We all know the looming fiscal cliff is going to affect most Mainers in the pocketbook unless our leaders find a solution.
Estimations are that without agreement in the next few days, average individual taxpayers will pay $2,000 more to the Internal Revenue Service. Automatic cuts to defense, Social Security, Medicare and other programs will begin to take place. Maine’s schools are especially vulnerable.
Maine’s congressional leaders must stand firm that cuts to education are unacceptable, and a solution to the fiscal cliff must be negotiated immediately.
If allowed to go forward with the automatic cuts, how will Maine’s students fare? Nearly all federal education spending will be cut by 8.2 percent starting Jan. 2, 2013, unless Congress and President Barack Obama can agree to a deal to avert across the board cuts.
The impact of those proposed cuts is huge.
Maine would lose $4.1 billion in education funding, which would directly impact local school districts and local taxpayers in the 2013-14 school year. The cuts will hit districts with large numbers of low-income students or those with disabilities especially hard.
The guillotine expected to fall will chop off entire programs and cost jobs.
Portland would lose $5.3 million, and Bangor would lose almost $2.5 million, according to an analysis done by the Kennebec Journal, based on an across-the-board 8.2 percent cut to discretionary funding in the sequestration package. Auburn would lose $2.6 million; Lewiston, $4 million; Waterville, $1.5 million; and Winslow, $700,000.
The big school districts lose more because of their sheer size, but smaller ones would feel the pain, as well. A half-million dollar loss in a smaller community could mean entire scholastic programs like science would be eliminated because of teacher layoffs. This is not the answer for our children.
The effects on students at all levels would be devastating as programs such as Head Start, Title 1, special education programs and the future of Pell Grants would be impacted.
How can the question of whether to tax the wealthiest 2 percent be the deciding factor in funding education? We are pitting the top income-earners against our future — our students.
Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have said they would support the tax-rate increase on the wealthy. Snowe has said Congress should leave the fight about taxes and spending until later.
Our students cannot wait for a battle to ensue. We must be assured that funding for education is guaranteed and protects our students’ futures.
Our children’s education should not be used as a bargaining chip for those in Washington.
Maine’s future depends on our schools, and our schools are dependent on those in Congress who will make the right choice in funding education and supporting our kids.
We call upon Collins and Snowe to stand up for children and vote for kids, not cuts.
Michael Thurston is a social studies teacher at Winslow High School.
In many ways you are correct, but you lose me the moment you put the debate in “us and them” terms.
You make it sound as though Maine will lose $4.1 billion next year; that’s hardly compatible with the several-million dollar cuts you cite for Maine’s biggest school districts. A little mathematical magic, perhaps?
You might also want to think about what the current level of federal borrowing will do to the adults your students will spend most of their lives as.
And you wonder why kids graduating with a high school diploma cannot do basic math.
Until this article is verified by the the professor from Gilligan’s Island.. I will remain skeptical. Readers should take notice that the Maine Maritime Academy’s annual taxpayers subsidy got “INCREASED” to more than $9,000,000. That’s $10,000 per student per year.. with 1/2 of the 900 student body being jocks from out of state. The MMA is purposely not in the UMS nor the Community College system.. it’s a stealth item buried in the budget benefiting connected insiders while draining scarce resource $’s from necessary state expendures. It’s time that the MMA be privatized. “What’s in your wallet?”
Right on the community college dose not even cost $10,000 a year. Just another way the elite takes care of the elite. I never let school get in the way of my education. I believe Abraham Lincoln said “Schools to not teach people things they do not already know . It makes them behave in ways they do not already”. Indoctrination going on?
Indeed. I would like to see the crowd–the one that says cars, trucks, and business need to stop taking tax breaks and pay their real costs–call for property taxes and local sales taxes pay for education’s real costs.
There is, in fact a misprint. The 4 billion would be the overall cuts to education in 13-14 nationwide. The cuts to individual school districts is accurate.
And would be an enormous cost shift to property tax payers in those districts.
Nope. An 8.2% decrease in federal money, even in a heavy-user district like Waterville (where it makes up 8% of the school budget) only means there’s .082 x .08 = .00656 of their budget to be made up locally. That’s between a half and three-quarters of a percent. (You can check this for reasonableness in your head: if the budget was 10% paid for by the feds and the cut in that 10% was 10%, then the cut in the total budget would be 1%.)
Also, federal money comes from federal taxpayers, including Mainers, who send 70% as much to Washington as they get back. So most of that ‘federal’ money is already being paid by Mainers.
Federal money extorts children from a real education. Federal money means mandates.. Mike please stay out of politics
Politician’s kids go to private schools. They have no skin in the game. Don’t hold your breath.
Bet the teachers union will not lose.Especially now that the union providers are back .Got to pay for those votes.