Pink Slip Pickets

All over California teachers are rallied together, adorned in pink colored attire and armed with signs, to support their fellow teachers who have been layed off or the teachers that may receive pink slips in the near future. The lay-offs are due to the schools’ diminishing budgets. The San Francisco Chronicle forecast that “thousands [of teachers] will march in rallies across the state… wearing shades of pink to protest the threatened layoffs and the $8.4 billion being cut from public education by the state.” As a result of the $8.4 billion cut, “union officials expect that more than 20,000 teachers statewide will receive layoff notices by Friday, the deadline for districts to issue such notices if educators may not have jobs in the coming school year,” stated in The San Diego Union-Tribune. On the other hand, The Los Angeles Times reported Governor Schwarzenegger’s campaign for the ballot measures to cut school budgets. It seems that The Los Angeles Times focused more the cause of the problem while the two other newspapers spotlighted the consequence of the problem.

photo: Teachers at Helix Charter High School in La Mesa participated in a statewide public awareness campaign called "Pink Friday" that puts before the public the fact that so many pink slips have been issued to teachers due to the budget crisis in the state. - JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune

K.A.L.