'Fiscal cliff': With cuts of $4 billion looming, educators sound alarm

If the US goes over the fiscal cliff, schools might see larger class sizes, fewer jobs, and less special-education funding, among other things. But not everyone sees a sky-is-falling scenario.

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo,?Staff writer / November 15, 2012

In a Nov. 1 photo, preschool student Raymond Willis works on an arts and crafts project in a class led by teacher Jennifer Tassin at Truman Montessori Preschool in Lafayette, La. Educators are turning up alarm bells they've been sounding since last spring about how students could be harmed if Congress doesn't act to steer away from the 'fiscal cliff.'

Paul Kieu/The Daily Advertiser/AP

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Educators are turning up alarm bells they?ve been sounding since last spring about how students could be harmed if Congress doesn?t act to steer away from the ?fiscal cliff.?

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If lawmakers can?t make a deal, ?sequestration? ? automatic cuts to the federal budget ? would begin to kick in at the beginning of 2013. Education would take a hit of about 8 percent, or at least $4 billion a year, according to various government estimates.

?These cuts to our schools would be devastating and of course would impact student achievement,? said Deborah Rigsby, director of federal legislation for the National School Boards Association (NSBA), in a press call Wednesday. ?[They] would result in increased class sizes ... the elimination of after-school and summer-school programs, a narrowing of the curriculum, the closing of school libraries, and more.?

Not everyone sees a sky-is-falling scenario, however. Many schools receive only about 10 percent of their funding from the federal government. Cuts to that could hurt, but they would be just a further indication that there?s ?a need for schools to do more with less,? says Michael Petrilli, an education expert and executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington. ?If there?s been?any doubt that we?re in a new era of constrained resources, people have got to get with the program.?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told Congress in July that ?the sequestration will put at risk all that we've accomplished in education and weaken programs that help children, serve families, [and] send young people and adults to college.?

According to Secretary Duncan, some examples of what the cuts would mean:

• At least $1.1 billion of Title I funding would be lost, affecting approximately 1.8 million disadvantaged students.
• Special-education funding would be cut by $900 million.
• About 100,000 low-income children would not have access to early education through Head Start.

At least 48,000 jobs could be lost because of such cuts, according to an October analysis by House Democrats.

Most of the impact wouldn?t be felt in schools until the beginning of the next school year, since funding for this year has already been distributed. However, because of the way some funding is structured, school districts with high numbers of military children and American Indian students would face cuts immediately in January.

School administrators have been actively lobbying on Capitol Hill for a solution that would preserve education funding.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/V2nkzOrtmWM/Fiscal-cliff-With-cuts-of-4-billion-looming-educators-sound-alarm

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