Calif. budget cuts stir students' emotions

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Three-hundred thousand educators have been laid off nationwide due to budget cuts since 2008.

CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy recently visited a district in Long Beach, Calif., to check out what's happening in the schools as a result of the recession.

Marlene Hamdorf has taught at Signal Hill Elementary School for 18 years. But now 30 kids are crammed into her 2nd grade classroom. That's five more than last year, and 10 more than the year before.

Long Beach Education Foundation, non profit

"It's hard to meet with 30 kids, and they will slip through the cracks," Hamdorf said. "I think our kids will suffer."

Kaylee Durham, age 7, said the extra kids in class affect her. "When they're talking it's harder to hear the teacher's directions because there's more voices."

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The Long Beach School district is the city's largest employer. State cuts forced the district to slash $330 million from its budget in the past three school years. One thousand positions have been cut - more than 13 percent of its workforce. They also cut computer classes and summer school.

Schools such as Burroughs Elementary have been closed. That's where 9-year-old Andrew Martinez used to go. He's now at Signal Hill, and misses his old friends.

"They were nice people," Martinez sobbed. "And then they just closed it down."

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Things in Long Beach may soon get worse. California's new budget contains triggers. Come January, if the state is taking in less revenue than planned, $1.5 billion in new cuts to education could automatically take place. That could cost the school district another $30 million.

"That's unacceptable," said Long Beach School district superintendent Chris Steinhauser. "We have to stop this."

"We're going to pay big time in five, 10 years from now when we don't have an educated workforce," Steinhauser added. "We have more people going to prisons, unemployment. People have got to think in the long term."

Yet all Andrew Martinez can think about is what he's lost. "I like this school, but I just can't feel the love like I did over there."

Further budget cuts could force California to shrink the school year by as many as many as seven days.