I've heard complaints about various public school districts over the years, but I've seen few that match up to the deplorable situation in Reading, Pennsylvania.
It's so bad there, in fact, that I actually cried during one of the interviews. I'm betting you'll tear up, too. Click through to see our report.
See what I mean?
Since this is Behind the Vote, I'm going to get personal with you. My kids' public school is amazing, and so it has been easy for me to read about budget woes in other school districts and to tell myself that those districts really needed to figure it out on their own.
I thought, naively, that it couldn't possibly be as bad as they said it was in the newspapers and on television...
I was wrong.
The Reading School District just cut more than 200 employees from its payroll, mostly teachers and teachers' aides. At least some of Reading's school buildings are in deplorable condition - I would be livid if my children had to go to school in the building we featured in our story. The pre-K program is now gone. And as a result of the layoffs, the number of kids per class is larger- I heard one estimate of up to FORTY children per class.
Having talked to furloughed teachers in Reading and having seen video of school building conditions, I think it's safe to say that we have a problem. No child in our public school system should be facing these conditions. And Reading is far from alone- Do a news search for "school budget cuts" and you'll read about school districts across the country that are facing similar budget woes and cutting everything from arts and P.E. programs to kindergarten.
Something is wrong here.
The question is- How do we fix it?
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Comments 14
Do you really want the truth? Vote Democratic all the way. the major problem are parents who don't care and are not involved with the schools. Another problem is that schools are the first to get cute because they do take money to run and they always want to cut teacher salaries because they are the biggest resource, next to the kids. Administrators rarely get cut very deeply and many have salaries much higher than the teacher salaries. You should also look at budgets and many times teachers will tell you where the budgets are being misused. In Broward Co. where I'm from there has been a lot of corruption and the schools have paid two construction companies to do one job and I'm not sure if either one did the job. They bought property in a swamp for a school, supposedly. Many have taken special needs money and bought computers for the office, not for the kids to use.
@Sweet_Carol-voting Democratic all the way. Worst advise ever! Democrats think throwing money at the problem fixes everything.
The first thing that needs to be done in State's across the country is to cut administrative pay. I live in Washington state where the superintendent make six figure's a year. That is ridiculous!!!! We have to prioritize our spending. We need to figure out what we NEED and get rid of the rest of the crap. We need more parent's to get involved. Visit your kids school and see what's going on there, and if you don't like whats happening TAKE THEM OUT OF THE SCHOOL. The thing people don't like to talk about is that before the government took over our educational system we were number one in the wold, now we are number 46 as far as testing goes. Our top priority for our son is his education and that is why we are both willing to work two jobs to put him in a private school with high focus on academics. I don't trust the public school system in my state so I will not let my son be at the mercy of their decision's.