Some sites do Friday catblogging or enmesh themselves in LOLCATS. I'm writing about other things.
This story about my hometown, the Rust Belt city of Lorain, Ohio, is fascinating. It's also the hometown of Toni Morrison,
Father Guido Sarducci, Adm. Ernest J. King Jr., Helen Steiner Rice, and others (birthplace of journalist and ex-hostage Terry Anderson.)
But times are tough. Lorain used to have a population of nearly 80,000 but has declined to about 68,000, the median income has dropped just since 2000, the unemployment rate, is 8.1 percent, and the job situation just keep getting dicier.
Especially for teachers, 243 of whom (about a third of the staff) have just been laid off. The school board blames financial problems related to charter schools. The city was once the beneficiary of migrants, its population swelling as Ford workers from Somerville, Mass., and Tennessee came in to work in a new assembly plant. That plant has now closed for good.
Never fear, though, the St. Lucie, Fla., school system has come to the teachers' rescue, though I quibble with this story's comment about beaches, since Lorain is right on Lake Erie and has tons of them.
St. Lucie County Schools sends notice to laid-off Lorain teachers
LORAIN — Sunny weather year-round. A beach instead of a playground. Jobs just waiting to be filled. That could be what’s in store for some of the 243 teachers who were laid off Friday from the Lorain school district — if they don’t mind a 973-mile relocation, that is.
The St. Lucie County School District, located in the southern Florida city of Fort Pierce, is putting out a giant “help wanted” sign to all elementary school teachers who recently lost their jobs.
Of course, the Florida district is having some problems, too, most recently with the FCAT(Warning, pdf).
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