By Michael Ball
Valley Voices Staff Writer
Commentary
It seems like this happens every year, and every year it amazes me that we can continue to do this to our youth, the future of our nation.
To balance the budget for the 2010-11 school year, Hamilton County officials are looking at cutting 41 teaching positions: 29 at the high school level and 12 at the middle school.
Not just a local problem, school money woes are part of a national trend.
According to a March 17 New York Times article, the city of Detroit has to close down 45 of its 172 schools, and Kansas City will close doors on 28 of its 61 schools to help balance their respective budgets.
Channel 11 News in Atlanta reported earlier this year that Metro Atlanta Public Schools has to cut back $47 million from its budget for the next school year.
As terrible as our school system’s cuts are, we are fortunate to be cutting positions and not closing down entire schools. However, if we keep going at this rate, we will soon be joining cities like Detroit in doing just that.
It is amazing to me that we can hand out billions of dollars in stimulus money, yet somehow our schools, the foundation of our nation’s success, have been overlooked. All of our attention has been focused on other issues, like the nation’s health-care plan, instead of the issue I think will affect us most in the future.
Cutting money out of our school systems is like cutting the meat out of a deluxe cheeseburger. Sure, you think it’s healthier that way, and it looks like a good thing for you, but then you finish and realize you’re still hungry and you really have gotten nothing out of it. Cutting money from our schools might sound good for now, but all it is doing is leaving the future of our nation hungry.
My own school, Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, was forced to cut two positions for the next school year, including our only technology education teacher. Last year we had to cut a foreign-language teaching position.
This means that, in a day and age when millions of non-English speaking immigrants are coming into our nation and when we are using progressively faster, more technological methods of doing things, we are being forced to cut back on educating students in these areas.
We have to stop this now and rearrange our priorities. Educating the youth should be at the forefront of our minds. We, as the people of Chattanooga, need to stop this before it goes any further. We need to rally behind our teachers and our students and show that we truly care about the future of our children.
If we fail to do so, we too will be closing down schools.
Michael Ball is a student at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences.