With Budget Cuts Looming, Can School Districts Appropriate More Funding To The Classroom?

With the state facing a possible budget shortfall of $25 billion, it’s to be expected that education will receive larger than average cuts. School districts and state-funded colleges alike have been dreading these first few months of 2011, knowing that they would have to tighten the belts on most of their programs and staff benefits.  (read more after the jump)However, I can’t help but think that even when faced with these giant cuts, school districts and colleges will continue to drop the ball when it comes to applying the money where they really need it.

Being a graduate of the Lubbock ISD system, I have directly experienced the neglect academic areas received when in competition with the money pit that is sports programs. Area schools are notorious for cutting musical and art programs before cutting into the funds of football or basketball, and even programs like Academic Decathlon have to struggle to keep their funding while programs like Track and Field are allowed superfluous things such as pride banners for the gymnasium.

In an interview by KMAC 28 today, Lubbock ISD Superintendent Karen Garza touched on how some Lubbock ISD schools may have to actually be closed in order for the district to survive on their allotted funds. The quality of public education on the South Plains is already at a disturbing low, and I highly doubt that this development will do anything to improve the situation. I fear that, due to the massive mismanagement of systems across the state, the future graduating classes of Texas will find succeeding in college and the workforce an increasingly impossible uphill battle.