Big budget cuts proposed
I'll provide details tomorrow, but for now suffice it to say... it's more than a little disingenuous for the governor to claim that he's increasing education funding. The proposal that came out this week would strike a serious blow to the state's two neediest school districts: Baltimore and Prince George's County. It would cost the city schools $21 million more than the system had previously expected to cut, leading to about $85 million in reductions and making it impossible to limit the pain to the central office. Prince George's would fare even worse.
On the Baltimore school system's Web site, Dr. Alonso posted an open letter tonight outlining the impact on the city. "It's the end of Thornton as we know it," he told me earlier this evening.
UPDATE, 1/23: See our story today.
Categories: Around the Region, Baltimore City
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Comments
Wake up, parents!!!!!!!! If you want your children to have decent schools and be on a parity with other districts, you are the ones that must speak up. Write, call, yell if you have to. This much of a budget cut to an already stressed system will be a death blow to the gains that we have made over the past few years. School administrators and teachers will only be seen as self-serving when they speak.
Granted, BCPSS still has a long way to go but cutting funding will not help the system in any way. And the funding cuts proposed are so large that, in real dollar terms, there is no way to make sure students will not be negatively impacted. Do we want to go back to huge classes, higher teacher turnover, and buildings that are not able to be minimally maintained? That will happen and there will be no choice. How sad for everyone.
Posted by: vetern teacher | January 23, 2009 5:43 AM
Evidence shows BCPSS aka City Schools central office operations staff/divisions that some are not functiong well and are not efficient or productive with using the resources and materials that they have.
So fix or close those central office operations. The big picture is not only budget cuts it's about being more productive and functioning better to become productive.
Posted by: Interested & Engaged Parent of City Schools | January 23, 2009 10:22 AM