With a financial squeeze (?strangle hold? might actually be more accurate) on the horizon for Ohio,?voters are eager to hear how soon-to-be elected officials will handle the state's mammoth budget hole. Not surprisingly, many fear the budget saw (see photo below for a special Fordham interpretation of ?budget saw?) will fall on K-12 education as it represents 40 percent of the state's budget. As Terry mentioned in last week's Gadfly article, education spending in Ohio has been increasing at an alarming rate over the past two decades, even as enrollment numbers have declined.
Unfortunately, most districts have neither the interest in nor the power to?dramatically rethink their spending, specifically by cutting excess staff: the most costly expenditure. Personnel funding remains plump while important programs and services have to hope for budgetary table scraps. The following is a list of common (but marginal) trimmings already applied to schools:
1.?????? Cut foreign language programs. Surely our graduates will never have to interact with people from other countries.
2.?????? Charge fees. Pay-to-play sports and arts fees, class fees, technology fees, busing fees, parking fees?any kind of fees you can think of, really.
3.????? Quit stocking the janitor's closet; that's what back-to-school supply lists are for.
4.????? Scrap the civics tests. Even if some of Ohio's lowest scores were in social studies.
5.????? Cut busing.
6.????? Cut AP courses. That's why they have remedial courses in college, right?
7.????? Don't buy new textbooks, especially for history courses.
8.????? Close schools, even if they're high-performing.
Says one teachers union president, ?There is no really good decision? when it comes to making budget cuts. I suppose that's true if cutting an alarmingly excessive work force does not qualify as a ?good decision.? Relying on the old standby budget-cutting strategies listed above is like trying to lose weight by ordering a supersized burger and fries but ordering a diet Coke. The temptation facing us, of course, may be to add new items to the list of strategies: new fees, new program cuts, etc. But as anyone who has ever dieted will tell you, you won't end up making any substantial cuts on a diet of burgers and fries.
-????????? Nick Joch, Fordham Policy & Research Intern