6,000 New York City teachers to be axed

New York City could axe as many as 6,000 teachers working in its public schools and slash its budget by $350 million as part of belt tightening, an employment consultancy said in a release on Monday.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan for tackling the city’s fiscal crisis includes axing over 6,166 teachers and education professionals. The New York City Department of Education will also see its budget being slashed by $350 million, said a statement by EmploymentCrossing, one of the largest employment and jobs aggregators in the country.

Education experts have warned that teacher layoffs in New York City, which has not laid off teachers since 1976, will impact schools adversely by causing increase in the class sizes.

The statement says the City administration is planning across the board cuts in government spending and some cuts will take place immediately.

“From California to New York, states are trying to reduce their education expenditure. And the first choice is always schools, and within that, it’s the teachers,” said EducationCrossing CEO A. Harrison Barnes.

It also estimated that as many as 10,000 city jobs will be lost as part of the fiscal austerity measures, which will continue through 2012.

The New York City Department of Education is the largest school district in the country in terms of student enrollment. It has 1.1 million students taught in over 1,600 schools. It has a budget of $17 billion and around 80,000 teachers and teacher assistants, according to the report.