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Vicious proration cycle continues
Published Friday, March 12, 2010
It shouldn’t come as any surprise. House Speaker Seth Hammett and House budget committee Chairman John Knight met with Gov. Bob Riley this week and the message afterwards was a familiar if unwelcome one:
Proration will come.
Hammett was quoted as saying the governor “is definitely going to have to declare proration,” which really comes as no surprise to anyone who has watched the state’s budget woes for the past two years. Experts are predicting a 12 percent proration to the state’s General Fund budget, which will trickle down to all facets of our government, including education.
And that means here in Pike County, both the city and county school districts will once again feel the pinch of reduced state funding. School leaders should be prepared for this. With reduced revenues trending steady during the past three years, proration again this year was likely. Unfortunately, we seem to be trapped in a cycle of budgeting and proration, with no real plan to break the cycle.
If state lawmakers are unwilling to take drastic steps to break this cycle – for example, a proposal earlier this year to reduce education expenses called for changes in the retirement program and increases in insurance deductibles, unpopular but effective – than we’re destined as a state to continue this cycle.
And our students and schools are destined to continue to suffer.
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Comments
Posted by turtle (anonymous) on March 16, 2010 at 10:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
While I agree there are some parents who could do more to help with education, some parents simply cannot afford to pay, as you propose mrpierce, 100.00 per month. There is ALOT of waste by our government (from city, county all the way up to Washington). It is amazing to me how it seems priority is such a low number on the list of priorities for our law makers, but then again their children are grown (for the most part) and their grandchildren attend private schools so what do they care? My child receives a public education at PCHS and it is a great education with alot of effort on her part, her teachers' parts and on our part as parents and also grandparents (so thankful for the support we get from extended family). However, it is a full effort and sadly the government doesn't seem to want to do their part anymore.
Posted by inaword (anonymous) on March 16, 2010 at 12:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just issue vouchers, and make the parents decide. Within a generation or two, the bad schools would close, and the good ones would flourish. Of course there would be a lost generation in those failed schools, but look at what we have now.
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