Budget cuts hit schools hard

‘Jobless recovery’ takes its toll on districts nationwide

The nation’s sagging economy is taking its toll on public employment in several states, with school districts from New York to Michigan reporting job losses that threaten quality in public education.

For the year, Michigan has lost 15,000 school district and other government jobs, the state’s Labor and Economic Growth Agency reported in September. Public sector employment also fell by 6,600 in Missouri, 3,400 in Ohio and 1,600 in Wisconsin, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its September monthly update on the labor market.

Also hard-hit were several districts in New York. Yonkers schools were reeling from the loss of 500 jobs at the start of the school year, including the layoff of 210 teachers. As the crisis deepened in early September, the Yonkers Federation of Teachers was urging state and local lawmakers to help the district restore program and personnel cuts. And the pain is spread throughout the state, New York Teacher reports.

Buffalo closed schools and eliminated 320 jobs. Rochester sliced nearly $9 million in programs and 116 full-time positions to close a $13.6 million budget gap before school started. And, although union action helped prevent devastating layoffs, about 800 teachers in New York City face reassignment after having been “excessed” from schools that lost state funding.

Move over, Ivan
Here comes Hurricane Jeb

Florida public schools, still reeling from a battering series of hurricanes, now have a man-made disaster to deal with: Gov. Jeb Bush’s insistence that, destruction and turmoil notwithstanding, the show must go on when it comes to high-stakes testing in schools.

Less-than-reasonable accommodation is what the governor offered in late September in a statement on public schools, accountability testing and the four devastating back-to-back hurricanes that have slammed Florida in the past few weeks. Schools that missed six to 10 days because of the storms will have an extra week to administer the state accountability exam, known as FCAT; those that missed 11 or more days will have an extra two weeks. At the beginning of October, several districts have missed 20 days and counting. Many schools are struggling to reopen with blown-out windows, rooms and even floors destroyed, public transportation and utilities still shaky at best, and thousands of children and staff still rattled from the fury of the killer storms.

In a letter to Gov. Bush, the Florida Education Association, a merged AFT-NEA affiliate, urged the governor to reconsider his position and refrain from charging ahead on all aspects of high-stakes testing under the state accountability system and under NCLB. Residents across the state are consumed by the daunting task of “rebuilding their homes, replacing their belongings and cobbling together some sense of normalcy,” FEA president and AFT vice president Andy Ford reminded the governor. “But ‘normal’ remains a distant goal. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick.”

A major concern is that, under the state assessment system, schools rated “in need of improvement” could be unfairly targeted in a new round of tests that could reflect disarray and post-trauma stress as much as achievement.

“We do not doubt that teachers and school employees intend to meet and exceed the accountability targets, but the fact that a school hasn’t met them this year doesn’t mean it’s a ‘failing school,’” Ford stressed. “It may simply mean that its teachers and administrators are still reeling from the long-term impact of these storms and that the students attending many of these schools are still dealing with disaster-related stress that adversely affects their academic performance.”