Education Budget Cuts

We all know there is a need for cutbacks in the budget, nationally, on the state level, and even in our own homes, but I feel the State of Florida has gone too far in their budget cuts.

I attended the District School Advisory Council meeting at the Highlands County School Board for January and came away disheartened at how little our children seem to mean to the State of Florida.

According to the paperwork I received there, our state ranks 50th in school spending and the budget just keeps getting cut further.

The 2008-09 state budget (www.FLGOV.com) shows a $332.3 million cut for education funding but allots $309 million for new prisons, which is $10 million more then all K-12 construction.

Without the proper funding of our schools, we may need those prisons because children will grow up without the proper educational needs and may turn to crime.

The school board was just notified that $1,691,086 was being cut from its budget. During the special session recently, the State Legislature was expecting a shortfall of $2,356,131, due to the lower enrollment of students. Staff reductions are taking the biggest hit at 85 percent. New school buses will not replace old ones as often. Field trips and even some out-of-town ball games will have to be cut.

There are counties in Florida that have closed many schools and others that are sending all the ESE students to the same school instead of doing inclusion as they are supposed to. As a mother of special needs children, I would not want my children sent to a special school to save money.

On the plus side, in the 2008 Quality Counts report that comes from a national comparison of state education systems, Florida ranked among the top 15 in the country. Quality Counts ranked Florida's teaching profession fourth in the nation. Quality Counts ranked Florida's K-12 public school system seventh in the nation. Our world class standards were given an A-.

The same report gives us an "F" for school spending. This shows that we have excellent teachers that are working with very hard to make a difference in our children's lives and are doing it without much help from the our state.

Maybe our state legislators forgot to read the Constitutional Requirement on Education before making these cuts. Article 9, Section 1 of the State Constitution reads as follows:

"It is a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality system of free public schools that allow students to obtain a high quality education."

Nowhere does this say that building new prisons should come before giving the children a proper education. How can the Quality Counts rankings stay as high as they are when we rank 50th in spending?

I will be contacting a long list of those in the legislative branch of this state. They can cut many things from the budget but when they start cutting our children's educational needs I take a personal affront to it. If you care I hope you will also be e-mailing, calling or writing those legislators, too.

Diane Thibodeau
Sebring