But I Thought The NCAE “Won”?

Remember last week when the NCAE claimed that it “won” the battle to protect teachers and classroom size in the budget? (See Dome article here.)

Class size in all grades are protected from increases in the 2009-2010 budget bill being considered this evening by the General Assembly.

Once again, this has been proven to be false.  According to this WRAL article, class sizes in grades 4 and 5 will increase and Wake County Superintendent Del Burns says:

“At the end of the day, it’s likely that we will have hundreds of teachers – between 300 and 500 teachers, I would imagine – fewer this year (compared with) last year because of funding reductions,” Burns said.

Hmm… so increased class sizes and a loss of 500 teachers, and the NCAE considers that a “win?”  What exactly constitutes a loss for them?

Anyone else find it disturbing that their definition of “winning” is the number of teachers employed, not the number of students who are prepared for the future?