Twenty-two Michigan districts are facing deficits. Don Wotruba of the Michigan Association of School Boards says that as operating costs go up, there's only one way to cut staff.
"A lot of our younger teachers are the ones who get laid off, because they are the lowest on the pay scale as far as the union goes," he says. "And then those [teachers] leave the state to go work somewhere else. So we are having the problem of eating our young a little bit."
The irony is that Michigan legislators this year approved a small increase in per pupil spending, but it's not enough to keep up with the cost of education. Combine that with the fact that enrollment is declining rapidly in places like Detroit, and you can see why educators are running out of hair to pull out.
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