There was good news and bad news for graduates of the College of Education at Kennesaw State University this week.

For the nearly 400 graduates, the good news, of course, was their graduation. They made it to the finish line to claim their Bachelor of Science degrees, normally the key to their future careers.

By far the largest number of the education graduates, about 240, majored in early childhood education, while the rest of the grads earned degrees in middle grades education.

The bad news, of course, is the job outlook for teachers.

Underscoring the grim prospects, even as the commencement program was under way, the Cobb school board was voting to approve a drastically reduced budget slashing more than 1,000 teaching jobs, increasing class sizes and making other cuts to balance the books - the result of the ongoing recession. The story is the same in the other metro area school districts: Although Cobb's teacher cuts are by far the worst, DeKalb is facing the closing of numerous schools.

The situation is as bad as it's been for teachers since probably the Great Depression. Last month U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a Senate subcommittee "state budget cuts could imperil anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 education jobs." He ticked off some of the stunning figures: New York and California each announcing cuts of more than 20,000 teaching jobs and Illinois looking at cutting that number of teachers. Charlotte, N.C., is cutting 600 teachers.

Here in Cobb the greatest irony of all was the school board's voting Wednesday to award a contract for artificial turf at all 16 high schools - on the very same day the draconian budget cuts were made. Yes, it's SPLOST-approved, but it still looks terrible.

Yet for most of the KSU teacher graduates, they may have better prospects of jobs than the average college graduate in Georgia and across the country. The overwhelming majority of the KSU grads already have jobs.

That came to light dramatically when Dr. Dan Papp, the university president, asked the graduates who had jobs to stand. Nearly all of them stood. When he asked how many had more than one job, about half of them stood again. This, no doubt, explains why many KSU students need five or six years to complete their work versus the traditional four years.

Most of the graduates stood when asked if they were married or had a committed relationship. And about 50 of them stood to indicate they were parents as well.

The KSU College of Education is the second largest teacher education producer in the state, a notch ahead of the university's No. 3 standing in size with more than 22,500 students.

So now what will these future teachers do? Some will go to graduate school but most of them will have to find a new job or hang onto a job doing something other than pursuing their chosen profession.

It's a tough time for teachers.

dmckee9613@aol.com