Friday, April 18, 2008

Other states woo California teachers amid wave of pink slips

Go to AP original
SAN DIEGO - Precious Jackson has two years of teaching under her belt and two school teacher-of-the-year awards to show for it. She also has a pink slip.

Now Jackson is a prime target for growing school districts across the country hoping to cherry-pick from thousands of California teachers who have been warned they could be laid off because of state budget woes.

"Your future is in our classroom," the Fort Worth, Texas, school district says on a San Diego billboard. It plans to send recruiters to the city next month to dangle $3,000 signing bonuses.

Several Los Angeles-area newspapers are carrying ads for the Clark County, Nev., school district, which hopes to lure teachers to Las Vegas with $2,000 incentives.

"We don't hear things like that here," said Jackson, 25, who teaches English at Lincoln High School, her alma mater in San Diego's hardscrabble Lincoln Park neighborhood. "Instead we just don't know what to expect, and it makes us feel underappreciated."

Jackson was among a wave of teachers hired in recent years as California raised education spending to cut class sizes. Now she is at the mercy of state legislators who are negotiating more than $4 billion in education cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to combat a budget shortfall caused by the housing slump and a stagnant economy.

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