Apr 11 2009
$5 billion for school
The Governor has asked the federal government for $5 billion for education. The purpose of this money is to prevent cuts that school districts say they have to make to keep their budgets balanced. It is possible that $3.1 billion of that request could be in the coffers of various educational institutions by fall.
The problem is, where will that money go?
No one seems to look too closely when schoools say they need more money. Where does this money go? To prevent teach lay-offs? That is a good thing, but then the quesiton needs to be asked - why are teachers getting laid off in the first place?
There is a lot of money that goes towards keeping severly disabled children in regular classrooms, in regular schools. In some schools, these children need one aide per child, and the state funds this. Those aides are paid per hour, but are eligible for benefits. If these children would be pulled out of normal classrooms, and placed into a disabled class, it would cost less money. For some of these children, they don’t get any benefit from being in a normal class. If a child is so severly disabled that they are not learning, and they are in need of thier own, dedicated aide for the whole class period in order for the teacher to teach, why are they still in the class? What can they be getting out of the class? Why is no one talking about consolidating these students into their own class so that money can be saved?
What about sports programs? Why are those spared from the chopping block? Football, basketball, cheerleading, swimming, track and field - they should all be cut before teachers. But that isn’t what districts are talking about. Instead, teachers are placed on the chopping block first. In an age where students cannot pass the CA High School Exit Exam (which tests 8th and 9th grade material), why should there be anything else other than academics? We have people graduating who cannot read - why are there sports available for these students? Sports cannot be a motivator. There is such a slim chance that any of these high school sports players makes it big, that to provide sports as a means to leave a poverty stricken situation is false hope - and is a bad idea. A better idea would be to spend the money on reading coaches, or teachers, so that students can learn the academics which will help them out throughout life.
Campuses build new sports facilities before they upgrade classrooms. They build seperate weight rooms for the football team - why are there two weight rooms in a high school? One surely is enough.
There are administrators who are keeping their jobs while teachers are being laid off.
The thing is, there are alternatives to laying off teachers - but the school districts don’t want to explore them.
And parents need to be more understanding. When parents complain when their pet program is eliminated, they need to be more understanding. It isn’t the school’s job to provide everything for your child. It is your job to provide, and the school’s job to supplement. You may not be able to teach chemistry at home, but you can provide some support for your students - they don’t need special support counselors at school. Save the teachers instead.
And the teachers need to be more understanding too. They should want pay based on merit. They should know that they get paid for 9 months of the year, not 12. There is extra pay if they teach summer school. To that end, they should understand that they don’t get a free ride with benefits and retirement. I think that teachers should be paid as much as basketball coaches, but that’s not where society puts the value. And until it does, teachers need to understand that they don’t get everything they want in return for which they don’t give up anything. If they want higher pay, then they should understand it is contingent on merit based pay rather than seniority.
However, it looks like there might be a lot of bailout money coming for education in California. Let’s just hope it goes to good things and not more wasteful school spending.
