School budget cuts threaten gains

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By Andrea Billups

Marching bands are silenced. Sports programs, summer school and driver's education are being slashed. Schools are facing closure and consolidation.

Teachers, many now vacuuming their own classrooms, have been told to do away with space heaters and office refrigerators because they consume expensive electricity. Even the school year is being shortened as districts across the nation are making hard choices amid a worsening recession as they deal with budget woes.

"If school districts think it's bad now, it's likely to get worse in the next couple of years," said Michael Petrilli, vice president of programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington, who paints a grim portrait of the economy's influence on education. He noted that as local revenues from property taxes continue to plummet, many districts likely will lose even more funding as foreclosures mount with increasing job losses.

Even as some hope that the economic stimulus will bring some relief, he said, children are the ones who ultimately lose as education bears a big hit from the downturn.

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"I think the truth of this is that this crisis has taken the focus away from educational improvements and raising achievement and put the focus on simply battening down the hatches and trying to make it through," he said.

"I would be surprised to see the progress we've made in recent years continue, and I am not optimistic that this is a period where we will see strong gains in student achievement."

In Florida's Broward County, the school board, facing $160 million in budget cuts, this week debated killing several middle and high school sports programs, based on participation rates. In adjoining Dade County, two mothers outraged over state budget cuts went on a seven-day hunger strike, camping out across from Ronald Reagan Doral High School in January to protest that school system's loss of music and art programs and curbs on student elective courses.

Pontiac, Mich., school district employees could all face layoffs as early as April.

The struggling city must react to shrinking enrollment - from 20,000 to about 7,000 - and loss of state funding along with a citywide financial emergency declared by Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, amidst a $12 million deficit.