GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein argued before the City Council today that firing teachers, perhaps en masse, is the only strategy left to handle expected budget gaps next school year. “There is very little fat left to trim,” Klein said, discussing a gap that his top budget official said will be at least $600 million and at worst $1.2 billion.

It’s still unclear whether state budget cuts to education will necessitate layoffs at the scale Klein described — a total of 8,500 teachers in the most draconian scenario. The state legislature is working towards an April 1 deadline to pass a budget, and while the Senate and governor’s proposed budget would cost the city schools more than $400 million at a minimum, the Assembly is reportedly planning far less severe cuts.

But at the City Council today Klein stuck to his doomsday predictions, outlining how the 8,500 layoffs would hit each school district. Under the state’s current “last in, first out” method of cutting the most recently hired teachers first, neighborhoods from the South Bronx to the Upper East Side — which have the highest density population of younger teachers, due mainly to either high turnover rates or enrollment spikes — would lose nearly a fifth of their teachers immediately next year, Klein said.

Eight other districts in those areas, mainly in Manhattan and the Bronx, would all lose more than 15 percent of their teachers to layoffs. (The Department of Education’s full list of how each district would be affected by layoffs is below the jump.) (more…)