Headlines in just three daily newsletters highlight the dichotomy of education in America today. With billions of dollars flooding into the education system from stimulus funds there are battles erupting on how and where to spend it.
While the Department of Education in Hawaii announced to cut 18 school days - every Friday for the rest of the academic year - because there is no money in the budget to pay teachers, Kansas City, KS school board is proposing a program to address the leadership deficit among principals and other educations across all schools.
Interestingly 81% of teachers belonging to the teachers union in Hawaii voted for a shorter school year rather than taking a pay cut to serve their students. Kansas on the other hand is addressing the very essence of the problem: Leadership.
Despite the nearly $40 billion infused into state coffers to help steady education budgets, some states remain in dismal fiscal straights, forcing further cuts to K - 12 programs. And it is not going to get better with financial aid ending in 2011. Pennsylvania still has to finalize a budget, four months into the new fiscal year. New Mexico is having special sessions to consider further cuts to their budgets. In Michigan the Governor has line-item veto power and indicated that it will be used on the education budget. $165 per student in grants has been slashed.
State incomes for education have declined by $63 billion in the 2009 fiscal year according to the State University of New York. In Florida more than 60,000 people has left the state after the downturn in the housing market. That tax revenue will not come back and has a long term impact. The existing $1 billion shortfall this year would be closer to $2 billion without federal help next year.
Which leads to the cost of entitlement programs such as free and reduced lunches, after school care, before-school care, early childhood programs, women with infant programs, and hundreds of others. While all important, quality teachers providing quality education must triumph all other priorities.
Crossroads indeed for all things educational.
Michael Cordier
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