Today, the first wave of layoffs hit. My humble little department, with six employees, lost two already. One more will probably be reassigned to another area, and two more of us are still vulnerable. So our department, whose purpose is so fundamental that it's listed in the college's mission statement and all of its promotional materials, will be, at best, reduced to levels of service we were at five years ago when enrollment was half its current level. And the cuts are happening as badly or worse in other areas.
It's a strange thing working in education. Everyone agrees that supporting education is a critical need that is in the best interests of the economy and the society. Yet it is an intensely politicized field, with external oversight and influence that is often characterized by the best of intentions and the worst of execution. And unlike most private industries, the factors that fuel a huge spike in demand for our services are exactly the things that prevent us from being able to provide those very services. It's as bass-ackwards as it gets, and is the perfect storm for a societal disaster that will lock tens or even hundreds of thousands of people into an under-educated underclass.
If you swallow the red pill, go through the looking glass, and jump down the rabbit hole, you'll probably end up in Sacramento.
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