Students across the nation head back to school this week, and as they begin this new school year, they will be facing additional challenges as huge budget cuts plague schools all across the nation. School districts everywhere are forced to make hard decisions about saving money, many of these decisions include cutting teachers, staff, and programs.
Massive budget cuts across the nation have forced school officials to drastically cut teachers and staff. In some school districts, thousands of teachers have been cut. While some teachers have been rehired, many are still out of work, forced to find a job teaching a grade or a subject they may be unfamiliar with.
In some California districts such as the Los Angeles Unified District, almost nine thousand teachers have been laid off. Thanks to the stimulus bill, around seven thousand were rehired, however, some two thousand were left either with out a job or were hired as day-to-day substitutes.
The Los Angeles Unified School District stated that they are doing everything they can to manage under the severe budget cuts by cutting programs and increasing class size. Those that were rehired and placed in classrooms with a higher number of children. In the Mesa Public Schools District, some classrooms have between 35 and 40 students, making classrooms overcrowded and adequate space hard to find.
Public schools aren’t the only ones being affected by the budget cuts, colleges and universities have also been hit hard. Stanford University, one of the wealthiest universities in the nation, has had to layoff over 400 employees, with more layoffs expected. While the academic staff has been protected from these layoffs, those holding positions such as coaches, librarians, and accountants were not so lucky. With roughly fifty teaching positions left unfilled, the question still remains whether or not the quality of education will be affected.
Educators in the Kent School District in Washington State have gone on strike protesting large class sizes that have resulted from budget cuts. Teachers believe that the large class sizes have decreased the quality of education, and have turned the educator’s task into managing instead of teaching the class. Many classes are not only large, but they also contain a number of students with learning disabilities and language barriers, making it even more difficult to address the individual needs of students. Children in this school district will not be starting school until the teachers agree to stop the strike.
Will students face difficulties this year based on these far sweeping cuts? Unfortunately, the difficult economic times will place an additional burden on schools and teachers by increasing class size and decreasing resources in schools across the nation.
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September 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
With 3 decades of studies regarding efficient education, you’d think this kind of stupidity wouldn’t be an issue. Classrooms of more than 28 students become more about managing the crowd than being able to teach. Class sizes over 31 are unreasonable, and some Kent High School classrooms are scheduled to have as much as 45 students. That quantity of students in a single classroom will turn teachers into babysitters, is that REALLY what we want our schools to become?
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