Mortgaging the Future

It’s been a tough school year for teachers in our state. This year we have faced challenges from the all sides of the political spectrum, and now we face almost $5 billion in devastating budget cuts. As we approach the end of the 07-08 school year and we look back, California teachers faced much more than the “regular” challenges of being educators. This past school year we had to deal with a push to re-authorize the NCLB legislation at the Federal level and not by the right, which we’ve learned to expect, but this time the push came from Democrats whom we’ve counted as allies in the past. Rep. George Miller and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in what I can only surmise as a misguided attempt to not cede the “education issue” to Republicans, were sponsoring the legislation. Teachers were able to organize and push back; the Miller/Pelosi bill never came out of committee.

As the NCLB came to at least a temporary halt, California educators now must contend with a proposed $4.8 billion in cuts to the state’s education budget. Programs are being cut, thousands of teachers have been told they would not be rehired. Schools have been closed. So as teachers bring the current school year to an end and begin planning for next school year, the outlook is bleak for many, devastating to some.

While Governor Schuwarzenegger’s proposal for a 10% across the board cut may be the political expedient way out. It’s also the lazy politician’s way out. He can claim fairness and at the same time make none of the extremely difficult decisions that a leader is elected to make. Cutting $4.8 billion from the education budget is a travesty.

At a time when companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and many of our state’s leading biotech companies are clamoring for engineers and scientists. At a time when they are importing these highly educated workers from other parts of the world to make up the shortage, we are cutting funding for colleges and universities, where engineers come from. High Schools are cutting staff and are looking at overcrowded classes and science labs where conditions will be unsafe and less than optimum for the hands on experience that science requires. In essence, this budget proposal is mortgaging the future of our children and our society.

Our state leadership is making our children pay for the mistakes of the past with their future, because they want to avoid making even more difficult and unpopular decisions. So they buy their political careers today by mortgaging the future of the next generation. The true mark of gutless politicians.

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