School students will suffer under proposed deep cuts to the city’s school budget, warn teachers and advocates for higher-quality education.
Gov. David Paterson’s proposed education cuts, said Loretta Donlon, member of the board of directors, for the New York State United Teachers, “is mortgaging the future of the country and the children with these budget cuts,”
Paterson called for cutting $1.1 billion in school aid in his proposed state budget on Jan. 19.
In response to Paterson’s proposals, Daniel Lowengard, the superintendent of the Syracuse City School District, on Feb. 10 unveiled plans to cut more than 150 positions for teachers and teachers’ aids in Syracuse schools. And the cuts would get worse. The budget still holds the potential for up to 270 job cuts, as Lowengard tries to close an $18-million budget deficit.
The cuts are provoking dismay among teachers, education advocates and officials.
But they are symptoms of the district’s financial problems, said Richard Strong, new president of the Syracuse school board. “There shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone who’s paying attention that we’re in fiscally difficult times,” said Strong, new president of the Syracuse city school board. Added Strong: “Next year will be worse. But the pennies we save now will be the dollars we don’t have to spend tomorrow.”
For their part, teachers warn that the school district will be devastated by cuts on the scale proposed by superintendent Lowengard.
A cut of about 40 to 50 employees would be manageable, said Donlon of the New York State United Teachers. That would translate into about one or two teachers cut per school.
Under Lowengard’s proposed cuts of 150 teachers and aids, said Donlon, classroom size would inevitably increase. And some school programs would also likely be trimmed, she said.
Teacher Chris Knapp bemoaned the potential losses in programs. “Our budget is so tight already,” said Knapp, a teacher for over a decade at Dr. Edwin E. Weeks elementary school in Syracuse.
Knapp is a tenured teacher at Dr. Weeks elementary and not at risk of being cut. But her school has been consistently short on classroom funding for several years, she said. She has spent over $100 a year out of her own pocket for classroom supplies such as paper and books, she estimated.
Instead of cutting resources and positions from teachers and students, Knapp proposed some streamlining in the administrative positions of the city school district. “Maybe instead of cutting some positions from the schools themselves,” said Knapp, “we should cut some positions from the administrative portions of the school district.”
Syracuse is among several districts struggling to close budget gaps. In Onondaga County, the Liverpool Central School District also announced earlier this year that it would close at least one school to balance its budget. Wetzel Road elementary school will close next year, so that Liverpool can begin to cover a $10.3 million budget deficit. With this closure, Liverpool schools will cut up to 130 jobs in the district, including 85 teachers and teaching assistants.
“Cutting jobs like this does not help the teachers or the students,” said Tanika Jones-Cole of the Alliance for Quality Education. It is a statewide non-profit coalition of more thanr 230 organizations of parents, children’s advocates, schools, teachers, clergy, and others. The group lobbies for increased quality in public education.
On March 4, the Alliance for Quality Education held a rally at the Edward Smith school in Syracuse to protest the district budget cuts.
“The alternative to these cuts is not to cut,” said Jones-Cole. “There are other ways to save money, and we’re tired of sacrificing the quality in our education.”
(Pete Smith is a junior with dual majors in newspaper journalism and Middle Eastern studies.)
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