How Budget Cuts Affect Teachers

Teachers feel the brunt of educational budget cuts in many ways. In a field where in good times about 20% of teachers leave the profession in the first three years, budget cuts mean less incentive for educators to continue teaching. Following are ten ways that budget cuts harm teachers and accordingly their students.

Less Pay

Obviously, this is a big one. Lucky teachers will just have their pay raises reduced to close to nothing. The less fortunate ones will be in school districts that have decided to cut teacher pay. Further, teachers who work extra by taking on summer school classes or running activities that provide supplemental pay will often find their positions eliminated or their hours/pay reduced.

Less Spent on Employee Benefits

Many school districts pay for at least part of their teachers benefits. The amount that the school districts are able to pay typically suffers under budget cuts. This, in effect, is like a pay cut for teachers.

Less to Spend on Materials

One of the first things to go with budget cuts is the already small discretionary fund that teachers get at the beginning of the year. In many schools this fund is almost entirely used to pay for photocopies and paper throughout the year. Other ways that teachers might spend this money is on classroom manipulatives, posters, and other learning tools. However, as budget cuts increase more and more of this is either provided by the by the teachers and their students.

Less School-Wide Material and Technology Purchases

With less money, schools often cut their school-wide technology and material budgets. Teachers and media specialists who have researched and asked for specific products or items will find that these will not be available for their use. While this might not seem to be as big an issues as some of the other items on this list, it is just one more symptom of a wider problem. The individuals who suffer most from this are the students who are not able to benefit from the purchase.

Delays for New Textbooks

Many teachers only have outdated textbooks to give their students. It's not unusual for a teacher to have a social studies textbook that is 10-15 years old. In American History, this would mean that two to three presidents have not even been mentioned in the text. Geography teachers often complain about having textbooks that are so outdated that they aren't even worth giving to their students. Budget cuts just compound this problem. Textbooks are very expensive so schools facing major cuts will often hold off on getting new texts or replacing lost texts.

Less Professional Development Opportunities

While this might not seem like a big deal to some, the truth is that teaching just like any profession, becomes stagnant without continual self improvement. The field of education is changing and new theories and teaching methods can make all the difference in the world for new, struggling, and even experienced teachers. However, with budget cuts these activities are typically some of the first to go.

Less Electives

Schools facing budget cuts typically begin by cutting their electives and either moving teachers to core subjects or eliminating their positions entirely. Students are given less choice and teachers are either moved around or stuck teaching subjects they are not ready to teach.

Larger Classes

With budget cuts come larger classes. Research has shown that students learn better in smaller classes. When there is overcrowding there is a greater likelihood of disruptions. Further, it is much easier for students to fall through the cracks in larger schools and not get the extra help they need and deserve to succeed. Another casualty of larger classes is that teachers are unable to do as many cooperative learning and other more complex activities. They are just too difficult to manage with very large groups.

Possibility of a Forced Move

Even if a school is not closed, teachers might be forced to move to new schools as their own schools reduce their course offerings or increase class sizes. When the administration consolidates classes, if there are not enough students to warrant the positions then those with the lowest seniority typically have to move to new positions and/or schools.

Possibility of School Closures

With budget cuts come school closures. Typically smaller and older schools are closed and combined with larger, newer ones. This happens despite all the evidence that smaller schools are better for students in almost every way. With school closures teachers are either faced with the prospect of moving to a new school or possibility being laid off from work. What really stinks for older teachers is that when they have taught in a school for a long time, they have built up seniority and are typically teaching their preferred subjects. However, once they move to a new school they usually have to take over whatever classes are available.

Privatized Schools

Many states are forcing districts to shift more of their budgets to privately operated Charter Schools. This shift of budget is an ideological implementation to shift education from the public service realm to the private sector realm. In time the thought is to close or sell every publicly owned schools to a private company. The question that is not answered is will the private schools bill the student's parents directly or will the funds still come from public appropriations. Most state constitutions require public funded education, so they will have to amend the constitutions to achieve full privatization. 

Otherwise the government will act as the billing agent to collect the funds for the private schools. States can separate the fees for education from the tax revenue it receives and would instead charge a special fee to parents who have children in school either through their state income tax form or by some other method, thus whatever the cost may be will be passed onto the parents and not spread across all citizen and property owners. 

This will obviously radically increase the cost to each family with school age children. This will force more families to home school their children because they will not be able to afford the fee charged for the privately owned, government collected fee schools.

Additionally, private companies, such as the Koch Brothers, could give grants to these private schools in order to control the curriculum taught so that it a lines with their ideology.

A Very Pricey Pineapple

Gail Collins/ by Earl Wilson NYT

.

OP-ED COLUMNIST New York Times
By GAIL COLLINS Published: April 27, 2012

 Let's talk about "Talking Pineapples."

Actually (spoiler alert!) I’m going to use the pineapple as a sneaky way to introduce the topic of privatization of public education. I was driven to this. Do you know how difficult it is to get anybody to read about “privatization of education?” It’s hell. A pineapple, on the other hand, is something everybody likes. It’s a symbol of hospitality. Its juice is said to remove warts. And you really cannot beat the talking-fruit angle.

This month, New York eighth graders took a standardized English test that included a story called “The Hare and the Pineapple,” in which you-know-what challenges a hare to a race. The forest animals suspect that since the pineapple can’t move, it must have some clever scheme to ensure victory, and they decide to root against the bunny. But when the race begins, the pineapple just sits there. The hare wins. Then the animals eat the pineapple. The end.

There were many complaints from the eighth graders, who had to answer questions like: “What would have happened if the animals had decided to cheer for the hare?” They were also supposed to decide whether the animals ate the pineapple because they were hungry, excited, annoyed or amused. (That part bothered me a lot. We’ve got a talking pineapple here, people. You don’t just go and devour it for having delusions of grandeur.)

Teachers, parents and education experts all chimed in. Nobody liked the talking pineapple questions. The Daily News, which broke the story, corralled “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings, who concluded that “the plot details are so oddly chosen that the story seems to have been written during a peyote trip.”

The state education commissioner, John King, announced that the questions would not count in the official test scores. There was no comment from the test author. That would be Pearson, the world’s largest for-profit education business, which has a $32 million five-year contract to produce New York standardized tests.

Now — finally — we have tumbled into my central point. We have turned school testing into a huge corporate profit center, led by Pearson, for whom $32 million is actually pretty small potatoes. Pearson has a five-year testing contract with Texas that’s costing the state taxpayers nearly half-a-billion dollars.

This is the part of education reform nobody told you about. You heard about accountability, and choice, and innovation. But when No Child Left Behind was passed 11 years ago, do you recall anybody mentioning that it would provide monster profits for the private business sector?

Me neither.

It’s not just the tests. No Child Left Behind has created a system of public-funded charter schools, a growing number of which are run by for-profit companies. Some of them are completely online, with kids getting their lessons at home via computer. The academic results can be abysmal, but on the plus side — definitely no classroom crowding issues.

Pearson is just one part of the picture, albeit a part about the size of Mount Rushmore. Its lobbyists include the guy who served as the top White House liaison with Congress on drafting the No Child law. It has its own nonprofit foundation that sends state education commissioners on free trips overseas to contemplate school reform.

An American child could go to a public school run by Pearson, studying from books produced by Pearson, while his or her progress is evaluated by Pearson standardized tests. The only public participant in the show would be the taxpayer.

If all else fails, the kid could always drop out and try to get a diploma via the good old G.E.D. The General Educational Development test program used to be operated by the nonprofit American Council on Education, but last year the Council and Pearson announced that they were going into a partnership to redevelop the G.E.D. — a nationally used near-monopoly — as a profit-making enterprise.

“We’re a capitalist system, but this is worrisome,” said New York Education Commissioner King.

The Obama administration has been trying to tackle the astronomical costs of 50 different sets of standardized tests by funding efforts by states to develop shared models — a process you will be stunned to hear is being denounced by conservatives like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas as “a federal takeover of public schools.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has also begun giving out waivers from the requirement that children in failing public schools be given after-school tutoring. Idea sounded great. Hardly helped the kids at all. But no for-profit tutoring company was left behind.

The pushback against privatization isn’t easy. We’re now in a world in which decisions about public education involve not just parents and children and teachers, but also big profits or losses for the private sector. Change the tests, or the textbooks, or the charters, or even the rules for teacher certification, and you change somebody’s bottom line.

It’s a tough world out there. Ask the talking pineapple.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
MY THOUGHTS:

Those who support Privatizing of government services claim that by privatizing public services they will be more competitive, hire higher quality workers, be more efficient with money, because they are profit driven and reduce cost to the consumer.

Gail Collins in her short OP-ED piece starts the dialogue about the implications of this approach. Starting with education she is clearly showing how corrupt the system becomes when profit is the motivator.

Just look at the Utah charter school system:

This message from Chris Bleak for the recent legislative session.
Chris Bleak – Head of State Charter School Assoc. – Ed is critical to state. We need fantastic ed system. Charters have grown at rapid rate since 10-12 yrs. 81 charters currently, 45,000 now, 50,000 students next yr. Lumped as 5th or 4th biggest district. Students chosing b/c so good. Focusing on disadvantaged students. Carolyn Sharette has 2 schools in SL Valley. For new immigrants. PProvide comp. 7.6% of all students. Facilities are biggest charter problem. Critical to way teach. They pay much higher % rate than normal districts. Districts can use full faith and credit state’s AAA credit rating.3 3.5 4 % Charters paying 7, 7.5, 8% despite state schools. Original charter ideas of renovating existing bldgs is not feasible b/c school bldg codes too strict. $ back to east coast bond firms. 1. Working with State Treasurer, Richard Ellis, Valentine, industry folks, to allow “moral obligation” AA rating which would save $100,000 to $150,000 per year for carters. 2. Only to those w/ strong track record of finan success, fgood management. Need Investment Grade Rating—many in state have now. No charter in country has failed in 20 yrs w/ Investment Grade Rating. Even with 2 economic downturns. 3. Create funding, State Charter Reserve Acct. Pay premium from rates to create insurance if there were a problem to protect state. Currently required to have 1-yr reserve anyway, other protections. Save $150-200 k yr per $10 mill in debt. More than 100 k in transaction fees. More buyers b/c more attractive bonds.
? W/ reg schools, district is responsible entity. Charters, the Assoc. is respon entity? Group that gets charter is governing board. Have open meeting, reporting req.s Non-profit. They bond for their school. ? WPU funding follows all students? [Weird question.] This is a state funded public school. Income $ follow. Charters manage operations off WPU.
?What is context of “moral obligation” that gets ;lower rate? State responsible if default? Some Steve guy with Bleak– County provided rate for 9 charters but not respon. Moral oblige for all students. ? Why bank would give 3% less? Not contractually required for state to back loan. But I believe state would. So better rate b/c of State's "almost" promise.

I often wonder if Utah Senator (R) Howard Stephenson has some monetary gain in his push for charter schools. He is also the chairman of the Senate Education Committee and has introduced countless bills to enhance the financial benefits of charter school owners and deplete funding to the public school districts.

He states that the class sizes are smaller, thus the students have higher test scores. But an independent review found no difference in outcome of test scores between charter schools and public schools. In fact the cost per student is rising for the charter school student and flat for the public school student. So I would suggest that the budget increase for charter schools is directly related to the profitability of the company that owns the "non-profit" entity that is contracted to operate the charter school. The profit is passed from the non-profit entity through "consulting fees" to the for-profit company. How sneaky...

If this continues, education will only be available to those who can afford it and the rest will be ignorant peasants, returning us to old Europe prior to 18th century.