Unions say 'Money for schools, not war'
Budget cuts put education in crisis
Special to Workers World
New York
Throughout the United States, from coast to coast, states
and cities are struggling to manage full-blown budget crises or
ward off impending ones.
Revenue from sales and income taxes has fallen sharply
because of giveaways to the rich and the downturn in the
capitalist economy. The federal government, which is spending
more than ever on war and repression, has used its power to
push unfunded mandates onto the states, which then shift them
to the cities.
Public education, usually a local respon sibility that
serves mostly children from working-class families, is an easy
target.
Federal money has been drying up at the same time that
federal mandates--like expanded testing and the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2002--put more demands and financial pressures on
school systems.
The result is growing chaos in the school systems.
California is facing a projected $26 billion to $35 billion
budget deficit. Gov. Gray Davis proposes cutting $5 billion out
of spending for education, even though California has lagged
behind other states in this area.
What this means on a local level can be seen in Oceanside,
near San Diego in Southern California. Oceanside has to cut
$4.4 million from its budget. The school board is proposing to
cut temporary teachers, program specialists, a district
administrator, secretaries, custodians and a security
officer--in the middle of the year. It will decide how to make
another $12 million in cuts later in the spring. (San Diego
Union-Tribune, Jan. 28)
Some schools in Oregon, another state with a big budget
crisis, have shortened the school year.
In a proposal that is up for a final vote on Feb. 11,
Minneapolis is planning to cut 289 teaching jobs and more than
100 administrative positions at the district level for the
2003-2004 school year. The district superintendent also wants
to increase class sizes, cut back on district support services,
reduce allocation for building maintenance and demand contract
concessions. Most of the school districts in Minnesota have to
cut millions of dollars from their budgets to adjust to
reductions in state aid. (Star Tribune, Jan. 29)
Schools in Louisiana and Colorado have gone to a four-day
week to stretch their dollars.
In New York state, Gov. George Pataki faces a projected
deficit of $11.3 billion for fiscal year 2003. In a budget
address delivered at the end of January, he called for slashing
state aid to education--which has run about $14 billion
annually--by $1.2 billion.
Money for schools, not war
Some education unions in the country are demanding that the
money planned for war in Iraq go instead for teaching and other
social needs.
Here in New York City, under Pataki's budget the city school
system--with 1 million children it is by far the biggest in the
United States--would be cut by $450 million. It is also
undergoing the biggest reorganization in the past 50 years
after being put under the direct control of billionaire Mayor
Michael Bloomberg.
The senior colleges of the City University of New York are
funded by the state, while its community colleges are
city-funded. Outside New York City the state also funds a
university system--SUNY--consisting of both senior and
community colleges.
Pataki's budget contains an $82 million, 12-percent cut to
CUNY and an $184 million, 15-percent cut to SUNY operating
budgets. The governor also demands that both hike tuition by
$1,200 a year.
Shamsul Haque, a CUNY student trustee enrolled at Baruch
College, says, "Students of the working class, minorities and
immigrants cannot afford such a high tuition hike."
Pataki's budget was supposedly design ed to avoid state tax
increases. But according to New York State United Teachers
President Thomas Hobart, the cuts in education funding would
force a 30-percent real-estate tax increase in some rural
counties and 25 percent in Erie County. Without the added
taxes, Hobart says, these school systems would shut down.
The United Federation of Teachers represents the 80,000
teachers and staff in the public elementary and high schools in
New York,
The UFT has taken a very conciliatory attitude toward the
reorganization plan. The union has invited the schools
chancellor to speak to its delegate assembly and to have
breakfast with the union's executive board.
The Professional Staff Congress represents 20,000 faculty
and staff in the CUNY system. The PSC has endorsed the Feb. 15
anti-war march and will ask the 200,000 students in the CUNY
system to march behind a banner reading "CUNY says: Money for
education, not for war." The PSC's Delegate Assembly has also
endorsed the call for day-after peaceful protests in the CUNY
system or in the city if Bush does start the war. Beyond the
February protests, it has scheduled a day of teach-ins and
speak-outs for March 26.
Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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