Abstract
Post the global economic recession of 2009, the government announced budget cuts across states. This placed great pressure on public schools to save costs in order to continue functioning. One of the cost saving measures employed by schools in several districts of the United States was to make cuts in the school. While this measure surely saves schools a lot of immediate costs, it needs to be evaluated what kind of an impact such a measure would have in the long run, especially with concerns being raised about the quality of education being provided in a shorter school year.
Cost Cutting Pressures
The US economy was hit quite hard during the 2009 global economic recession. Nearly two years later, the economy is still considered to be in a state of recovery. However, state and district budgets will be slower to recover for the following reasons:
Local revenues from taxes from the real estate sector have been substantially reduced as home prices are not expected to go back to their 2006 – 2007 high for a few more years.
State budgets are expected to recover only by 2014. However, this will be a daunting task as the recovery will be slowed by growing inflation as well as the rising prices of services.
State funded programs such as Medicaid and state employees’ retirement funds will need to be increased as they are currently considerably underfunded.
Federal funds such as State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF) that were earlier helping states to minimize their budget cuts have all but run out by 2011. The Education Jobs Fund have reduced the impact of budget cuts to an extent but are not expected to hold out beyond 2012.
Different states in the country had various levels of impact on the budgets. The following are some examples on how certain states cut their education funds:
Alabama: The state was unable to absorb the cost of increases to employee benefits by 100%, something that is unprecedented in the history of the state. It was not able to provide any funding for instructional supplies like textbooks (CSALS 2010).
California: The state cut K-12 aid by billions of dollars in addition to cutting funds for assisting high-needs students
Illinois: School educations were cut by $311 million below 2010 levels (CSALS 2010) while further cuts were made to student transportation.
As a result of these complications, state schools have come under added pressure to operate efficiently with steadily shrinking funding. Most schools have had to resort to desperate measures in order to cope with the financial stress.
Cost Saving Measures
As public school funds were cut, several schools across states employed the following measures to cut costs:
The number of teachers was cut which led to larger class sizes.
Extracurricular activities were slashed.
Students were given courses that were a requirement for graduation and extra courses were cut.
Summer school was no longer provided.
Field trips were completely eliminated.
Instructional programs were either reduced or cut completely.
No further professional development programs were provided to staff including teachers.
However, when these measures failed to save enough costs, schools in various states started cutting down the school year, reducing the school week to 4 days instead of the regular 5 day week.
School Year Cuts – Financial Aspect
By cutting off Friday’s from the school week, Pueblo 70, a district in Colorado, could save 7,300 miles worth of gas used by school buses in a single day. "Out of a $60 million budget, we have to cut about $4.5 million out of our budget," said Dan Lere, superintendent of the Pueblo 70 School District. "Going to a four-day week will net us about $1.2 million in savings” . Savings on transportation costs is just one of the costs saved by cutting the school week or year. Even with teachers attending training, non-teaching staff such as drivers, canteen staff and cleaning staff costs can be saved. In an effort to maintain the curriculum, schools have eliminated extra-curricular activities as well as subjects that not vital for graduation. This in turn saves money spent on teaching staff, instructional material as well as equipment. While such cost saving measures will close budgets in the short term, it is the long term impact of shorter school years that has drawn the maximum criticism from educators, experts, students as well as parents.
Debate against School Year Cuts
“I would argue that the small amount of money that we will save by cutting the school year and summer programs will do little to close our huge local and state budget gaps. But this strategy might cause irreparable harm to successive generations of American children” says Geoffrey Canada, President of Harlem Children’s Zone .
Franklin County, Florida, refused to cut the school year by 24 days and instead add 45 minutes to each school day, although the cuts would have saved the district $158,000 on the school budget. Parents raised concerns about a shorter school year taking away from the quality of education being provided to children. Also, longer school days would be pointless as kids would lack the attention span to learn . Other concerns included that shorter school years would pass on hidden costs to parents who would need to find day care for their kids when they are already burdened by the slow economy.
Parents also debated that district schools often send children home early or bring them into school later than the usual time to accommodate teacher training or parent-teacher meetings. This can happen as often as once a week. However, these days are not counted as part of a shortened school year, giving an unrealistic account of the time students spend in class. It is generally agreed that, while fewer school days might not have an adverse effect on brighter student, they will place added pressure on students who struggle with academics even with the current number of schooling days. With various non-curricular programs such as Arts, Music and Debate being cut in order to make way for time to finish the prescribed curriculum, parents are concerned that their children’s overall mental and personality growth will be negatively affected. Students who take these programs have also voiced their views, saying the programs have helped enhance their confidence levels, helping them to develop public speaking and presentation skills. Over all, parents, educators as well as students agree that a shorter school year and its implications, will have more of a negative impact on the education system when compared to the cost savings it offers.
Forecasts & Conclusions
Tightening budgets have forced schools to implement cost saving measures from 2010 and continue to do so in 2011. In Los Angeles, 2,000 teachers were prevented from losing their jobs by instead cutting off five days from the 2010 school year and a further two from 2011. Chicago, with an impending $1 billion budget deficit, planned to increase class sizes to 37 in addition to cuts made to pre-school programs.
DeKalb Country School District in Georgia has planned to close its $100 million budget gap by closing four schools, increasing class sizes as well as including seven forced furlough days. New jersey, facing a $820 million cut in the education fund planned to mostly make up for the deficit by job cuts. However, several courses such as music, arts and foreign languages were proposed to be cut. In New Jersey, The Piscataway Schools, having to make up for a $5 million aid cut, eliminated its middle school athletics and freshman teams, cut foreign languages in elementary school and also eliminated its Summer Academy and Saturday Academy that were successfully closing achievement gaps in students .
According to an AASA survey, nationally, 79 percent of district leaders express concern that the economic downturn impaired their ability to improve student achievement. The number of districts in the survey that are seriously considering reducing the school week to four days (13 percent) or ending summer school (34 percent) – often solutions of last resort – shows how bad the fiscal crisis is in many places, says Noelle Ellerson, an AASA policy analyst. Illinois lawmakers are considering allowing districts to move to a four-day week. Jamaica School District superintendent Mark Janesky isn't planning such a shift right away, but he supports the idea, given the costs of transportation in rural areas like his. "We could save around $100,000, which is a lot for us," he says .
However, several experts believe that some of the districts may be seeing the economic downturn and budget cuts as an opportunity for reduce cuts and streamline their operations. Schools have been encouraged not to cut the school year but instead use creative and innovative methods to improve efficiencies and save costs. In 2009, president Obama emphasized how it was vital that school years be lengthened in order to maintain or even improve US students’ competitiveness to their foreign counterparts. "Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom" said the President .
In conclusion, while it is understandable that public schools need to trim their spending in the face of funding cuts, they first need to exhaust every other cost saving option before considering the reduction of the school year. Shorter school years, even with longer school days, would have an adverse effect on the quality of education being provided to US students. While cutting the school year may save funds in the short run, it will have a definitely negative impact on the lives of the students as well as the future economy of the country. Hence, cutting the school year among public schools in the US is advised against.
Works Cited
ABC News. (2009, April 14). Districts Debate Four-Day School Week. Retrieved July 24, 2011, from ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=7334014&page=1
Fox News. (2009, September 27). Obama Proposes Longer School Day, Shorter Summer Vacation. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/27/obama-proposes-longer-school-day-shorter-summer-vacation/
Johnson, N., Oliff, P., & Williams, E. (2011, February 9). An Update on State Budget Cuts. Retrieved July 22, 2011, from Center on Budget and Policy priorities: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1214
The Christian Science Monitor. (2010, April 20). School budget cuts across the US projected for next academic year. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from The Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0420/School-budget-cuts-across-the-US-projected-for-next-academic-year
The Deseret News. (2011, July 6). Schools nationwide cutting back on school days due to the budget, but not Utah. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from The Deseret News: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700149754/Schools-nationwide-cutting-back-on-school-days-due-to-the-budget-but-not-Utah.html?pg=2
The New York Times. (2011, July 10). How to Improve Summer School. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/10/how-to-improve-summer-school/dont-make-the-wrong-cuts-to-educatio
CSALS (2010). National School Boards Association's Conference of State Association Legislative Staff. Communicated on August 26, 2010
