Posts Tagged ‘Budget Cuts’

Lean Times in Prince William County

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Superintendent Steven L. Walts’ proposed budget for Prince William County schools combines no layoffs with pay freezes to make a frugal yet satisfying budget.

The total proposed budget is $864 million. That’s $36 million more than was spent last year. The extra bucks will enable the district to add more classrooms as planned.

As for the rest of the budget, first, the good news: Walts’ budget preserves the jobs of all school employees. For those employees living on the cusp of despair in this harsh economy, that will be a relief. This will be the first time since 2007 that nobody was axed. In fact, the school district is planning to hire 175 more teachers.

Other programs that survived in this proposed budget include English as a Second Language and free and reduced-price lunch programs. One out of every three students qualifies for the free and reduced-price lunch, so the program’s preservation is a must.

On the other hand, for the fourth year in a row no school employees will be getting pay raises. No doubt this will frustrate a great number of people, but given the preservation of jobs, it seems a fair trade off. Plus, next spring, employees will get a one percent bonus. But that will not be a recurring reward.

The pay freezes are one cost of preserving positions and programs. Here are a few others: Prince William County has the lowest per-pupil spending rate in the Washington area — $9,577 per student. That is half what Arlington and Alexandria spend. Also, while there will be no reduction in health benefits for employees, rates will increase.

In times of financial strife, Prince William County is doing what it must with the resources it has available. No district in this nation is escaping the effects of our economy. And though American finances are improving, they are by no means where they need to be.

As is always the case in situations like these, parent and teacher options are few. In order to operate the county’s school system effectively, one of two things has to happen. Either the school district makes do with less money or citizens pay out more in taxes. That is a tough line to straddle, and for every person willing to spend more for good schools, there will be another who will stand opposed to the idea.

Until the economy returns to its full flourish, these decisions will continue to be faced. And whatever the choice, the schools have to be creative if they are to keep high-quality education available for Prince William County’s children.

To read more about the proposed budget, go here.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in School System Updates | Comments Off

More Cuts Could Be Coming–This Time from the Feds

Monday, February 28th, 2011

The perpetual budget crisis in our nation’s schools continues. This time the focus isn’t on local funding cuts but federal ones.

Early on February 19, the House of Representatives voted to cut more than $5 billion out of the U.S. Department of Education’s current-year budget. As usual for a House sharply divided by partisan philosophies, the budget cuts went through on a party-line vote. The final score: 235-189.

According to this article by Education Week, the Senate isn’t expected to sustain the cuts, and even if it did, it’s anticipated that President Barack Obama would use his veto to ensure that the education department doesn’t lose so much of its cash.

Part of the trimming in the House came from cuts in School Improvement Grants of $336.6 million and Teacher Quality State Grants of $500 million.

The reasoning given by Democrats and Republicans for their respective opposition and support of education cuts follows orthodox party rhetoric. Republicans say that cuts are necessary in these tough economic times and they are trying to spread them fairly, and Democrats say that the damage these education cuts would do outweighs their savings in dollars. The Democrats also use the veiled statement that we need “revenue increases” as a polite way of saying we must raise “new taxes.”

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with either of these positions. Both cutting spending and raising taxes are reasonable and time-honored ways of preserving resources in the federal budget. But the sharp adherence to one or the other policy by both parties means that these debates always end predictably—whichever side has greater numbers wins.

However, Republicans can only win in the short term. With a Democrat in the White House, the all-powerful veto stands as the ultimate impediment to their legislative plans. So in the end, the only options we are left with are failure or stagnation. Neither side can really gain. That is unless they work together and compromise — a possibility that seems anathema to both political parties.

But for the good of the people, we will need to see some reasonableness from both sides when trying to figure out the best way to preserve and create federal budgets during economic crisis, especially when education is at stake.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Education in the News | Comments Off

Merit Pay Snafu

Monday, December 27th, 2010

The Prince William County school system plan to institute a merit pay program in some of its schools may have hit a snag. The Federal Department of Education provided the school system with an $11.1 million grant to pay for the five-year Teacher Incentive Performance Award pilot initiative, but it turns out that the taxpayers will still end up footing some of the bill.

At a school board meeting, Prince William County officials found out that the school system will have to pay 20 percent of the program’s cost the first year. Then the percentage the school system pays will go up 20 percent every year until it is taking care of 80 percent of the tab in the 2015-2016 school year.

The idea is that the school system should demonstrate its ability to continue to fund the program beyond the life of the grant. Unfortunately, school board members who were so keen on the merit pay program didn’t realize when they voted for it that taxpayer money was going to have to pay for some of the program in the near term.

This news comes in the midst of a poor economy and a sour outlook for the school system’s budget. It was cut $25.6 million from last year. At the same time, enrollment increased by 2,460 students.

While it looked like this experiment in merit pay was going to be free for county schools, the reality is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The taxpayers must pony up.

For those that don’t remember, the merit pay program is a system where well-performing teachers will get extra compensation for their efforts in the classroom. Nobody’s salary would be affected negatively by the program, but some teachers will end up making more money than their peers. The program is planned only for the poorest schools in the system. The hope is that by offering merit pay, teachers will be inspired and student achievement will rise as a result.

The only “question” left now is how willing are taxpayers to start paying for this experiment in the near term? Everybody thought the monetary burden was going to be delayed, but instead it’s immediate, and in a tough economic time, painful.

It is generally recognized that something must be done to help students in the poorest and lowest performing school systems. Merit pay is just one experiment that is being conducted in an effort to improve the quality at such schools. Eventually, if they are to have a real chance of succeeding, taxpayers at the local level are going to have to pay. Of course, since the grant came from federal funds, the taxpayers are already paying, but the impact is less immediate.

If merit pay is effective, then it might be worth the cost. If it’s not, then the county could just be throwing money away. Time will tell which outcome is true.

To read more about this, go to Washington Examiner.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in School System Updates | Comments Off

Online Textbooks Here We Come

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

Educators are turning the page on school textbooks — the future is online.

A pilot program in Fairfax County will provide classes at certain schools with netbooks which will give access to textbooks online instead of in print. Social studies classes at six high schools and six middle schools will be part of the year-long study.

Fairfax is following the lead of Frederick and Arlington counties, which are moving toward the use of online textbooks.

Naturally there are drawbacks to phasing out printed books and moving online. One concern is access: Will all students have the ability to get on the Internet and access online books when not at school? And what will happen when teachers open the Pandora’s Box that is the Internet? Will students use their netbooks for accessing online textbooks? Or will they goof off during class by surfing sites like Facebook?

There are, of course, positive aspects to the plan as well. One big advantage to online textbooks is cost. The printed behemoths that have lived in our children’s classrooms for decades are expensive. Doing away with them would be a big cost-saving measure for schools.

You can read more about this at The Washington Post.

The truth is that fate outweighs opinion on this issue. As the printed page moves online in all aspects of our culture, schools are sure to follow suit. If they do not, students might find themselves at a disadvantage.

Observe the chaos in the newspaper industry as periodicals increasingly move their pages online and attempt to find new business models to sustain them.

Watch how the Kindle, Nook, and other digital reading devices transform the book publishing industry.

Pay attention as bloggers and other online writers begin to sway the conversations once left to the established American intelligentsia.

The Internet has transformed our world like nothing before, and the changes are coming whether the schools want them or not. The choice left is whether to be early adopters or latecomers to the digital party. Either way, especially with financial crisis lingering for the foreseeable future, schools will probably end up adopting online textbooks eventually.

Whether this change is a good idea or bad is something that will be left to others to decide. But is it inevitable? Probably so. And schools would do well to recognize that fact.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Educational Practices | Comments Off

Great News in Prince William County

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

If you are a parent or student at a Prince William County school, some recent news should have you smiling.

Everybody knows that governments at every level have been facing tough financial decisions in light of the fact that our nation’s economy is still on shaky ground. The Prince William County school system, when formulating its 2011 budget, had a particularly hard choice to make.

In the original budget proposed by Superintendent Steven L. Walts, more than 700 school system jobs were slated for cuts. Naturally, that would have significantly impacted the nature of the student experience. There would have been fewer teachers and support staff in the schools to facilitate and nurture learning.

In March, the county school system realized that the number of layoffs could be reduced to a number closer to 200 as a result of then-current budget projections. The number was still worrisome, but just like that, hundreds of jobs appeared safe.

If things had stopped there, this would be a different, more depressing story; but, fortunately, the school system has managed to gradually whittle the number of layoffs down to zero. That’s right, not a single person is being laid off in the Prince William county school system.

Every resource a student can get his or her hands on is valuable, especially when it comes to human resources. How many of us can remember the people who in some way shaped our lives? There were the teachers who inspired us to pursue our passions, the administrators who set our feet on the straight and narrow path of success, the staff members who made us feel at home. With every job cut, a student loses a chance to meet one of those special people.

But now, that is no longer a worry. Parents and students can rest easy knowing that all their favorite — and perhaps not-so-favorite — school system employees will be at the schools for some time to come. Unless, of course, they choose to leave on their own.

To read the latest article about the school layoffs, go to Inside Nova.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in School System Updates | Comments Off