Education in America at Risk

Schools across the country are in the midst of planning for graduation ceremonies. In the next two months thousands of high school seniors will move on to another stage in their young lives. Also moving on to a new stage will be America's public schools as the economy takes its toll.

Thousands of teachers will face losing their jobs; more students will sit elbow-to-elbow in crowded classrooms next year; computers that break down will sit unused; and kids will bring home longer lists of supplies - from crayons to sanitary wipes - that parents will be asked to buy for their classrooms.

A senior policy analyst with The Education Commission of the States, a non-partisan organization, told one national newspaper: "It's going to be the most difficult year we've had in probably 30 years."

Another group, the American Association of School Administrators, said many have already made cuts to transportation, textbooks, technology spending, and extracurricular activities. In a recent survey of school districts, 43 percent of respondents reported budget cuts of 10 percent or less for this academic year, and 21 percent reported cuts of 11 to 25 percent.

Looking ahead to the 2010-11 school year, districts reporting cuts of 10 percent or less from this years level rose to 48 percent. Those foreseeing cuts of 11 to 25 percent jumped to 30 percent.

Schools across the nation are faced with larger class sizes, either eliminating or drastically reducing such programs as art, music and foreign languages. Other cuts have been proposed for summer schools and athletic programs.

In Atlanta, Georgia's Fulton County school system they have been reported doing away with some 1,000 jobs including nearly 500 teaching positions.

On April 14th Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa proposed a $23 billion school bailout. Hopefully, some of the money will stave off an estimated 100,000 or more education jobs, if it becomes reality.

All this in a time when the last thing we can afford to do is to reduce the quality of our children's education. In an earlier blog writing, I noted 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as functionally illiterate at the time they graduate. And the United States keeps losing ground in the world ranking of educating our children.

In this one person's view, it's time for the bureaucrats to pay more attention to the education of our youngsters, who will one day be the country's leaders, and less time spending unnecessary funds on pork barrel projects. Our children are more important than spending $107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail or $19 million to examine gas emissions from cow flatulence. And yes, these are actual pork barrel projects.