Educators protest bill to help districts deal with slashed funding. A Fort Bend teacher responds.
AUSTIN — Legislation allowing school districts to reduce teacher pay and furlough them — to help absorb big budget cuts — sailed through the Texas Senate on Monday with a straight party-line vote.
Lawmakers are working to cut $4 billion from the state's 1,040 public school districts. Giving school administrators flexibility to cut teacher pay and allow up to six days of unpaid leave — which existing law does not allow — will save teacher jobs, Senate Education Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said of school reform measure SB 8.
But hundreds of educators and their supporters attending a Capitol rally were not impressed.
But hundreds of educators and their supporters attending a Capitol rally were not impressed.
"What they are calling reform should be called a crime," Fort Bend ISD science teacher Randy Colbert said.
"Trying to cut teachers' rights and teachers' pay any time they want to will hurt education. You won't be able to get quality people into teaching that you need. You won't be able to get people to stay in education that you need," the high school teacher said. "And the ones who will be hurt are the students."
Senate Republicans voted for the school reform bill. Democrats opposed it. The House will take up school reform bills later in the week, including a measure to lift the elementary class size cap from 22 students per teacher to 25.
Colbert and others contend the Legislature's action will not sit well with voters next year. Lawmakers are meeting in a special session that Gov. Rick Perry called last week to address public education.
Voter anger
Colbert said his Republican friends and family are upset that lawmakers are cutting education instead of pulling money out of the state's $6.5 billion rainy day fund, which the Legislature created more than 20 years ago specifically to spare education from cuts during bad economic times.
I wonder what the combined accumulated debt load is for all Texas school districts and how that ranks them via dollars reaching the classroom per student?
ReplyDelete"I wonder what the combined accumulated debt load is..."
ReplyDeleteThis post might help answer your question:
http://fbworkroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/44th-what-is-tommy-lee-talking-about.html