Texas Comptroller Cutting 12000 Elementary Teachers?!

Update 01/13/2011:

Someone from my area e-mailed her directly for clarification and here’s her answer:

January 11, 2011

Mr. ******

Dear Mr. *****:

Thank you for your message concerning our recent Financial Allocation Study for Texas (FAST) report.

The education of Texas school children is among the state’s highest priorities. The recommendations in the FAST report are intended to provide school districts with options to manage their budgets during these difficult times.

The FAST report does not recommend firing Texas teachers; the report recommends replacing the current 22-students-per-classroom cap in grades K-4 with a requirement that districts maintain an average of 22 students per teacher for those grade levels. In practice, this would give school districts the flexibility to have slightly more than 22 students in a particular class as long as it was offset by a classroom with fewer than 22 students. In this way, districts could determine student class size based on the needs of their particular students and district rather than a state-set mandate.

To read a detailed description of our recommendation to allow school districts to maintain an average of 22 students per teacher, please see Page 31 of the FAST Appendix, which can be found at www.fastexas.org/study.

In addition, we have recommended a study of the growth in school district administrative positions. Reducing growth of these positions could result in increased resources for teachers. Please see Page 32 of the FAST Appendix for more information on this recommendation.

Legislative action would be required to adopt any of these recommendations, which may be discussed in the 82nd Legislature convening Jan. 11. If you would like to contact your state legislators concerning education policy, you can find their contact information at www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.

We hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,

Susan Combs

Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

So if the above e-mail is indeed true (and it starts at page 30, not 32), then I would like to do the decent thing by retracting my anger towards the Comptroller.  I guess I will not read from The Dallas Morning News anymore.

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As I am about to go to sleep, I come across this disturbing news that the newly elected Texas comptroller is planning to cut 12,000 elementary school teachers to save $500 million! What the %23@#!$!$

Of all the stupid things to do to save money, you cut education?! Cut your own salary first! Even more infuriating is the fact that I see this on her website!

Combs

I added the red circle to point out that she promised two things she’s breaking as we speak! What kind of baloney is this?! How is she FOR education by destroying the basic foundation of the education: elementary schools?! Kids first get exposed to school through this system and I can’t see any of my kids being happy to hear that their teachers may not return next year!

I am soo mad right now! I hope people take notice and address this!

4 Replies to “Texas Comptroller Cutting 12000 Elementary Teachers?!”

  1. Is she Republican? Did you vote this past election? That is indeed dumb, but what’s the whole story? Surely she must know our nation’s public education is dropping miserably in comparison to the rest of the world’s.

  2. I think she is… and yes, I voted Rep except for the governor… It may be a proposition that she is taking to the state senate… I surely hope it gets stopped/dropped quickly.

  3. 12,000 does seem like an awfully big number but consider that we have probably over 4000 elementary schools in Texas. If losing 3 teachers per school (where teachers do not spend the entire workday doing teaching stuff and where some schools do not have full enrollment) means that we are doomed, then I think it says more about how bad the existing public school system is than how important those teachers are. Heck, as the poster above mine stated, even with the existing number of teachers as well as one of the highest per pupil spending, our students are mediocre in writing and horrible in math according to the latest PISA testing. Seriously, we really cannot get worse on standardized testing unless we devolve into some 3rd world status. (Actually I take that back, I would not be surprised if, ironically, our standardized test scores improve if we do devolve as I think part of our problem with education ,and other things, is this mentality we have of throwing vast amounts of resources at things we consider problem areas. Well, there are other considerations – I might write about it later on…)

    As a parent of an elementary school student (a student who happens to love her teacher BTW), I truly can say, I see firsthand some of the waste as well as the insatiable appetite for money that our school has.

    Anyway, if you truly are concerned about performance of our schools and students, this laying off of 12,000 teachers is a minor thing. It is a mere dust on the radar screen. The bigger issue is that of family – as in: There seems to be a breakdown of marriage as an institution among those of middle and lower incomes and education levels according to a study released by University of Virginia.

  4. Anyway, since someone injected political party labels into the discussion. See what is happening in California:

    http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16857249?source=rss

    This is not a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. This is more of an adult thing (for lack of a better label) – as adults we have to make some hard choices since if we do not, there will be more painful consequences later.

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