot of these tougher subjects and the teachers have their hand out to stay a little late.

[spoon]

I dun tink we need no teechurs iffit meens we is pay more tax.

[Russ Wetherill]

The main problem with LAUSD is that those charged with educating the children have no economic interest at stake. If the children do well, they get paid, if the children do poorly, they still get paid.

Privatize education. Give parents and students a real say in which schools they attend, and what material is taught. If a school performs poorly, then it will go bankrupt and close. Parents will pull their kids out of a bad school and move them to a better one as soon as they can.

All kinds of incentives can be offered to good students. If the students require less one-on-one instruction, then they should pay less. If the parents want them on a college track, they can pay more. If the children are interested in a trade, they can pursue that too.

If you don't have money to afford the kind of education you want for your kids, then maybe you should adjust your priorities. Or better yet, demand a quality education for the money you are paying.

Bottom line - education should cater to the consumer, i.e. the kids and their parents. Instead, LAUSD ignores their interests in favor of teacher unions and school administrators. Who is in charge here? Teachers or Parents?

Why should the state decide what children must learn? The state hasn't been meeting their own standards for decades. Why should they continue to be allowed to tell us what our kids should learn, how much it is going to cost, and use the tax system to shake us down for low-quality teachers?

[Doug]

If we keep laying off, we are going to lose an entire generation of students by providing them with an inferior education.

[alex]

what l don't understand is why property owners? must of us work hard to have a property then we have to pay for people who produce like rabbit without thinking about there school or living expanse that's not fair just ask every 1 also parents to pay for it/