It’s mid October and based on the Austin American Statesman, schools are being seriously shorted the money they need to be adequately run. As a result, the 150 Texas school districts that are a part of the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, are suing the state for the serious decrease in public school funding. Just over the summer, schools had lost out in over $4 billion in funding. Now, I do recall writing a post about that same amount of money earlier this semester. It was a little while after the summer that many teachers throughout Texas went unemployed due to the $4 billion loss known as state budget cuts. The teachers that were left then had more work to do, gaining larger class sizes and any additional work that other employees would’ve normally done had they not lost their jobs. Of course, all the extra work for the same pay they had before.
The coalition states “that the school finance system is unfair, inefficient and unconstitutional” and “doesn't treat Texas schoolchildren or taxpayers fairly.” There are schools outside of Texas that I know to have performing arts academies, medical and technical programs, and etcetera while we struggle to even keep basic elective courses in our schools. It doesn’t make sense for my mom to come out of pocket for more school supplies because the school can’t afford them. Also for her to keep paying taxes just so my sister can go to school and solely take core classes with thirty to forty of her peers. Public education is already not the best so why be so ready to make it worse? I could go on and on but nothing will change for the better until the legislature does and only time, and our students, will tell.
Same Pay More Work
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with everything my colleague had to say about the four billiond dollar shortage the Texas district schools had to go through. The Texas legislature should be worring on how to improve education instead of making it worse. Classes should be getting smaller to help individual learning instead they had to unemploy many teachers making classes larger, which only makes it harder on those students that really need that one on one help. It is also unfair for lower income families that have to provide more money for their kids on supplies that they previously didn't have to buy, but now since the school cant afford to continue buying them the parents have to.
The whole process is unfair and everyone suffers from it. Parents because they are having to spend more, yet they have the same job with the same pay. Teachers because they are being unemployed, and the ones remaining have to deal with an increase in class size which makes it harder. Students because they aren't learning as they should. Even the janitors or faculty workers in the schools suffer because their work load just doubled, but their pay has stayed exactly the same.
The Texas legislator needs to reconsider and find a better solution for all the caouse they've made.