Free market dictates that teachers should follow the jobs

Your logic on public school funding in Simi Valley is baffling to me and defies the core principles of free market economics.

To paraphrase, you stated that as home values soared in Simi Valley, younger families were squeezed out of the market, which resulted in fewer new students into the system and reduced funding from the state for this lower number of students.

Next you go on to state that jobs will be lost, class sizes will become larger and programs cut.

Well, since the classes are made up of fewer students entering the system, class sizes would only increase if the job cuts were not in proportion to the reduction in new students.

It sounds to me like you want to manipulate free market economics by maintaining levels of employment in Simi Valley schools that were correct for past times despite the reduction in new students.

Free market economics ensures the efficient allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses. Teachers are a scarce resource. This scarce resource should be reallocated by the free market to areas where there is growth in the incoming student population. If that happens to be San Bernardino or other less desirable outlying areas of the state- so be it.

The excess teachers need to follow the jobs if they want to remain employed in that field.

What if your proposal was applied to the private sector- rather than the public sector funded by easy money from taxes? How many companies in the private sector could (or should) maintain current staffing levels despite a reduction in business?

It does not work that way, nor should it. The real core issue is the state rode the gravy train of six years of dramatic increases in housing values and property tax revenue without yielding any significant improvement in public education.

Now that the gravy train is over and their revenue stream is stunted they are frozen like a deer in the headlights. Eric A. Schulhof Simi Valley