Is AB114 an insult to teachers already laid off?

No.


It means that fewer of those of us still employed join you.


I am not a giant fan of the current system of teacher layoffs, because at least for some districts (including SFUSD), it unquestionably impacts high-needs schools more.  Furthermore, I think teacher layoffs are stupid, full stop.  Smaller class sizes work.  Laid off teachers have experience.  Experience is important.  And somehow districts who lay off teachers end up hiring uncredentialed newbies to replace them.


Nor does it impact rehiring.


Besides, anything that has school boards and deformers that riled up can't be that bad.  Sure, it sends them into their brooding, union-hating pits.  But so does everything else.  Let's quote Lance Izumi, who apparently found his union-label pajamas too scratchy years back:


“This is shocking,” said Lance Izumi, Koret Senior Fellow in Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchdog’s parent think tank. “It’s obvious that unions do not care for the kids at all if they are willing to shorten the school year. This is about protecting teachers’ jobs, whether they deserve it or not.”


That's right.  If you think 40:1 classrooms are worse than a shorter school year, you are scum.  Mr. Izumi does not consider the possibility that teachers might think both of these are bad, and he seems unaware that teachers take pay cuts when school years get shorter.


It's an excellent deformer soundbite, though.  He gets in a "bad teachers" crack, even.

Izumi said that many other states are going in the opposite direction, and implementing more school choice opportunities and teacher evaluation processes, while “California is regressing into 19th century union vogue.”


Yeah, it's true that many states, stuck in an ugly scramble for federal education money, are putting untested and unreliable "effectiveness" schemes in place.  And many school districts are being further defunded by "school choice" scams.  How this is a positive he doesn't explain.  Moreover, he doesn't have an equivalent contradiction to his Naughty California Wobbly Teachers proposition - unless the overall framing is "Unions hate children, hate teaching and are basically giant fascist juggernauts holding knives to the throats of valiant, underfunded, loving education reformers."


Let's not give him that framing assumption for free, shall we?


I hereby make the same offer to Lance I made to Dick Armey years ago (sadly, he never took it up!  I sent a whole position paper and everything!):  Lance!  Come do my job for a year.  I'll do yours.  We can trade salaries or not, your call.  Then you tell me how much I hate children, okay?

Search Keywords: AB114 and Currently Laid-Off Employees

There is nothing in AB114 that would compel districts to hire back teachers currently laid off.  If you are a currently employed teacher, you cannot be laid off this year.  This is NOT because of the heralded 15 March/15 May process, but because AB114 closed the late window that allows teacher layoffs over the summer given falling school budgets and a completed state budget.

AB114 does require districts to budget for the year as if revenues will meet (very optimistic) projections.  So if a district has teachers currently laid off, based on budget decisions made using a low-end estimate, they could (hey, should even) rescind layoffs.  But they are not required to do so and I would suspect recissions will not begin until very close to the beginning of the school year, if at all.

Search Keywords, Teacher Fashions

Yes, it is okay for teachers to have feather extensions.  A member of our afterschool program does hair bling and feathers, so teachers at my school can get fancy on their lunch breaks and therefore we have a significant minority boasting them.  That said, I've met teachers from other schools at all levels with hair feathers.

The environmental/appropriation issues remain, of course.

I may be the wrong person to ask though, seeing as I both have visible tattoos and tend to go in for the more extreme hair dye options - last year, red and blue; this year I'm going with white blonde to start.  I've also been at my site for years and live four blocks away, so families have had plenty of time to get used to my sartorial decisions.

I went shopping Saturday and had this conversation.

Elementary Rat: I suppose I do not need a slightly too big pleather and lace dress.
Shopping Companion: It is certainly not a practical item.
ER: None of my clothing is practical.
SC: Well, that's true.

Actually, it was kind of a shocker Saturday in that Jeremy's was having a sale and I bought nothing.  This summer I've only bought one coat, a shrug, six dresses and a skirt.  Oh, and a pair of shoes.  I've also been given a bolero and another skirt.  I've unloaded maybe three times that, though.

For the record: I spend my discretionary income entirely on my classroom and my wardrobe.  I do not drive an automobile, eat out regularly, watch/payfor television/cable, or go on fancy vacations (the New York trip was totally closet and classroom related: I visited some East Coast teacher cronies and went to the Savage Beauty exhibit.  In conclusion, I refuse to feel bad about how I spend my money.