New Bill Could result in Increased Furloughs/Class Sizes.

July 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Last week Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that gives teachers protections from future layoffs, signaling his intent to help California teachers keep their jobs.  Educators and district administrators all over California this week are trying to make sense of the bill, which according to some pundits, will result in  a shorter school year.

While no one is arguing that saving teacher jobs isn’t a priority, the consequences of the new bill can have a negative impact on child development.   School districts across California are already struggling to meet education reform goals and deadlines after three years in a row of education budget cuts.  Now, with the new bill in effect, districts may be forced to hire on teachers that have already been laid off, and keep others that they already cant afford.

“This is a result of people who don’t have experience with how the education system works, making drastic changes to how schools operate.  No one is saying teachers should be laid off, they are saying that such decisions should be made on a case by case basis, without interference from Sacramento tying their hands.”  Said a representative from Novachi, a California based Student Information and Learning Management System provider, “We at Novachi hope to counteract these budget constraints by continuing to provide our integrated SIS/LMS service for free.”

When schools move to cut costs as a result of shrinking budgets it often means increased class sizes and/or shortened school years accompanied by increased teacher furloughs.  “By taking layoffs off the table, the only tool you have as a school district is furloughs. They cut into the school year, because teachers aren't working the full amount of days, so the school year is shortened, which impacts students. So that's really the only way that districts can deal with any type of mid-year cuts, because layoffs are off the table.” said Ana Tintocalis in an interview with Jon Brooks of KQED on June 30th. Both options, furloughs and increased class sizes, have years of documentation which indicate that student achievement rates drop almost universally when classroom sizes are made larger, and school terms are shortened.

The bill, which is based off of an optimistic budget proposal, assumes that California will be able to account for the increased strain on education budgets.  Ana Tintocalis said it best in her interview, “.... they're saying don't worry about these possible mid-year cuts, just keep the same level of staffing and programs. And if the state does run into problems, and this extra four billion that the budget centers doesn't materialize, well then we'll think about that later.”  

While the budget problem in California is massive, it is not an insurmountable obstacle.  Many California businesses are doing their part to help, “When we designed our system, we could already see what was coming for California's education budget.”  Said the Novachi representative,  “We know that schools still have mandates to apply modern technology to the classroom because of funding they received for just that purpose, yet now those funds have already been used up, and their technology goals are still unfulfilled.  We are prepared to step in to provide those services for free.”

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