How do you balance the school budget?
Tax revenues in Philadelphia are down. They are about to change our property tax system so that they tax us based on supposedly objective data about property values instead of based on the assessments of individual assessors. This could significantly raise taxes for many of us.
The school budget has not been balanced in years. They’ve been borrowing money to pay for current expenses. They proposed to close fifty schools that were underutilized. Lots of resistance to that.
Now they want to cut teachers’ salaries by 13%, make teachers work longer hours, and give principals the right to hire and fire teachers (instead of decisions being made by seniority rules). Principals will once again be able to play favorites, introducing corruption into the system.
I like unions. But I also don’t like the cuts in teachers that have been made in past years. Without these savings, class sizes will get even bigger. There will be fewer resources for students. The schools will get even shittier.
Who will do a better job for my kids? Administration? The teacher’s union? The teachers? Or is it hopeless trying to run a decent public school system in a big city?
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7 Answers
They could consider cutting athletics from the schools.
Solve budget and bullying problems in one fell swoop.
Then if parents want to have their kids in sports, they can do so privately, and the school will be able to, you know, teach smart-people things like history and science.
Get rid of all the high level, highly paid administrators.
In California some of our schools are sharing a principal.
From what limited research I have done, and it is VERY limited, it appears that the biggest cause of budget problems is the large percentage of funds that are used for administrative purposes.
I wonder where the most savings is if they close the schools? Principal salary? @YARNLADY‘s suggestion would help with that. Utilities and maintaining the school? I understand if people don’t want their closest school to them close down and their children would need to travel. Still, you have to be able to balance the budgets, something has to give. Maybe they can combine an elementary with middle school and so the closest elementary won’t greatly increase commute times? Instead of only thinking in terms of combining schoos of same grade levels? Maybe they thought of this. I would only be comfortable with it if they can make the elementary a separate wing of the school.
I also agree with getting rid of sports if it is costing a lot of money. Or, have participation funded by the parents.
I might be in favor of cutting salaries if I knew what the salaries were. I’m not asking you to supply the data, but what I remind you is when you look at salaries, if you choose to investigate, remember they only work 9.5 months a year. Their benefit package maybe she be analyzed also, traditionally teacher’s benefits are very good. In this day and age many companies that had extreme packages have had to stop offering them. I believe in grandfathering in, but there might be justification for a change concerning new hires.
If your schools provide breakfast and lunch, it would be interesting to know how much of that is subsidized and if it comes out of the education budget.
Apparently limiting administrative staff will reduce costs and get rid of costly micro-management. Secondly, I would have a permanent place on the school board for the teacher’s union. Make the unions directly responsible for the quality education for your students. Finally I would get rid of all of the extraneous testing. All you need is a semester final exam. Finally, the most important step is to insist that parents take part in the students learning. It would also be a good idea to offer your best students a paid part time job tutoring student that are having troubles.
The final step uses peer pressure to promote learning and helps students that feel isolated to participate. Isolation and bullying affects both ends of the learning spectrum.
Good ideas, @Ron_C. Although I doubt if teachers unions would want to be directly responsible for quality education. They like being able to oppose management, but do not see their job as being management. They want input, not responsibility.
“They like being able to oppose management, but do not see their job as being management. They want input, not responsibility” Not according to the teachers I know. My son-in-law is a teacher and a number of guys in our Rotary club are teachers. They all express a desire to be part of the decision making to improve their schools and maintain high standards for teachers and students.
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