WASHINGTON — Facing a recession and the coming end of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding, school districts nationwide are handing teachers pink slips for the upcoming school year.

The Obama administration estimates that as many as 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs unless Congress steps in with emergency money.

The cuts may ultimately be milder than the dire predictions — and critics are already joking that school advocates should soften the “teacherpocalypse” rhetoric. But the grim predictions have already generated protests.

Teachers in several states have rallied to keep school funding, and across the USA, teachers today will wear pink hearts as part of a national “Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips” campaign organized by the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union.

A Los Angeles-area PTA even persuaded actress Megan Fox to film a comedy short dramatizing the effects of school budget cuts — and mocking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tough-guy image.

The film, viewed nearly 1 million times on the Funny Or Die website, closes with Fox urging viewers to “call, write and annoy the governor until he cries for his mommy.”

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-05-04-teachercuts04_st_N.htm