Posted on 10/30/2011 3:24:59 AM PDT by EBH
The Cleveland school board voted to cut preschool, spring sports and busing for high school students Tuesday over the howls and boos from residents and teachers who packed the Lincoln-West High School auditorium.
In total, the board made $13.1 million in cuts to comply with the state's requirement to have a balanced budget by Monday, the end of the month.
Board members said they had no choice but to make the cuts because of a decrease in state aid and because of rehiring nearly 300 teachers the district had laid off in the spring.
"Do we have the ability to print money?" Board member Eric Wobser asked. "I don't think we do."
Residents didn't care about the budget numbers district chief Eric Gordon presented. High school athletes complained about losing their sports. Mothers begged the board not to cut preschool while others promoted young children to chant "Save Pre-K."
Others accused the board of not caring about children and ruining the district. Some blamed mayoral control, the city's system of having a board appointed by the mayor instead of an elected one, and asked why Mayor Frank Jackson was not at the meeting.
City Council members Jeffrey Johnson and Kevin Conwell criticized Gordon and the board for making cuts that would hurt the community, then challenged Gordon to come explain the cuts to Council. Gordon agreed.
"We will stand up and fight against these cuts because we do not agree with them," Johnson said, challenging board members to start attending community meetings and interacting with residents. He also accused the board of sitting silently at its meetings "like a funeral up there."
"I have never seen a body responsible for so much do so little," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.cleveland.com ...
Choices have to be made. The mighty union or real education. If the community is going to let the union win...then the children lose.
The comments at the site are so ignorant. These people have the right to be upset, but fail to understand they rejected the other option of cutting 300 teachers salaries, benifits, and pension costs. Until any of those bottom line costs are addressed ...education cuts will continue.
ugh...I need more coffee this morning...
benefits
It may be too late to change any of the Unionized Public Sector problems, because the votes of the Unionistas (every pro-Union yard sign I see is most often the home of a Union Public Employee), and worse yet, the Police are Unionized, and don't enforce the Law against Union Brothers (or Sister).
I just find it so aggravating that they now want to blame the board, when it was the union that ‘stole’ that money for those 300 teachers.
Cause and effect...and they can’t identify the thief?
Over $15,000 per yr. per kid!
The said thing is all the fools that went to this meeting will go out and vote for issue 2.
$15,000 per child to attend school...
Local tuition from one of the best private schools in the area: http://stedhs.org/tuition.html
This statement assumes the unproven premise that any of the programs being cut contributed to education, by any reasonable or measurable definition. I see fun (sports), convenience (bus service), and free babysitting ("pre-school").
The people are useful idiots, anyway. If the 300 "teachers" had remained fired, they'd have been told to show up and protest that, instead.
Typical spoiled american brats. Until we, as a nation, come to grips with the reality that the gravy train is over and we can’t have everything right now, our govt is going to continue to spend money we don’t have.
Actually they had made those cuts back in the spring and then this fall rehired the 300 laid off teachers!
Schools have become about jobs for unions and bureaucrats.
Children, education and the community have all become incidental...
Yep, none of these cuts have to do with education anyway. It’s time to do away with this Public Indoctrination we call Public Schools. Give the money to churches, etc. and the education will be cheaper and ten times better. Leave the sports to the little leagues,etc. We should cut teachers salaries and benefits in half then see how many of these “dedicated” teachers are willing to actually work for a living.
HEY.
What’s more important, padding teachers and administrators salaries and pensions or teaching the yuts?
Gots to feed the unionistas now don’t they??
So it came down to a choice between “preschool, spring sports and busing” — and 300 teachers’ salaries, pensions, and benefits?
How about this? Close the school, cut all those costs, and that part of the property tax that pays for school; and pay the teachers to stay home. Sort of like 300 people on real good welfare. After about five years, test the kids and see if they aren’t better off.
Then if kids are actually better off, take the teachers off life support.
Excellent proposal from Lady Lucky. As with many other government employees, we’d probably all be better off if we simply paid them to stay home.
At least it’s a testable premise ... and the educationalist establishment hates those!
It has nothing to to with “spoiled american brats”. The same thing is happening all over the world. Those who have been sucking on the govt teat do not want to let go.
Grrrrrrrrr.
There are brats everywhere. Just because there are greek spoiled brats doesn’t preclude the existence of spoiled american brats.
Question for FReepers: Can those who booed be sued for interfering with the speakers Freedom of Speech?
If our congress holds firm against any more bailout/stimulus packages, these municipalities; Cleveland, Detroit, etc, will either get their fiscal houses in order or will do the slow spiral down the ole toilet. Some portions of Detroit are already being leveled and returned to farm land. Personally, I think that's the best option for many of the derelict cities....
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