Aside from the city government's budget problems, the LAUSD has it's own continuing combination of woes involving budget and personnel. It looks like there is not enough money to keep the current teacher level at the present level after September, so "pink slips" were sent out as a prerequisite to layoffs of teachers.
The other part of the problem for the District is that performance of students still is lagging behind what's needed. Overall, this makes the District's education programs very much of appealing target for takeover by partnerships/charters and whatever other form of non-District operation that is being created.
Focusing on the pink slips story in the L.A. Times, "Singled-out L.A. Unified teacher shares skills with colleagues"- http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-broadous-teachers-20110403,0,4961288.story By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2011. This is a teacher who has be able to improve student performance so well, that he's been consulted for assistance in improving other teachers' skills. The problem for Mr. Miguel Aguilar, an elementary teacher, is that he received a pink slip to make him subject to layoff. It's not a certainty, but he's still within the group that may find itself unemployed despite superior performance.
The "seniority" list is at work for deciding who goes, as it is in most other union-represented businesses. Performance is not the deciding factor, although a recent court decision appears to allow the District to take into account other factors in retaining teachers where there is overall low seniority within its roster which would leave a particular school without experienced teachers and many subs. The negative impact on the learning potential of students who have had their school cleaned out of such teachers by seniority-based layoffs is what makes the difference. This generally would not apply to schools where the number of the teachers laid off may be less intense.
Mr. Aguilar has 8 years of seniority and is still not high enough on the list to be "safe" which should make the teaching profession one that will have few takers in the current state of the economy. When you have experienced, credentialled teachers out of work, it's not not very enticing a career area for most looking for even a semblance of stability.
In the past, the LAUSD has cut down on the projected job losses and this is always a possibility here. Yet, when that happens and money is found to ward off the layoffs, it can cause doubt on the union's part as to the District really being forthcoming in what they present as the budget condition. We will have to wait and see what happens.
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