Labor & Employment Law

National Teacher Day: Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips

By James Parks

Today is National Teacher Day and members of AFT across the country are launching a “Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips” campaign to draw attention to the devastating impact educational budget cuts?and the resulting layoffs?will have on our students, our schools and our communities.

By the end of this school year, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 teachers, school support staff and higher education faculty will receive pink slips throughout the country.

This could result in drastic increases in class sizes, erode classroom discipline and school safety and eliminate essential programs like art, music and summer school.

You can take action. Click here to sign an online petition to support legislation sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). The legislation would provide $23 billion to help school districts avoid layoffs and would preserve the quality of education in our schools and on our college campuses.

Says AFT President Randi Weingarten:

The magnitude of the cuts is staggering. The number of educators who might be pink-slipped in the fall is nearly equal to the population of Toledo, Ohio. This isn’t just about saving jobs; it’s about saving the next generation.

The federal government didn’t walk away from Wall Street, and it should not walk away from our kids and their public schools. These massive cuts in teachers and programs will seriously jeopardize the hard work being done in school districts throughout the nation on genuine reforms to boost student achievement.

For more information on “Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips,” click here.

In a column on the National Education Association (NEA) website, NEA Vice President Lily Eskelsen says it’s the children who will suffer from the school staff cuts.

Many teachers have already been told they are being laid off….But this isn’t about them. It’s about the children they serve.

If you put a six year old in a class of 40, her experiences and the attention her teacher will be able to give her will be much more limited. If you cut out the art program or the AP [Advanced Placement] Calculus class or the foreign language class that that senior had planned to take in preparation for applying to a university, he doesn’t ever get it back.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 04, 2010 (boomark / email).