Early in the year, many states and districts were bracing for a massive wave of job cuts among teachers. Florida education officials had even started preparing a virtually total elimination of art, music, and even physical education programs. Despite the prospect of federal funding assistance, many districts and state planners were not accounting for that money before it had been passed – or before it had been authorized & delivered to the state budget coffers.
Now however, the funds have started to arrive at the state level for allocation to local school districts and state universities. Art and music teachers in Florida are now being told that their jobs are safe and that their subjects will be funded in full for the next academic year.
While this is good news for teachers, students, and parents, many states still face projected budget shortfalls and there is no guarantee that new rounds of cuts will be made despite the infusion of stimulus funds. Mayors and Governors are particularly hesitant to raise taxes – angry voters are likely to replace anyone who makes their lives more expensive. As those shortfalls turn in to new cuts, politicians may look toward the schools again – epsecially as arts, music, and theater tends to appeal to a smaller segment of the student body.
Current federal standards testing favors teaching students core academic classes like writing and math. So long as these metrics determine funding eligibility, school administrators have an incentive to sacrifice anything that isn’t being directly measured by these federal testing standards. For now, many teaching jobs are safe, but the stimulus bailout is temporary at best – budget issues will need to be resolved in the next year or we’ll be set up repeat this jobs drama all over again.
May 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Awesome news! My mother is an art teacher and I have definitely been worrying about this. They definitely could still make some cuts though. But it definitely makes things look better.
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:46 am
Without education, No career.
Without Teacher No education.
June 15th, 2010 at 4:02 am
Education is undoubtedly a vital field, because every thing in the world depends on education. I saw that on a website someplace — a non-profit organization in the Philippines. Teachers work hard at their craft (the majority of them, anyway). But there are several who appear to have a gift to inspire. My senior high school world history teacher was one of those. She had lived in China as a growing up. When she taught in Rockville, Maryland, you could feel the wisdom of all her experience. She didn’t have us memorize dates. That had been the first truly good thing I had heard from a history teacher. What she said next took the subject several magnitudes higher in value. She wanted us to comprehend the motivations of history — the deeply visceral, human areas of what can somewhat be a deadly dry subject. Jaime Escalante of “Stand and Deliver” fame, dared to dream big. Calculus for the typically dropout crowd? Pushing them to go on to college? Wow. And I’ve this publication called, “Calculus Made Easy,” by Sylvanus P. Thompson, first published in 1910. It’s been through many printings all to generate an uncomplicated subject simple. What can we do to create more tutors who inspire world-changing excellence? Einstein once testified that imagination is a lot more important than knowledge. Knowledge can present you with the foundation. Imagination can take you to the stars. Don’t our kids deserve better?
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:26 pm
This is a bit of good news. I just hope the budget issue will be solved at the soonest possible time. The Obama Administration should focus itself on this and other education problems that the country is facing.
August 12th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Its really a great informative post thanks for sharing
April 28th, 2012 at 7:15 am
As unemployment slowly improves and the economy sluggishly rebounds, college graduates must be very anxious about their place in the current labor market. The issue that job growth is barely enough to keep up with the number of recent graduates and teachers who lost their jobs is worrisome. College seniors and current education majors must worry about the number of experienced teachers that are sitting on the sidelines in addition to the unlikelihood that school leaders will hire for new teaching posts this year.