Budget cuts affecting public schools
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December 1, 2009 • Lexie Martin
Filed under Student Life
Budget cuts are a very big deal in today’s society because the new budget cuts are preparing public schools for their worst financial crisis ever. This will affect both Cosumnes Oaks High School and other public schools inside California in a negative way because there is a good possibility that there won’t be any freshman sports at our school next year, and they still might have to cut some other sports after that as well. Another problem with the budget cuts is that the loss of the $4 billion a year would force California public schools like Cosumnes Oaks to either raise class sizes by almost 25 percent, shorten the school year by a whole month, fire more than 50,000 teachers and employees, or some combination of these three horrible ideas. These ideas will affect our school in a bad way because we will be short with supplies, teachers, and the opportunity to have the best education available to us.
Although no one wants to see their taxes get raised, I believe that it would be worth it to raise taxes because the children that are in school now are our future, and they have a greater chance of being a productive and successful member of society if they receive a proper education. According to the California Teachers Association, more than 110,000 teachers are at risk of being fired from their jobs come next year. The California County Superintendents Educational Services Association predicts that more than 50 percent of school districts will not be able to meet their financial obligations to their students which would in turn, require the students to pay more for their education. They also estimate that each classroom will receive about $18,000 less than they did the previous year, creating either serious limitations in what teachers can provide for their students or forcing the teachers to spend their own money on classroom supplies, which shouldn’t be necessary for them to do.
Basically, the state of public education in California is in a very bad place right now. With school districts all over the state facing severe financial shortages, both students and teachers may end up working in conditions that are far below national standards, and not to mention a situation California never thought they would end up in. However, we could try our best to help solve this problem by fundraising and donating to the school to try and help support Cosumnes Oaks through these hard times it’s facing.
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I think that our budget cuts are horrible. Whoever is cutting our funding is taking it away from important things, and putting it into some things we probably don’t need. For example, our classes are crammed with students, some up to 40 students (which I think is not good for our learning), while spending a lot more on the construction of a Culinary Arts building that seems to be taking forever to complete. I predict that the majority of us will never even use that building. So instead of spending so much money on the Culinary Arts building, I think we should hire more teachers so the average class size would be smaller. Put in some other classes like woodshop (without building another building), so that our learning environment will be better.
- Eli R.
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I think this problem has been going on for too long and needs to be resolved soon. Throughout my whole school carreer i have been hearing about school budget problems. I think that adding a bit more to taxes is not a bad thing as long as it is used ONLY on the problem. I understand that budget cuts are neccesary in hard times like these, but it just seems unfair that so many teachers must be fired and are already being paid such low wages. I think that fundraising could also be an excellent way to help out with the budget cut problem.
- Kent S.
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