The school superintendent in this rural Texas town Hutto is working to trademark the school mascot Hutto Hippo. He is also planning to put advertisements on school buses and to let retailers have space on the school Web site. All these to raise some extra cash for the school district.
Texas State legislature is trying to slash $4.8B in state aid over the next two years. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would’ve to be laid off to absorb the cuts. This is all irrespective of the fact that, Texas High school graduation rate ranks 43rd out of 50 states. Graduation rate is 61.3%, compared to national rate 69.3%
What happened, how did Texas end up in this kind of deficit? The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole. Last year Fed stimulus money, 3.3B was used to plug the hole. Now that also dried up.
Texas isn’t alone in this, almost all the school districts (except very few) in the country are experiencing these deficits. I can see why state legislatures are going for these cuts. Unlike Fed government, states can’t have deficits on their budgets. They’ve to balance their budgets. I wouldn’t blame Texas or any other state particularly for doing this.
But lack of discretion in these cuts is what bothering me. Not all spending is equal. Schools should take precedent over discretionary spending. Kids education is the most important investment for any Nation’s future. If we don’t educate the kids well, how are we going to compete in this knowledge based economy. A note to NJ and WI Governors. Stop demonizing your teachers.
We already’ve China in our rear view mirror. Shanghai teens had beaten US teens in Program for International Student Assessment Test, known as PISA. This is their debut year in the testing. In one 2006 international assessment, the U.S. ranked 35th out of 57 in mathematics and 29th out of 57 in science.
Born and raised in India, for my parents nothing’s more important than our education. Like all my friends, myself and my sister were also sent to a private school as public education isn’t good. Unfortunately in USA, private schools are out of reach even for upper middle class.
As I see it, states doesn’t have much money left. But Federal govt has some leeway, if our legislature and executive are serious about it. Stop the tax breaks and payouts for these corporate welfare queens. Big oil, Ethanol growers, Defense industry, Agri Business, Banks, list goes on.
Let me finish with a news byte about Egypt. Egypt received approx 1.3B USD military funding every year since 1975. Israel receives 2.1B annually! Make no mistake, all that foreign aid money comes back to defense companies in USA. You can see, how this works. Defense companies approaches Lobbyists, who'll then lobby for foreign aid for warring nations. These companies deliberately spread out operation to many number of states. Whenever Budget committees try to cut down aid or reduce spending on defense, corporates play job card and the dance continues.
We keep hearing this line from people in the office and people running for the office. “America the Exceptional”. America is exceptional, because of the investments it put in education. And if it has to remain exceptional, we need to put attention back on primary education.
There’re almost 13,000 lobbyists in DC, serving the needs of corporates, labor unions, non profit groups et al. But no body is lobbying or fighting for our kids. It's on you to fight for your kids. Being single and no kids, I can't suggest effective ways to get attention of legislature and governors. Try Social networking or go old school. Write to your Congressman or Senator about this.
Peace.
Texas State legislature is trying to slash $4.8B in state aid over the next two years. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would’ve to be laid off to absorb the cuts. This is all irrespective of the fact that, Texas High school graduation rate ranks 43rd out of 50 states. Graduation rate is 61.3%, compared to national rate 69.3%
What happened, how did Texas end up in this kind of deficit? The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole. Last year Fed stimulus money, 3.3B was used to plug the hole. Now that also dried up.
Texas isn’t alone in this, almost all the school districts (except very few) in the country are experiencing these deficits. I can see why state legislatures are going for these cuts. Unlike Fed government, states can’t have deficits on their budgets. They’ve to balance their budgets. I wouldn’t blame Texas or any other state particularly for doing this.
But lack of discretion in these cuts is what bothering me. Not all spending is equal. Schools should take precedent over discretionary spending. Kids education is the most important investment for any Nation’s future. If we don’t educate the kids well, how are we going to compete in this knowledge based economy. A note to NJ and WI Governors. Stop demonizing your teachers.
We already’ve China in our rear view mirror. Shanghai teens had beaten US teens in Program for International Student Assessment Test, known as PISA. This is their debut year in the testing. In one 2006 international assessment, the U.S. ranked 35th out of 57 in mathematics and 29th out of 57 in science.
Born and raised in India, for my parents nothing’s more important than our education. Like all my friends, myself and my sister were also sent to a private school as public education isn’t good. Unfortunately in USA, private schools are out of reach even for upper middle class.
As I see it, states doesn’t have much money left. But Federal govt has some leeway, if our legislature and executive are serious about it. Stop the tax breaks and payouts for these corporate welfare queens. Big oil, Ethanol growers, Defense industry, Agri Business, Banks, list goes on.
Let me finish with a news byte about Egypt. Egypt received approx 1.3B USD military funding every year since 1975. Israel receives 2.1B annually! Make no mistake, all that foreign aid money comes back to defense companies in USA. You can see, how this works. Defense companies approaches Lobbyists, who'll then lobby for foreign aid for warring nations. These companies deliberately spread out operation to many number of states. Whenever Budget committees try to cut down aid or reduce spending on defense, corporates play job card and the dance continues.
We keep hearing this line from people in the office and people running for the office. “America the Exceptional”. America is exceptional, because of the investments it put in education. And if it has to remain exceptional, we need to put attention back on primary education.
There’re almost 13,000 lobbyists in DC, serving the needs of corporates, labor unions, non profit groups et al. But no body is lobbying or fighting for our kids. It's on you to fight for your kids. Being single and no kids, I can't suggest effective ways to get attention of legislature and governors. Try Social networking or go old school. Write to your Congressman or Senator about this.
Peace.
