The situation for public education has always been a struggle: dealing with red tape, overcharges, and nickel and dime fees — issues exacerbated by a weak economy. While those still in high school and younger merely go with the flow of the education shortfall, college students must deal with the aforementioned problems face to face, and subsequently, adapt when necessary.
The situation gets worse with budget cuts, and the news is out; the Texas Legislative Budget Board proposed in January to set the 2012-2013 public education budget (used for things like financial aid) at $21 billion, $7 billion less than the 2010-2011 budget, according to a report published on bloomberg.com.
To make matters worse, the draft proposed by the board could reduce as much as $5 billion from primary and secondary schools, eliminating art education, incentive pay and anything else that might come off as non-essential, according to statesman.com.
Now, this may sound like small potatoes to some, but take things into the larger perspective. Higher education institutions will get less funding (equaling millions of dollars) while community colleges will get little to no funding at all. School districts will simply shrink down and lower their standards. In general, all educational institutions will have to start making their own aforementioned “cuts.”
This is a very simple issue: Texas is taking the meat and potatoes out of the equation. Taking out the main course just to have dessert is not the way to feed a starved economy. You cannot cut education costs and expect an exemplary educated workforce, you simply cannot. The system doesn’t work that way.
Without any new taxes to increase revenue, in addition to stimulus money that was only ever a crutch to begin with and using a regressive tax system as the cherry on top, schools are simply not going to fare well in this kind of atmosphere.
Either way, since fewer taxes are coming in, more and more cuts have to go out in order to balance the budget. This part is reluctantly understandable.
What is not understandable, however, is why public education, including higher education, is being broadsided and taking the brunt of the blast. Education, as well as many other essential services, should be the last thing to receive less.
If education is the future, then the future isn’t worth much to Texas politicians.
It is really hard for it not to be broadsided when it is 42% of the budget with roughly another 33% being Health and Human services. It makes sense when your budget is roughly 3/4 taken up by just those two groups alone.
But if the schools really want to cut things they should cut administrators or their salaries for starters. The system is way to top heavy and that would be a good start.
The decrease in budget for education will have a long-lasting impact on the quality of students who choose to go into teaching too. Teacher's salaries are already low considering that they must earn a Bachelor's and Teacher Certification just to begin teaching. Now, with budget cuts there is little job security. Large school districts across Houston have cut teaching jobs…what college student in their right mind wants to study for a job that only pays $43-45k the first year with little to no security? You could get a job answering phones for almost as much. Cutting the budget just makes it worse for those of us who would otherwise love to teach!