Comparing the original budget for this fiscal year to the budget the House just approved for the 2012 fiscal year shows a reduction of roughly $59 million in planned state spending for current educational services. $103 million in reductions to specific programs is only partly offset by $44 million in increases to other efforts.
The $103 million in cuts includes:
- $56 million from base SEEK funding
- $21 million from textbooks
- $9 million from teachers retirement premiums
- $3 million from reading grants
- $3 million from SEEK Tier I equalization funding
- $2 million from school technology
- $1.7 million from family resource and youth service centers
- $1.5 million from preschool
- $1.2 million from the Education Professional Standards Board
- $512 thousand from the schools for the blind and the deaf
- $412 thousand from intervention in weak schools using highly skilled educations and school improvement grants
- $264 thousand from extended school services
- $239 thousand from testing
- $219 thousand from state agency children
- $142 thousand from gifted and talented
- $125 thousand from professional development
- $316 thousand from other local programs
- $1.3 million from other state level services
- $29 million for facilities (including school construction plans described by House leaders as a way to create jobs and strengthen the state economy)
- $12 million for educators' health insurance
- $300 thousand for local vocational schools
- $76 thousand for school safety
- $3.5 million in growth that is not itemized (probably mainly costs of the KEN network and possibly also some costs of operating the Department of Education)
The budget proposed gives $1.43 per student per year for textbooks and other instructional materials. The average cost of a textbook from the most recent state multiple list of math textbooks is $66. A classroom of 24 students could not afford even one textbook to share for the school year! $1.43 per student for a 24 student class equals $34.32. The budget line item is not just for textbooks. It covers other instructional materials such as globes, maps, calculators, microscopes, and math manipulatives. How a teacher is supposed to supply textbooks and other materials for her classroom with $34.32 for the entire school year is beyond me.
ReplyDelete