School Superintendent Ray Cortines and the school board today announced they were saving about 2,000 elementary school teachers' jobs, thanks to federal stimulus money. It sort of reminds one of the finale of Threepenny Opera, when Macheath's bail money arrives to save him from the gallows — or, as the lyrics put it: “Once the cash is not a problem/Happy endings can take place.” Unfortunately, there was not enough cash for happy endings for the remaining 5,000-plus teachers who'd been previously pink slipped. As of now, they stand to be sacked July 1.

Joseph Mailander, on Street Hassle, notes that “In the end, they voted to rescind some utterly rescindable layoff pink-slips to elementary teachers.”

The L.A. Times reports

on pleas heard by the L.A. Unified School District board to find ways

to close its nearly $600 million shortfall without slashing its

teaching ranks. Reporter Howard Blume writes that today former school

board member Jackie Goldberg addressed the board and lamented her own

vote to cut jobs back in the 1990s:

“If I could do it again, I

would not have done what I did. I am asking you to be audacious. I am

asking you to be irresponsible.”

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