The Budget Crisis and our Schools

DEFICIT. That one word has so many lasting implications on today's society, and impacts everyone directly. As costs rise and money and jobs dwindle, even the most cautious of budgets can get challenged. Our schools receive funding from three sources: 1) the federal government, 2) the state government, and 3) local taxes and private donations. As money gets short, the amount of assistance provided to our schools by each of these areas deteriorates. Programs like music and arts, deemed "unessential education," often are the first victims of the budget ax.

Today, the City of Rochester school district is voting to completely cut music and art from the city school curriculum in the fall. Hundreds of teachers are outside city hall protesting the cuts. Rhode Island recently made the news with thousands of teachers getting pink slips. New York, California, Wisconsin... the list goes on and on. New York is also proposing capping administrator's salaries at around $125,000/year. There are a few administrators around Rochester that are currently making close to a quarter million a year, including the Superintendent of the Rochester City Schools.

Recently on TED.com, Bill Gates gave a short (roughly ten minute) speech entitled "How State Budgets are breaking US schools". While his focus was primarily on the state of California, he gave some underlying facts that are applicable to each of the 50 states. As individual states' budgets slash support to education, one option districts have is to cut teachers. This raises an interesting question: "Should it be the young or 'less good' teachers that get cut?" My response: how do we define what it is to be 'less good'? Clearly all teachers are not created equally, and some teachers are more productive than others. Yet who sets the standards that would label a teacher as 'less good' than any other teacher? That's a fine line...

Gates goes on to briefly highlight three things that states need to do to solidify a future for our schools: 1) establish more tools to educate ourselves with, 2) maintain clear and honest accounting practices, and 3) have courageous politicians that will go against the grain and fight for education, not having to worry about "shooting the messenger". This is a good start, but we need to hold our officials accountable for the decisions they make.