Budget Cuts and Education--Layoffs for Teachers in Illinois

For March 16, 2010

In the local news on the morning of Tuesday, March 16, 2010, there was a report from School District U-46, the second largest school district in Illinois (after the Chicago School District).  The School Board, in a unanimous vote, laid off 1,079 employees of which 732 were full-time teachers.  These layoffs are effective at the end of this school year in June. 

Many of these cuts were caused by the withdrawl of $44 million in funding from the state of Illinois. The same news report says that class sizes are expected to grow to 37 next year.  I taught in School District U-46 for four years and was a middle school teacher working with English language learners (ELLs) for three years.  37 students  in a classroom with mixed learning levels (33 students in ELL classrooms because of a 10% dispensation in class size) does not allow students to learn what they need to learn.  The district serves an approximate 40,000 students from kindergarten through high school.

The budget cuts also apply to programs and support staff.  The end result is that students whom President Obama expects to be ready for work or college upon high school graduation will have even more challenges and less opportunities to learn what they need to learn.

Businesses lay off employees when facing budget crunches.  The concern for school districts--with this type of experience taking place throughout Illinois and the rest of the USA--is that not only is the education of students put at risk, qualified teachers are out of work.  The more highly qualified a teacher may be due to advanced degrees (with accompanying student loans), the higher their salaries (per union contracts) and the less likely they are to be hired by another school district facing budget shortfalls themselves.

This is certainly a "Catch 22" situation (a reinforcing problem without ready solution).  Again, due to the economy and high unemployment, residents cannot come up with more property taxes or higher income tax to fund local school boards.  Teachers (already dealing with low pay scales) cannot afford to take wage cuts and still pay their bills.

What does this mean for the future of education in Illinois?  While I cannot speak to the situation in the schools, I can say that both universities and businesses are going to have to gear up to help entering employees build learning skills they will not have picked-up by the time they graduate from high school.

(That type of learning happens to be one of my specialties.)  As a professional educator for businesses, I can see that, again, with this economy, businesses are not gearing up to meet what will be a greatly increased demand.