Recently, Gov. John Hickenlooper proposed increasing already deep cuts to education by another $332 million for the coming fiscal year. Such are the times that we as a society have become numb to the size and true implications of that figure. For many, it remains just a number.
To put this budget cut into perspective, it is important to note that the state failed to earn $175 million in federal Race to the Top dollars, despite passing the controversial Senate Bill 191 in 2010. We are now forced to cut nearly twice that amount from our education budget.
Including the money lost in Race to the Top, Colorado school districts are being asked to function with more than half of a billion dollars less than the amount believed to be available last June.
Colorado schools, of course, do have problems, and they are compounded by the state’s budget issues.
Certainly in times of economic crisis, every sector must make sacrifices. However, making bold claims about the need for education reform and then stripping districts of the tools to implement those reforms reeks of hypocrisy.
Our schools do need help. There is no school in the state that cannot improve in some way the quality of the education they provide. And there are some schools that need to make significant strides to offer the quality education our communities desire.
Now, all schools are being asked to do more with much less.
Schools presently offer a variety of programs to reach underserved populations and to challenge high- achieving students. These extra programs will be first on the chopping block. Classes that do not serve large populations will likely be eliminated, with those students being folded into larger, mainstream courses.
Specialized reading courses that focus on getting poor readers up to grade level will be a thing of the past, just as some less popular Advanced Placement classes will no longer be a viable option for most schools.
Education works when it serves the needs of all learners, not when all learners receive the same education.
With the cuts that Gov. Hickenlooper suggests, it will be difficult for schools to avoid layoffs. Most school districts will do all they can to avoid firing good teachers, but that is one of the consequences of these actions. Instead of attracting qualified, quality teachers, school districts across the state will be shedding them.
The problem with these cuts is not that they increase class sizes or teacher workloads. Instead, they severely impair the ability of schools to adequately serve their entire population.
In their hiring processes, good schools look for teachers who have the ability to inspire students to learn and to achieve. A community can accept no less from its educators. The fact that a quality education is not available in all schools is nothing short of a tragedy, which makes the attention paid to improving our schools such a positive sign. Together, concerned parties can work to find solutions to the problems that face education in Colorado. However, in no way do the solutions for improving school performance lie in funding cuts.
Education reform has been a pressing topic in Colorado’s political discourse. It has been almost a year since Senate Bill 191 was signed into law. While the logistics of how to implement this law are still being debated, one thing is certain: The money to fund the law doesn’t exist.
Our students need more than good political discourse about education reform. We need policymakers and a governor who will work to fix the problems in schools instead of drowning its educators in a sea of unfunded mandates and budget cuts.
Brian Kurz is a teacher with the Cherry Creek School District.
