Alameda, Calif.
Education officials have sent pink slips to 25,000 teachers across California in recent weeks. The layoffs will take effect next fall unless administrators in the state’s 1,000 school districts can come up with other ways to save money as their budgets dwindle. Gov. Gray Davis has proposed cutting $1.6 billion in classroom spending to help close a record budget deficit blamed on the sluggish economy. In Alameda, officials sent layoff notices to every teacher in the school district, so they would have the option of letting go as many teachers as necessary to make ends meet. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Gretchen Mackler-Lipow, who has been teaching for 32 years. “It is absolutely demoralizing.”
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