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There has been 4 straight years of budget cuts (called austerity on the world stage) at my school in Brooklyn, New York. Larger classes has been just one of the major effects of these cuts to our funding. Our seniors, who came to our school because of the promise of four years of math and science, as well as a diverse selection of electives, are now mostly only taking the minimum amount of courses, which does not include electives, math, or science. The budget cuts meant a tremendous cut in our after-school programs. Our students do not want to go home and sit in front of a computer by themselves, yet schools are increasingly telling our children to leave at 3:00 instead of offering robust after-school activities that will foster creativity while keeping our children “off the streets”.
Many people like hearing that “government” is being trimmed down and our city agencies are spending less, but do they really understand what the term “budget cuts” entails. It means a decrease in the amount of funding for; plays, musicals, dancing and drama clubs, yearbook, and newspaper. These activities help our students gain the necessary skills to compete in the globalized business world, skills such as innovation, collaboration, and the ability to produce results. The loss of courses has resulted in our children leaving school with less Math and Science just when they need it most. Electives such as Psychology, Criminal and Constitutional Law, Forensic Science, Organic Chemistry, Public Speaking and Debate, among others help nurture critical thinking skills of analysis and evaluation while exposing our children to subjects outside of the core that they may want to further pursue in college.
I must inevitably get political here, I tend to subscribe to Paul Krugman’s theory on how to solve the current economic problem. We should have spent more money not less. America and it’s localities should have reinvested more funding for schools to stay open after 3:00 and offer more courses for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) clubs, more money could be used to better equip our schools with the latest technologies, we should have brought more teachers in with different specialties and added additional courses, and of course we should have reduced class sizes so that each child receives the individualized attention that he/she needs and deserves. Increased investment in our schools would not have immediate results for our children (although it would have kept thousands if not millions of educators at work and off the unemployment lines), but in years to come the country would see results that could never be measured by any standardized test. Our children would have learned invaluable skills from creating more science projects, exciting plays or musicals on stage, how to play instruments, and the ability to develop publications. These are skills that would help our country continue to lead the world in innovation. Extra money for our schools would have meant that our children entered college with a diverse academic background because of all the different courses they took. Instead we are now sending our children into the world with a limited academic background and little hands-on experience that comes from extra-curricular activities. All in the name of budget cuts.
People will tell me the local and national governments simply didn’t have the money so we had to have austerity, but somehow they found the funds to pay private text-book and consulting companies to develop countless tests and standards that have no real world meaning for our students.
Mike Schirtzer
Teacher- Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences
Member of- Movement of Rank & File Educators- Social Justice Caucus of UFT
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
On the economics point — govt funding to pay school salaries is excellent stimulus spending. Virtually all school employees are middle-class. That means, they spend virtually all of what they earn. Govt dollars spent on teacher salaries are re-spent by the teachers as consumer spending; the consumer spending, in turn, generates demand for goods/services that convinces rational businesses to increase inventory/expand facilities/start new business, all of which means more employment.
By contrast, to the extent that govt funding to build capital projects is less effective as stimulus spending. Although most of the $ will eventually go to pay middle-class salaries, a significant amount of the $ will go as profits and/or salaries to high-income individuals who will save rather than spend the $ with little/no resulting increase in consumer spending and demand for goods/services.
And, govt funding to pay school salaries gets the $ into circulation immediately. Govt funding to build capital projects — even the allegedly “shovel-ready” projects — has a lead time of at least 6 months and often several years before that govt funding translates into salaries available for consumer spending.
This! “People will tell me the local and national governments simply didn’t have the money so we had to have austerity, but somehow they found the funds to pay private text-book and consulting companies to develop countless tests and standards that have no real world meaning for our students.”
During all the pseudo-hand-wringing the Republicans did about how much money we didn’t have in all the various states and about how children, teachers, and schools would just have to ‘suck it up’ and make do with less, I never once heard a Republican say the following to one of the test-producing companies: “Hey, everyone is suffering here and we’ll have to ask you to accept your fair share of it as well. For the next couple of years you will have to forego x% of what we would normally pay you since we’re asking districts to make do with x% less as well.”
It’s a shame that test producers now take greater priority in the United States than children and teachers.
Dear Mike,
As a public school teacher, I really don’t think any of these “people” are interested in improving education. There is no use trying to reason or use logic with the reformers. They want to break the union, pay teachers much less (less taxes), and perhaps allow their friends to make a profit and kick back some money to them. That is all they want. They don’t give a damn about fixing education or helping the poor, and you shouldn’t be naive about this or upset when they don’t respond. They won’t respond. They want larger class sizes!! They don’t want critical thinkers! That is completely against their interests….The testing companies will allow them to “churn” the teachers and keep wages low. No teacher will test well under value-added for ever. It will be a rigged game, and that is exactly the point of VAM. That is why they invest money in these “teacher killer” apps. These are same people who want to get rid of the minimum wage. This is about money and lowering taxes. This is about turning the public anger at Wall Street towards the public servants. The amazing thing is that the idea ‘stuck.’ The American middle class, dying and suffering, diverted their anger against the one last group of middle class workers who still had a union and middle class wages: the teachers. Soon they will go after fireman and policemen as well. Instead of working at Walmart and saying, “Hey, why can’t I have a union?” The public decided to destroy (out of envy) the last group of middle class workers. This move of turning one part of the middle class against the other was not hard to see through. I still can’t believe that the public bought this (Well maybe I can). This really wasn’t a very sophisticated “Big Lie.” This kind of deception only works in certain societies. It couldn’t work in France, Scandinavia, or Germany, for example. Eventually everyone will be paid minimum wage (or less) and the elites will be able to keep more of their money. Teaching will be a “temp” job with no credentials needed, high turnover, with no one ever getting close to a pension. This is the “macro” view. The elites can always “import” scientists and intellectuals when they need them from Germany, India, etc. How do you think we developed NASA? They don’t need homegrown scientists or intellectuals in this globalized world. That is another deception. Eventually, the few thinkers left will have to move to a society where teachers are valued or live an isolated monk-like existence here, surrounded by mountains of plastic junk, perhaps tutoring Latin for few apples. Believe me, it depresses me to even say these things to you, but that is how I see it right now. The future is not going to be pretty for any of us. An older teacher warned me about this coming 10 years ago, and I laughed at him, but here we are!
John I agree with you whole heatedly. Your are obviously well schooled on the fake “reform” and motivation ($) behind it. I differ on your final point. I firmly believe collectively if we join together we can stop this. I know your thinking I’m an eternal optimist, but I’m part of group called MORE here in NYC that is educating, organizing, and mobilizing the rank and file educators of UFT to stand against failed policies that harm our children. If we all stand up and collectively say enough is enough, then no super PAC can stop us. The great teachers in Chicago have stood up, as have Wisconsin, Detroit, Rhode Island, but Americs is waiting for us here in New York to take the lead. I truly want to save public education because I believe in it. I must inspire other teachers, parents, and community members to join me. Our education and more importantly our country’s future is at stake
Mike
Morecaucusnyc.org
Mike
How long has MORE been in existence? This is the first I’m reading about it. What kind of outreach are you doing?
http://www.morecaucusnyc.org
We are a new caucus of the UFT (The NYC teacher’s union) and we believe in: “Educate, Organize, Mobilize” and “our student’s learning conditions are our working conditions”. We are currently organizing by hosting a summer series, reaching out to parent groups such as GEM , have jointly picketed with locked out utility workers, very active on Facebook/twitter/email lists, and fielding candidates to run against the current leadership of UFT who represent the unity caucus. We look to CORE the new social justice caucus of Chicago teacher’s union that took control of their union 2 years ago and is currently in leadership. We firmly believe in building relationships with rank and file educators, parents, student groups, and community members. In order to defend public education we must be prepared to stand up and have our voices heard. Part of our mission to educate the public and rank & file teachers is to publish articles such as the one above.