(Ericka Mellon/Houston Chronicle)
Visit public schools across Texas, and you’ll see more students packed into classrooms. You’ll see fewer of just about everyone else – teachers, librarians, counselors, janitors.
New data from the Texas Education Agency illustrate what school officials have decried for months: Their staffs are stretched thin following the unprecedented state budget cuts that took effect this school year.
Statewide, districts eliminated roughly 25,000 positions, including more than 10,700 teaching jobs. Overall, districts cut their workforce by 4 percent – through attrition and, in some cases, layoffs – since last school year.
“I’m hoping the Legislature will see there’s hard data showing that, yes, districts are making some good decisions in terms of efficiencies,” said Bob Sanborn, president of Children at Risk, a Houston-based nonprofit that analyzed the state figures. “But the Legislature should be very worried that in the haste to be more efficient we are cutting our future out from under us.”
In the greater Houston area, districts reduced their workforce by 5 percent – with 7,655 fewer employees overall, including nearly 3,300 fewer teachers.
(See the full story at the Houston Chronicle)
OTHER HEADLINES:
- Abbott Sues Feds Over Women’s Health Program (Texas Tribune)
- Rep. Al Green Arrested at Sudan Embassy Protest with George Clooney (Houston Chronicle)
- Court Files: Mom Fighting for 8-Year-Old Tried to ‘Give Away’ Kids (Houston Chronicle)
- Annual Medical “Match Day” Brings Joy to Hundreds at UT (KUHF Public Radio)
- City Finally Demolishes Dangerous Building After Years of Neighbors’ Complaints (KHOU 11 News)
- Turnover at The Top Plagues Struggling Kashmere High (Houston Chronicle)
OPINIONS ON TEXAS NEW IMMIGRANT DETENTION FACILITY
- Immigration Detainees Get a ‘Better’ Prison (Editorial/New York Times)
The Karnes center is an encouraging first step toward building a better immigration jail. But it’s still a jail. The administration would do well to pour at least as much effort into expanding alternatives to prison for low-risk detainees. - The Trouble with Karnes County’s ICE ‘Hotel’ (Melissa del Bosque/Texas Observer)
ICE has a shiny, new building to warehouse people. But it’s not the building we should be focusing on so much as the policy that put them there. For that to happen, our political leaders first have to admit that “illegal aliens” are human beings too.