Teachers’ dirty looks

— Rollie Atkinson
As local schools open for a new year over the next several days
all those “teachers’ dirty looks” will be directed at Sacramento
and not at disorderly or rambunctious students.
Sacramento is the scene of the crime where the governor and the
State Legislature took $6 billion from public schools to balance
their fraudulent budget. They also cut another $3.1 billion from
the state college and junior college systems, triggering 20-30
percent tuition increases and reduced student aid programs.
This year it could be the teachers, and not the students, who
have been showing the least anticipation for the school doors to
open on a brand new year.
Behind those doors this year are larger classrooms with more
students per session, loss of classroom assistants and reduced
services and programs such as library hours, counselor positions
and custodial support.
When students show up for their first day of classes this week
and next they will be greeted by many first-year teachers who are
replacing veteran ones who accepted early retirement offers to save
the schools payroll expenses. School days, classroom hours and
teacher planning sessions are all being reduced. “Quality” and
“excellence” will be replaced by “survival” and “adequate.” All
student achievements and teaching mastery will be awarded “miracle”
status. What a shame.
This will be a school year unlike almost any other. New lesson
plans will be required in all the basic subjects of math, reading,
writing, phys. ed., sports, fine arts and extracurricular
programs.
The new math lesson this year will be “how to meet higher
expectations with less and less state funding and resources.”
California teachers have lots of practice at this. Overall public
school funding was cut by $3 billion last year, sinking California
schools to 47th place overall in the nation.
Technically, the state cuts to local schools are only a loan.
The $10 billion is supposed to be repaid to local schools in the
future. But, do the math. California’s $86 billion budget is more
than $1 billion short of being balanced and is propped up by
ridiculous assumptions that overall revenues and tax receipts will
not continue to decline. These are the folks who passed out IOUs a
few weeks ago. Sacramento’s numbers don’t add up. Subtraction is a
new dirty word.
Speaking of words, local school students need to learn a new
vocabulary to deal with the diminished future these government cuts
promise.
For instance, most new textbook purchases have been cancelled.
This year’s social studies and history books will not include such
facts and events as the election of President Obama, the near
demise of the American auto industry, or the Wall Street credit
collapse.
Science books will be very short on ongoing developments about
climate change, important environmental studies and the emerging
debate over stem cell research, among other topics.
Yes, students and teachers are free to do extra research on the
Internet, by Googling and other high academic means. But that
misses one important reading lesson: the state of California
requires local schools to purchase up-to-date textbooks. But in
this year of fraudulent budgeting and deceitful lawmaking, the
state legislature is simply saying, “never mind.”
Thanks to the tireless volunteer work of athletic, arts and club
boosters, there will be prep sports programs this year. School
campuses will continue to sprout life after 3 p.m. and will be able
to spread out around the community.
On behalf of most local schools’ parcel tax funding, broken
computers may still be repaired and school library doors will not
be padlocked. Arts, music and enrichment programs will likely not
be expanding for yet another year.
Welcome back to school where every lesson this year is about the
economy.