The new year has brought bad news for education in California. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a 10 percent spending reduction and a cut of $4 billion from the state education budget. Unfortunately, it most likely will not be just California cutting the education budget. It is a sad to think that our country can spend almost a 150 billion dollars a year on a war, but cut funding to educate our own children.
As a classroom teacher, I spend time teaching students how to allocate their time and prioritize. I also teach them that the same holds true for their spending habits; they need to prioritize and plan for the future. Somehow this wisdom is missing from the federal and state levels as our leaders spend recklessly today and fail to plan for our basic needs now and for tomorrow. Cutting the budget in a state that serves 6.5 million students is shortsighted. While it is admirable that Schwarzenegger is trying to balance the budget, he should not be doing it at the expense of education.
Poor education leads to higher crime rates and higher long term costs for prisons and prisoners. The increase in cost of corrections outpaced the cost of health, education, or natural resources, according to State Prison Expenditure report from 2001, seven years ago. In 2001, states spent $38.2 billion to maintain the states correctional systems. You can imagine what they are spending today.
“Nationally, FY 2006 general fund corrections spending grew 10 percent above FY 2005 levels. This was the fastest growing category of the four spending areas that NCSL tracks in its State Budget Actions reports and well above what policymakers expected: they had budgeted corrections to grow 4.1 percent,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The question I have for legislators and decision makers is the following: wouldn’t it be better for all of us if we spent more on education than on correcting adult criminal behavior?
Which of our presidential candidates will prioritize spending so that the education of our children will improve and correctional costs will go down?
What will it take for Schwarzenegger to see that his proposed education budget cuts are misguided?
March 20, 2008 at 11:04 am |
It’s a crying shame at how ignorant our government has become. Education in this country is suffering tremendously. Something needs to be done! But it isn’t just funding that needs improvement. If you ask me, the whole system needs to be changed. Schools need more funding, teachers need higher pay, parents should have more control over where their child goes to school. And most importantly, there should be more incentive for children to get good grades. I’m not just talking about prizes either. We need a complete educational reevaluation. For instance, in high school there could be Work Force training, where a child goes out and works part-time doing something beneficial. It could possibly be volunteer, but if it was a paying position then any money the child raises could be put into a college fund. The possibilities are endless.
June 4, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
Charter Schools offer what many teachers today crave: autonomy in the classroom to exercise creativity and independence in the creation of dynamic lessons, a team environment where the success of the students is paramount, and lower student/teacher ratios which allow for more individualized student attention. Charter teachers gain autonomy in exchange for the accountability of ensuring students learn.
But in light of the recent state budget cuts to our educational system, teachers wonder: will I have a job next year? Given that charters schools work hard to stabilize their funding through private donation and philanthropy, the assurance of a job next year does not weigh on as many teachers of charter schools. Overall, budget cuts will have nominal influence on our lives, affecting items such as supplies or extracurricular budgets (for which grants are sometimes available).
Teaching at a charter school offers the educator advantages comparable to smaller, private schools supported by the strength of a larger school system. In today’s economy, the knowledge that teachers will be able to continue providing quality education to our students without fear of massive lay offs makes the job even more satisfying!
Debbie Hall
English Teacher
Animo South LA Charter School, Los Angeles
Teach California Charters Partner School