This article provides great insight into the reality into what education is really dependent on.... funding. New Governor McDonnell has been quite controversial in his reason attempts to fixing Virginia's budget crisis, particularly in his actions regarding public education. There have been many suggested cuts in the field of education. Some of these include: fewer teachers/ larger class sizes, the abolition of middle school football teams and other sports, and even possible teacher salary cuts. This article focuses on the issue of larger class sizes in Richmond schools. The picture at the beginning of this article is particularly powerful as it reveals just how worried people are about the future of their children's education in these economically challenging times. Overall this article covers the budget cuts in general, yet provides powerful insight into the reality that education is dependent on funding. Ever since I told my family that I was going to become a history teacher, the one thing they told me repeatedly was, " well at least you'll have job security." With these budget cuts taking place right as I am about to enter the job market I'm afraid that they might have been sadly mistaken.
read article here
I have seen for myself the budget cut issues that have hit the Virginia state government. I have now attended two job fairs for teaching jobs where I spoke to districts state wide. It was frequent that I heard “Sorry, we’re not hiring” shortly after approaching a hiring representative. In my head I was thinking, “Then why are you here? It called a JOB fair”. I too got the support from family friends that my job after college was “secure”, but I am not feeling so safe three months before I graduate with my M.A.T. I have quickly realized that come graduation in May I, like many of my education classmates, will not have a job. I am confident in my search, but as outlined in this article, I cannot dismiss the obstacles starring me in the face.
ReplyDeleteI, like many, read this article and felt like I was reading a foreign language. There are two things that I really do not understand about our current economic situation and what we plan on doing about it; 1) how did we get there 2) why do we think that making cuts to our educational system is a sound and appropriate idea? If it came down to it, I would much rather as a citizen of the United States see a larger increase in taxes than see a saddened middle school student have their sports or arts programs taken away. If our nation wants to be competitive with others around the world and produce successful and enlightened students, we need to be INVESTING in our youth's education, not taking away from it.
ReplyDeleteIt is a harsh reality as Alicen has said that back when we decided on our career paths, whether it be when we were 10 years old or at the start of college, teaching was seen as a protected and available job. I can only pray that in the next year or so I have before I complete my MAT that the economy will have turned around.
this article inform me a new thing that I never thought before. After reading the article, I realize that todays the virginia state has a problem on funding public education. In my coutry, the budget of education always being one of the big issues. In the past. The problem is not only the indonesia government does not have plenty budget to fund education but also they do not use the budget wisely. Hopefully, in the future will be better..
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be an issue that pops up in a majority of our classes, at least here in the past few months. In my BIO class last week, we spent a majority of our time discussing the policy changes and the budget cuts and why education is one of the first things that get cut. It is poor planning, and unfair, but when the money people look at education-it is an investment that will not pay out for 20 years so there is no immediate incentive to invest in it. Of course, what we know and they fail to understand is that if they don't invest in it now, there will be no pay out of brilliant scientists, business enterprenuers, or innovative teachers (like ourselves) unless they put the money in...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately (or maybe fortunately in some ways), it means that we are going need to get a lot more creative when we get in the classroom...but we will get there eventually :)
UPDATE: I've been trying to keep up with state job cuts, especially those connected with education. And just recently Chesterfield County released that they would be letting go of some employees....150 to be exact. The article with the specifics was in the Richmond Dispatch, and I will be posting it soon! Sorry for such a sad update, but I just figured many of us would be interested in this hot topic.
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