The Myth Of Teacher Layoffs

Back in September of last year, I wrote a blog regarding the President's fascination with some variant of the number 25 when quoting statistics.  So, it's no wonder that David Axelrod -- Obama's chief campaign strategist -- would comment that 250,000 teachers have lost their jobs in the last 27 months.  Not 200,000 or 225,000 or 300,000 but, in typical Obama fashion, 250,000.  Certainly, a number that big (if believable) would seem like a big deal.

But, you see, that 250,000 teachers is only 3.4% of the total 7.2 million that were on the job when Obama took office.  So, in other words, teacher's under Obama have only suffered a 3.4% unemployment rate while, at the same time, the rest of the workforce has had to contend with unemployment rates in excess of 8%.

This whole thing about keeping teachers on the job is all about preserving their  union jobs and, in essence, preserving union support for the President's reelection.  Further, fiscally irresponsible state governments aren't likely to get their acts together if Obama keeps using federal funds to support that irresponsibility.

Lastly, with more than 56 million students in America, being served by nearly 7 million teachers, I hardly feel that a student to teacher ratio of 8-1 is some kind of over-worked condition. There is plenty of room for a smarter application of available teachers to reform the cost of education and get those state budgets under control.  But, we have a president and many liberal state governors who think that the only solution to this nation's problems is more and more government and government spending.  That is just pure B.S.  One need only look to Wisconsin where union collective bargaining was reformed.  In doing so, the cost of government was reduced and a budget surplus was created.  More importantly, not a single state worker had to be laid off. 

Notes:

(1) The teacher and student data was sourced from a U.S. Census Bureau report on education.  You can click here to view that report. 

(2) Axelrod's claim of 250,000 teacher layoffs in 27 months is really suspect.  According to Congressional statistics as of March of last year, only 132,000 teachers had been laid off in the four years since the recession had begun.    Then, somehow, using Axelrod's math, we're supposed to believe a number greater than that had to have been lost in just the last year.  But after a lot of "Google-ing", I was only able to find out that about 58,000 teacher jobs were lost in the last year.  That, then, brings the 5-year or 60-month layoff total to about 190,000; well short of Axelrod's  27 month claim.