Teachers may be used to being yanked around, but what happened to teachers in California this spring goes beyond the pale. In March over 10,000 teachers received pink slips from their districts, the harbinger of massive planned layoffs, only to have most of them rescinded recently after the state "revised" its budget. As California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger explained, "...we are taking education and vulnerable citizens on an up-and-down roller coaster ride, and everyone has to hold on for dear life."

A California law may in part be to blame for the mess. It requires school districts, based only on early budget projections provided by the state legislature, to issue preliminary pink slips to teachers by March 15 and notify them of layoffs by May 15. However, these dates do not coincide with any definitive budget figures from the state, and so districts, left to guess about how many jobs they are going to have to eliminate, usually end up issuing more pink slips than are ultimately necessary. For example, this year, San Diego issued 903 pink slips in March and then 617 layoff notices in May. Now the district says it has jobs for more than two-thirds of those laid off. A school board member admitted that the district "went overboard" with its notices, but felt they were being prudent based on the budget projections it had at the time.

Meanwhile, damage was done. Schools held rallies to try and keep their teachers, students protested, and teachers scrambled to find other jobs. Because of the state?s seniority rules, schools with young staffs were hit the hardest, and teachers just entering the profession are questioning their choice of careers. "I think more than anything, it's insulting. I worked so hard this year and before that preparing to be a teacher," said one first-year teacher in San Francisco.

According to Harvey Hunt of the California-based Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, the state?s 2003 fiscal crisis, which resulted in 20,000 pink slips being issued in March of that year, had a negative ripple effect on the number of undergraduates entering teacher education programs. Enrollment dropped by 13 percent between 2003 and 2005. "Not only are we discouraging the folks in the profession, but we're discouraging the people considering the profession," he explained. Talk about a turnoff.