Using Words as a Weapon

I’m slow on my story for this week for a couple of reasons. 

First, I focused my writing effort on calling attention to the criminal level at which our state and school district are funding public education.  Below you can read the column I wrote that was published this morning in the Seattle Times. 

Second, I’m working on a story of an extraordinary woman and hope to have it up tomorrow.  This story represents a big step with the blog – it’s the first time I’ve interviewed a woman who I hadn’t met before.  Her name is Melissa Erickson – she was recommended to me by Julie Baker, the subject of one of my previous posts.  Melissa’s story merits the same level of care and effort as she puts into the mundane tasks of daily life.

Here’s the column.  More tomorrow.

A Sophie’s Choice of the School Budget Ax

I spent three hours at a budget retreat for my son’s elementary school.

And then I went home and cried.

I mean, really, is this the best we can do? Even fewer resources and bigger classrooms while losing the staff necessary to hold the pieces together.

In a stealth attack, the Seattle Public School District eliminated its funding of a half-time counselor position in all elementary schools. In our school, gone too is the half-time math coach critical to teaching students in each of four split-grade classrooms. And there went the full-time librarian – we got funding for only half that position.

Right about now the School Board is countering, hey wait, we gave you some “discretionary” dollars! You can choose to retain one of those three part time positions.

Talk about a Sophie’s Choice.

But there’s more. We’ll no longer have a full-time art teacher. They don’t give us money to pay for the daily copying of math work sheets for every student, as mandated by the District’s new math curriculum.

And here’s the worst of all. With the elimination of staff positions, we won’t have bodies to supervise kids during after-lunch recess. Instead, we’ll hold them in the cafeteria for an extra 15 minutes, and then at the point where the sugar in their system ignites with claustrophobia, we’ll shoo them back into their classrooms for the rest of the afternoon.

There is no race to the top here – it’s more a freefall to the bottom.

I face the naked truth of these budget numbers with teachers who take on yet another cut with resignation. They’ve been through this – or something just as dire – many times before. It is to their enormous credit that they don’t walk just out and refuse to return until the situation changes.

They remind me of that knight in the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The one who comes out raring for a fight and gets his arm chopped off. Blood spews from the shoulder, but he retains every bit of cockiness taunting his opponent to continue. And so it is with our teachers saying, “I can teach these kids! I can teach these kids!” Whack goes the other arm and still they keep coming back. We laugh while the legs are cut and blood is pouring from where every appendage once was.

But this is not a joke. These are our kids, the people we’re supposed to be preparing to cure cancer or end global warming or educate the next generation. These are our kids, the education of whom is our government’s top priority as stated in Washington’s Constitution: “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.”

This notion that we might get around to fully funding our Constitutional obligation by 2018 is ludicrous. By the time we start, we’ve already lost an entire generation. I say to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, bully for your income tax proposal, but keep the other taxes as well, because we can’t afford revenue neutrality and the cuts you are pushing down the pipeline.

And I say to the Seattle School District, shame on you for putting us in this situation. For slashing, with no warning, the School Counselor positions. For denying Federal Title 1 support for kids who need it when you closed schools and shifted student populations.

I’ve heard the stern lectures that adequate funding does not correlate directly with student performance. But I also know what you get when the money isn’t there. You get what you pay for.

Janet Pelz

Comments

[Mikala]

Hi Janet, thanks for writing this... Here's the eerily familiar story at Orca.

http://kiddewoodward.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-that-what-weve-decided.html

[Janet Pelz]

Gretchen: Nice reconnecting though sorry it had to be over such a bad situation. I promise, the other posts are more uplifting.

[Gretchen Dietz]

Thanks, Janet, for writing this. It makes me sick sick sick in so many ways.
Gretchen