Budget cuts affecting schools across the country

Across the country, cash-strapped schools say budget cuts are forcing them to lay off teachers. Secretary of education Arne Duncan has called the layoffs ? which may number in the hundreds of thousands ? a potential catastrophe for the education system. The Takeaway talks to superintendents on opposite coasts who find themselves in similar positions.

Superintendent Peter Gorman of the Charlotte Mecklenberg school district may have to lay off 600 of the district’s 9,400 teachers.

And Los Angeles Superintendent Ramon Cortines sent notices to more than five thousand school employees last month alone.