Here's a frightening statistic just in time for the back-to-school season:
80% of school districts in America laid off teachers this academic year. The cuts are mainly tied to funding woes at public schools nationwide.
It's a tragedy, of course, that so many educators -- even top-rated ones ones -- are getting the axe. But it's even more of a tragedy that our youth won't be getting, in many cases, the solid education they need via experienced teachers. In addition to staff reductions, schools across the country are slashing programs and extra-curricular activities, asking parents to contribute more to classroom supplies, and increasing class sizes.
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Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Vanessa Williams and her daughter Sasha attend Nickelodeon's 16th Annual Kid's Choice Awards at the Barker Hangar, April 12, 2003 in Santa Monica, California.
Frank Micelotta, Getty Images
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Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Vanessa Williams and her daughter Sasha attend Nickelodeon's 16th Annual Kid's Choice Awards at the Barker Hangar, April 12, 2003 in Santa Monica, California.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
(Clockwise) Actor Will Smith, son Trey, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, daughter Willow and son/actor Jaden Smith arrive at the World Premiere of Columbia Pictures' 'The Pursuit of Happyness' at the Mann Village Theatre and Mann Bruin Theatre on December 7, 2006 in Westwood, California.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Singer Whitney Houston (M) and her daughter Bobbi Kristina arrives to the Joe Calzaghe of Wales and Bernard Hopkins light heavyweight bout at Thomas & Mack Center on April 19, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Demi Moore with daughters Rumer Willis and Tallulah Belle Willis at the 20th Century Fox Premiere of "Live Free or Die Hard" at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, New York on June 22, 2007.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Diana Ross and Evan Ross Naess attend the 2006 Clive Davis Pre-GRAMMY Awards Party at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on February 7, 2006.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Faith Evans and her son Christopher Wallace Jr. at the 2005 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors at the Ballroom in New York City, on September 22, 2005.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Garcelle Beauvais and son Oliver at the "Bringing Down the House" Premiere in Hollywood, California on March 2, 2003.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Rodney Peete, Holly Robinson Peete and family at the Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, California
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Designer Kimora Lee Simmons and her daughters, Ming Lee and Aoki Lee walk the runway at the Baby Phat Fall 2006 fashion show during Olympus Fashion Week at Bryant Park February 3, 2006 in New York City.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
Actress Lisa Rinna and her daughter Delilah Belle Hamlin arrive at the 'Speed Racer' world premiere at the Nokia Theatre on April 26, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
Celeb Moms and Their Kids
And when you start to get 35 or 40 elementary, middle school or high school students in a single classroom, it's almost inevitable that instruction quality will decline, as teachers are forced to "teach to the middle" and not offer as much specialized guidance and attention to individual students, as is done when there are smaller classroom sizes.
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I'm certainly grateful for the relatively small class sizes my three children currently have in their public schools. In fact, I thought it was pretty good when my youngest, who just entered pre-kindergarten, wound up in a class of just 15 students. Then other parents seemed aghast. "Oh my!" one mom exclaimed when I told her there were 15 pupils enrolled. "The pre-k class last year had just seven students," she said.
Our town happens to be the top-ranked school district in the state of New Jersey. I can only imagine what economic pressures are doing to less fortunate areas.
That's why we should all be extra vigilant to make sure we give our children the very best educational opportunities available. Hard-working educators deserve our support too. So even though we all hate to pay higher taxes, and some of us balk at chipping in a little extra when those requests for money come home from school, at the very least just give a heart-felt "thank you" to a teacher you know is doing a great job with kids. Those teachers -- and our youth -- deserve no less.
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller
'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'
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Comments: (4)
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By: Macaroni on 9/16/2010 3:04PM
Teacher greed, at least in my community and state, has been the primary reason for teacher layoffs. Numerous, common sense proposals have been routinely and overwhelmingly rejected by the unions and their avaricious members. Just a month ago the mayor, in an attempt to maintain the current teacher staffing and level of service, asked the unions to agree to a one year pay freeze - not pay CUT - to enable it. Predictably, the $70,000 a year educators, the ones who just LOVE to robotically and disingenuously babble the mantra "It's All for the Kids," threw their junior "brothers" to the wolves, chose not to deny themselves an increase and quickly impaired the ability of the school system to deliver it's highest quality product. Forty years in the workforce has taught me that unions are concerned ONLYabout their dues-paying members and the members ONLY about themselves.
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By: Lamont on 9/17/2010 6:31AM
Teachers are being laid off, but not policemen, firemen, motor vehicle workers, etc... $70,000 is not alot of money a year for someone who you're trusting your kids future to. A retail manager, who doesn't even run a store could easily make that. A secretary in the corporate world makes more than most beginning teachers do. In fact, that $70,000 salary that you are talking about is what most teachers won't even see until after 10-15 or more years of service. A good teacher can be a child's missing parent, counselor, psychiatrist, mentor or social worker. So $50,000 (more what an average teacher makes) is not a lot of money to trust someone with your child's future.
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By: Karl Rudder on 9/18/2010 3:52AM
Parents in every major city in America deserve to receive a professional effort at providing Tutorial Workshops. (especially for elementary school parents)
Having parents reliably being instructed and helped in understanding and mastering some basic concepts and skills in skillfully and enjoyably provide active tutorial service for their children is part of the solution.
60 years after the beginning of the integration of American public schools the system now wants us to get lost on everything but developing the tutorial skills of parents and better coordinating just a volunteer service for DC youth by just a small fraction of the thousands of college students at Howard University, American University, Catholic University, George Washington University, Georgetown University and the University of the District of Columbia.
A well coordinated effort involving teachers and parents workng together to expand the study and test taking skills that all DC youth deserve!
The Introduction to my blog - Karl Rudder's Blog on google.com- addressed developing tutorial service in DC years ago.
"Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?" Malcolm X
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By: Macaroni on 9/17/2010 8:25AM
Lamont, $70,000 a year IS a lot of money for someone who works 180 days a year (minus 19 sick and personal days), can retire in their mid-50's on 80% of their pay with fully paid health benefits and COLA for life, become bullet proof with tenure (where else in the work world can you get THAT protection?) and have a thousand built-in excuses for producing a sub-standard product. And, all these perks are doled out in a recessionary economy where people in the private sector are losing their jobs, homes and life savings. I asked a friend of mine years ago why he became a teacher(he is now retired at the age of 56 with a 60 grand a year pension). His response was revealing:
"Three reasons...June, July and August." In Massachusetts his $60,000 is rather tame - Dr. Arthur Pappas, the former head of the UMass Medical Center is raping the public with an annual pension of $230,000 a year! The first thing every public sector worker should do when he/she gets up in the morning is kiss rhe ground the taxpayer walks on.
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