Götterdämmerung

(Ring!)

First, let's go to the source material, from the Seattle Times, on how they would balance the state budget:

• $926 million — Cancel the Initiative 728 money, or most of it. Officially this is for class-size reduction in the public schools, but the schools have folded it into everyday operations. Cutting I-728 money was done in 2003, when the budget was in a crisis, and has to be done again. That is the danger of budgeting by initiative.

Then go to the exposition, from Goldy at Horse's Ass:

No, I just wanted to point out that a $926 million cut comes to over $900 per K-12 student over the course of the biennium, or roughly $450 per student per year. For a typical elementary school with about 400 kids, that’s about $180,000 out of the annual budget. How many teachers will need to be cut? Do they increase class size for all the kids, or do they eliminate art or music or gym or reading tutors… assuming they have any of these left to cut?

In my district of about 2,000 kids, $450 less a year would mean a loss of $900,000 next year. That's about 13 teaching positions. We had to lay off teachers and cut the librarians this year after a $300,000 hole; the things we'd have to do with a deficit of almost a million dollars would be heartwrenching.

There is no happy ending possible. If you're thinking about going into teaching, don't.