In California, parent organizations are doing everything they can to try to save teacher jobs, including attempts to raise extraordinary amounts of money. Ivanhoe Elementary, in the Los Angeles Unified School District, is attempting to raise $180,000 to save three teacher positions.

As Steve Lopez writes in the LA Times:

Get out your checkbooks, parents were told. All those wrapping-paper sales and pancake fundraisers wouldn't be enough. We could either pony up some hard cash, or see Ivanhoe's standing as one of L.A. Unified's best schools.

Pay $25, if that's all you can afford, Herman said. But he pointed up to a screen encouraging parents to dig a little deeper. Those three jobs can be saved, he said, if 80 parents contribute $250 apiece, 75 contribute $500, 50 fork over $1,000, 20 give $2,000 and six bust the bank with $5,000 contributions.

It's unconscionable. And of course, not every school has the resources to raise even $1800, let alone $180,000.

A Republican member of our school board was saying, gee, Gray Davis wasn't so bad after all. That's when you know things have gone mad.