Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Proposed Budget Cut = 15% layoffs at SIU

Capitol Fax Blog reports that an across-the-board budget cut of 10% proposed by gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady would trigger mass layoffs at state universities. The Blog quoted SIU President Glenn Poshard:

"Glenn Poshard said such a cut would immediately trigger a 15 percent layoff across the SIU campuses, something he said is “not practical, prudent nor possible.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would love to see at least 15% of administrators leave the scene.

PeterG said...

It could be that a 15% layoff from SIUC would be about right in the non-professor positions. You just hit the deadwood and bad performers, the fat, the padding. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be painful for the local economy. But, 15% would be a good start.

Then you round up all the professors who have done no research for the last 10 years, not the ones that tried and didn't publish, the ones that have been stealing from the state for years and you lay them off too.

Of course, if you took the money that was wasted on the new football stadium and used it for something related to SIU's mission, none of the would be discussed. :)

Let's face it, SIU is very, very fat and needs to be slimmed down. The management isn't going to do it, but this might.

There is just one real question, will the right people be laid off or will it be political. If the deadwood goes, SIU will have a chance. If the productive people, who often tell the truth and are trying to fix things go, it is over. I have been through both kinds, you can tell the first day after if they just killed the company.

Neal said...

What a great way for a Republican candidate to accept defeat before an election even takes place. Another classic example of shooting yourself in the foot.

I hope he was misquoted.

PeterG said...

Just one more http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/05/navarrette.teacher.firings/index.html?hpt=T2

Kind of interesting.

testing05401 said...

"Forget that poor-kids-can't-learn nonsense."

That is precisely why our family left District 95. Bashing against that brick wall of excuses: "we have 'subsets' that don't perform well" (read: minority kids); "we have single family households."

It's particularly galling because the excuses about poor minority kids not being able to learn "traditional" math, etc. comes from six-figure MINORITY administrators. Give me a break. Before civil rights victories, poor minority and immigrant folk (Catholics, Jews are not "real Americans") didn't wait around or except excuses. Ask those of us who went through Catholic schools.

We have a shortage of nuns but how about more of that Troops to Teachers program? And throw out the rules.

Meanwhile, the SIU union is concerned about -- get this -- maintaining a 26:1 pupil-to-teacher ratio. WTF? It looks nice, it's intuitive that a smaller class will perform better but studies have shown that it just ain't so (at least to a degree beyond 26).

As John Stossel says

"Give me a break"

PeterG said...

We have the same deal in Oregon. Here the kids who can't learn are the kids from broken families, who are mostly poor. There are no minorities, beyond the Asian's, who do great, because they work.

Turn off the TV, have fathers, sleep at night, all of a sudden the test scores jump!