Do you go to school? Do you have children attending a public school? Maybe you have children about to start school? Are you a teacher?
If you answered yes to any of those questions you should read this article.
Our state legislators are about to cut 4 billion dollars from our public education system over the next two years. A 6% cut in 2012 and a 2 billion dollar cut in 2013. This is probably not new news to anyone.
What some people may not know is that legally our legislators can not do this, so that is why they are in a special session right now. They are trying to agree on changing the law. State law states our public education system must be funded by a minimum of 8 billion dollars for every two years. Since we cannot afford this funding according to our legislators we must change the law and find ways to cut 4 billion dollars from the budget.
What this means state wide and locally is thousands of teachers will be fired. Pre kindergarten programs would most likely be lost. There will be no more educating field trips for our students. Classroom sizes will grow to uncontrollable sizes. Programs that help struggling students would be gone. Latch key programs would be no longer.
Understanding that in order to make a budget shortfall without increasing taxes, you must make cuts somewhere. But is that the only avenue to help ease the budget shortfall? If there are other ways to help save jobs, programs, and our education system in general, shouldn't we use any and all of them? How can a legislator explain to the public that they allowed all of these cuts to happen without trying everything available to them to stop some of them?
In the state of Texas we have a so called Rainy Day Fund, that is to be used for public education emergencies. That fund now sits with 9 billion dollars in it. This fund is driven by natural gas and oil revenues from the state. By no means is the Rainy Day Fund the complete answer to the public education budget shortfall. But by using some of this fund it will ease some of the pain inflicted by all of the cuts being made now.
We will still have to make cuts, but we will not have to raise taxes or spend new money to help with the shortfall. We already have this money in the bank.
Our legislators used 3 billion dollars of this fund in the last education budget that just ended. So why not now?
It comes down to politics really. Gov. Rick Perry has stated that this state needs fiscal discipline. Not just to dip into a fund every time we need something. Gov. Perry is very proud to say that he has balanced a budget in a state without having to raise taxes on its citizens. Well Gov. Perry is also eyeing a presidential nomination in 2012. These are things that look good on paper and to voters on other areas of the country.
So maybe he balances a budget with no increases in taxes, but if it is at the cost of thousands of jobs and our education system is it really worth it?
Our legislators have a very tough job in making these decisions that affect us, that I agree with. What I don't agree with is those same legislators not trying every avenue possible to save someone's job or a young child's education. These things, jobs and education will no doubt suffer, if we make the projected cuts. Even with the use of the Rainy Day Fund these things will suffer, but not nearly as bad. Is saving some jobs, some programs and some of our children's education not important to our legislators? This doesn't have to be a all or nothing situation. Any help is good help.
What do you think about the use of the Rainy Day Fund? Is saving something better then saving nothing?
Tell us what you think.
Agree or disagree at least we know what the PEOPLE think. L2
2 comments:
Use the money please. These kids are our future.
@Anonymous thank you for your comment. Please sign up tp follow us and subscribe via email. I agree with you that our children are our future. As it stands now our public education is not tops in the world. We are behind in many categories when compared to other nations. And now they want to cut more from our education system. Ok I can understand some cuts but if there are ways to save teachers, programs and schools then why not? The one problem I really see is if they make thses cuts, which it looks like the will, they will just keep cutting in the future. The legislators will say "See you did fine after we cut 4 billion so now we are going to cut alittle more and you will be fine". Lets use all avenues available to us to save our teachers jobs and our childrens education.
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