Texas should allow school districts to furlough teachers

Texas state representative Florence Shapiro of...Image via Wikipedia
Houston Chronicle:

School districts should be allowed to give teachers unpaid furloughs and cut their salaries to help deal with a funding shortfall that one estimate says could cost 100,000 jobs, a leading state senator says. State Senate Education Committee Chairman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said the layoff projection could be whittled if school districts could take less drastic steps, an area she said loosening state restrictions could help temper the effects of a budget shortfall.

Under starting-point state budget proposals filed by legislative leaders, school districts would get $9.3 billion to $9.8 billion less through the next two years than under current funding formulas to cover enrollment increases and a projected drop in local revenue due to lower property values.

One expert has estimated the higher figure could cost up to 100,000 school district jobs in Texas through the next two years.

“One of those burdens that we have placed on our school districts is that they cannot decrease your salary. They can’t have furlough days. It’s not allowed in the law. The only option is to fire,” said Shapiro. “We need to give them the ability to lower teacher salaries.”

...

Superintendents are pushing for flexibility that would allow them to furlough employees, if necessary, on non-instructional days.

...
The teachers unions are not so sure about flexibility. I would give it to the districts. I would also give them flexibility on class size. The current maximum is 22 students per teachers. I don't think I ever had a class that small in school. At UT I had a few small classes, but I also had several with between a hundred and a hundred fifty students. I liked the big classes. If they were lecture based, I don't think they made that much difference, and in law school the professors used the Socratic method and made it work. While it is true that some students may do better with individual attention, that is not true of everyone and we should give the districts the flexibility to make adjustments that will allow them to operate with the resources available.
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