Here’s the 2010 enacted budget amount for each line-item Commissioner Holiday has listed as possible targets for reduction:
- $100,000 for the Appalachian Tutoring Program
- $200,000 for statewide teacher recruitment
- $250,000 for the Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program
- $381,500 for the Leadership and Mentoring Fund
- $387,500 for the Middle School Academic Achievement Center
- $430,000 for the Partnership for Student Success
- $484,400 for the Elementary Grade Arts & Humanities Initiative
- $500,000 for the Every1Reads program in Jefferson County
- $500,000 for the Save the Children rural literacy effort
- $610,300 for the state writing program
- $616,500 for the costs of transporting students to the School for the Blind and School for the Deaf and then home again
- $720,900 for dropout prevention
- $994,700 for teachers' professional growth grants
- $1,400,000 for the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development
- $1,507,900 for the Commonwealth School Improvement Fund, which gives weakest schools grants to implement their plans to raise student performance
- $1,600,000 for teaching academies
- $1,686,700 for educator quality and diversity grants
- $2,100,000 for community education
- $2,500,000 for education technology in coal counties
- $6,900,000 for math achievement and the Center for Mathematics
- $7,121,500 for gifted and talented services
- $10,972,100 for services to children who have been placed in the care of state agency
- $11,757,600 for locally operated vocational schools
- $15,300,000 for the Kentucky Education Network
- $19,500,000 for Kentucky Education Technology System grants to school districts
- $22,558,100 for incentive grants for schools to implement early reading intervention programs
- $26,824,800 for the Department of Education’s personnel and operation costs
- $57,145,000 for family resource and youth service centers
- $75,127,000 for preschool
I can't find any easy choices on that list!
Can't find any easy choices, they’re right there in the list. The problem is that there is a lack of will to really scrutinize spending that occurs in the name of education. The theory is, if it’s for education it must be good. That is the fallacy. Like any bureaucracy Big Ed serves itself before its purported mission. That is not to say all who serve within the education field are bad or ill intentioned, but bureaucracy is bureaucracy and it serves itself first without exception. As for items on the list, they come to $270,176,500.00 by my count. $20,000,000.00 cut would amount to 7.4 percent of the P-12 education budget. Peanuts. And you think there’s nothing to cut? Just take preschool for example, how exactly is the money spent? What is the family resource and youth service center? How do those centers provide a highly educated person for the workforce of tomorrow? Everyone Reads in Jefferson Co? Technology for coal counties? $100,000 for the Appalachian Tutoring Program? The problem with our education system is that is not about educating children, it’s about providing employment security to those within the industry and providing a cash cow for those that know how to take advantage of it. At least on Wall Street they're honest about their goals in education it's for the children. tom_m_jeff@yahoo.com
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