This entry has a serious tone, but it’s important for me to
share these thoughts. As a parent and
educator, I believe we have to fight even harder to protect our children’s
right to a free and quality-filled education.
I hope you read on.
We recently received a letter from the Appoquinimink School
District here in Delaware apprising parents of the fact that the school
districts across Delaware had be faced with a growing number of state and
federal funding cuts since 2008 and that while enrollment has increased 16.7%,
the discretionary state funding per pupil has decreased by 10%. Yesterday (October 22, 2012) I received an
email from a colleague informing us of that fact that as a result of a decision
to cut educational funding by more than 10 million dollars, programs like TRIO have
been ‘defunded’ which means our esteemed McNair Scholars Program will no longer
exist on the campus.
Blah, blah, blah! So
what does all of this really mean? At
the public school level, it means that our children may not have the resources
they need to learn and those current operations and programs will soon be unmanageable
because of financial constraints. The excellence
in education that we desire may be at risk.
This isn’t just a problem for the state of Delaware. The financial security of our school systems
is challenged everywhere. Of course one
solution to this problem is to increase taxes or address old referendums which
did not require states to raise taxes.
Other states look to lotteries and gambling to provide supplemental
funding for educational purposes, but until the federal government stops making
education a top cutting block item we will always be faced with these
challenges.
At the university level, the elimination of funding for
programs like TRIO means that a wide range of services for student who need assistance
will go away. Programs like the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate
Achievement Program (a grant program that was designed to prepare students for master’s
level and doctoral studies through intensive research) will no longer be in
place to help participants that are usually selected from a pool of candidates
who come from disadvantaged backgrounds but have demonstrated strong academic
potential.
Another strength of the McNair program is that it also
provides additional activities like education or counseling services designed
to improve financial and economic literacy of students; mentoring programs
involving faculty members at institutions of higher education and exposure to
cultural events and academic programs not usually available to disadvantaged
students.
We can’t just blog about it…we have to be about it! I’m going to the Referendum Information
meeting in my school district. I want to
have a clear understanding of the issues and I want to be a part of the
solution. Like many of you, when we
moved to Delaware one of the things we looked at besides location was the
quality of the school districts we had to chose from. I want to make sure that all of my children
as well as my college students have access to the best education, faculty,
mentors and opportunities possible.
As Election Day hits the two week mark, I have to say that I
don’t just want and economic-fixer upper
in the White House. I want a strong
proponent of education at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years. How can you say that you want this country to
produce its own engineers, scientists, mathematician, educators, doctors, lawyers,
etc. when the funding doesn’t correlate? The Commander in Chief has to stop cutting
funding for education. I’m sure that
Sidwell Friends hasn’t seen a budget cut in years! Why should my kids school!
