A Thousand Cuts

Imagine it -- your body, covered with a thousand cuts. Even if they were small ones, paper cuts, one thousand would certainly mean pain. Pain that would linger for a long, long time.

Yesterday the Austin Independent School District's Board of Trustees and Superintendent put forth a list of just over one thousand recommended staffing cuts. In my twenty years in public education, I have to say I've never seen anything quite so brutal. It's one thing to hear about the possibility -- the probability, even -- of a "reduction in force." I've been hearing those rumblings for as long as I've been an educator. But to see it in black and white, naming specific schools and actual teaching positions is a new one for me.

Maybe this is one of those Texas moments. This is a "Right to Work" state, after all, with no real teachers' union to speak of. (There are "unions" who are happy to allow you to pay dues to them, but they are legislatively and judicially prevented from having any real collective bargaining power.) Someone with more local knowledge than what I have may be able to elucidate on how we got to this sorry state. It's unclear to me how it happened, but apparently someone was writing checks with their mouth that their ass couldn't cash. And here we are, our body about to be covered in a thousand cuts.

There is, as you might imagine, an undercurrent of fear as districts begin putting out these recommendations regarding staffing cuts in the schools. And if it's palpable in the cushy atmosphere of the Education Service Center where I work, it's far worse in the school buildings. Many of the principals I work with have told me of the revolving door of teachers that have been coming to their offices, asking them if their jobs are "safe."

I think if I were a principal right now, in this climate, my message to my staff would be that we're going to continue to take care of each other as best we can as adults, so that we can do what we've always done for our students. They should never have the sense that there is anything different going on.

This brings up an interesting question: How are our schools going to talk to their students and families about the cuts that are coming -- the thousand cuts that are not just names on paper, but relationships that matter to the children, relationships that are, in the best cases, crucial?

The price of the proposed cuts will be much higher than any dollar amount being discussed right now. Imagine our collective body, as a city, as a society trying to provide for our children, covered by a thousand cuts.

It's going to be a very costly bottom line.