Bloomberg's Harmful Teacher Layoffs

[Education]

The news that the Mayor intends to layoff up to 6,400 teachers is simply unacceptable. Clearly, he does not have the interests of our kids at heart.

Given the Mayor's proposed cuts, layoffs to come, and rapidly rising school enrollment, this is a tsunami that will devastate our schools and our children's futures.  Already, elementary principals have been told to plan for 32 students per class next fall in grades 1-5.

At the same time, the Department of Education has hired five additional Deputy Chancellors, at salaries of more than $190,000 dollars each; wants to spend up to $5 million a year for five years on a contract to recruit and train new teachers, and has signed billion dollar no-bid contracts with companies for school busing. 

The bureaucracy is expanding while class sizes are going up at an unprecedented rate. 

Meanwhile, the city is projected to have a budget surplus of nearly $3 billion dollars this year, and another surplus is expected for FY 2011. http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/march2010final.pdf 

If that is not enough to forestall these cuts, the city should impose a temporary surcharge on the exorbitant bonuses of Wall Street executives, and reprioritize its own spending to minimize damage to the classroom.

Leonie Haimson is Executive Director, Class Size Matters
(212) 674-7320