Lost education jobs shake our classrooms, and our future

I recently came across an old letter from my little sister. Just seeing an envelope with postage, an address that didn't feature a single "@" symbol and her crooked cursive served as a blast from the past. Times - and communication systems - have changed since she sent that letter in 1996, but her cause certainly hasn't.

She wrote about her P.E. class, the gangsters, preppies and skaters who roamed the high school halls her freshman year, and the "kid" she "liked." Then, she finished it the way the youngest member of my family frequently finished her letters, with an assigned reading list: "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez; "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros; "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee; "Bless Me Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya; and "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, to name a few.

As it would turn out, she never stopped assigning reading lists. She became a high school English teacher in Utah about two years ago. It's a job she was destined to have. Unfortunately, it's also a job she was destined to lose.

According to a White House report published in August, more than 300,000 education jobs have been lost since the end of the recession in 2009. Nationally, the student-to-teacher ratio increased 4.6 percent between 2008 and 2010. Layoffs in recent years, the report indicates, will further increase that ratio for the 2012-2013 school year.

Lost education jobs affect the teachers, the students, the future.

A year ago I wrote a column about my favorite teacher, Mrs. English, from first grade. President Barack Obama often speaks of his, Mrs. Hefty from fifth grade. Until the last days of her daytime talk show, Oprah Winfrey lauded hers, Mrs. Duncan of fourth grade.

No one forgets the first adult outside of their parents who puts faith in them, encourages them, positively impacts them. And, that's usually a teacher.

Massacred budgets and bloated classrooms will no doubt affect the level of education students get, but if they don't get laid off first, it could also drive teachers away from the profession altogether.

Locally, the Clark County School District saw almost twice as many teachers voluntarily leave their posts this summer than expected.

District spokeswoman Melinda Malone doubts the resignations had anything to do with a feeling of doom among teachers. "There were more retirements than we anticipated," she explains. And, she continues, those retirements resulted in good news for 419 teachers who were laid off this summer: "We were able to bring them back."

They couldn't bring back their old jobs, though. The 419 fired and rehired teachers filled posts they didn't previously have. Why a teacher would go from teaching history to English doesn't take calculus to figure out. They're desperate.

It's not just teachers, either. Some districts scrambled to fill positions in recent weeks, which could be a result of underestimating enrollment.

Over the summer, my little sister applied for jobs in California, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Utah. She got calls back for positions in two of those states. For one job, thousands of miles away, she got a call on a Tuesday. They needed someone who could take roll call in front of the dry erase board that Thursday.

Instead, she did so in Utah last week before a class of seventh-graders, not her preferred high schoolers. She's working as a long-term substitute, not a contracted teacher. She's also earning less than half her previous income and enjoying zero benefits. My little sister took the job, even though it meant moving back in with our parents, because she wants so badly to teach.

The letter I recently came across from her had a postscript: "W/back & play some softball & read!!"

I always wrote back. I occasionally played softball. I very rarely read. This she knew. Hence, the one-woman awareness campaign.

We shared a phone call just the other day that ended with her inquiring about, what else, my reading habits.

I rattled off a few books I've either read or started to read in the past couple of months: "The Fates Will Find Their Way" by Hannah Pittard; "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know" by Alexandra Horowitz; and "The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us" by Jeffrey Kluger.

She sounded equally surprised and pleased. Since she didn't have to urge me to open a book, she left me with these parting words: "Get on Goodreads!"

It's a social media website for readers. As I said, times have changed; she hasn't.

My little sister wasn't just destined to be a teacher. She was destined to be an unforgettable one. Here's hoping circumstances improve so she can fulfill that destiny.

Contact Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477. Follow her on Twitter @startswithanx.