It is absolutely appalling to me that Californians can sit by and watch while these drastic cuts from education are happening ? especially when our government is throwing money away as fast as they can bring it in. For example, we”re spending $343 million per day on the war in Iraq. That means for every day that we are in Iraq we could pay about 7,000 teachers for an entire year!
Nancy Pelosi and seven fellow Democrats in Congress recently took a trip to Italy to visit museums and have a private audience with the Pope. Days after, they chastised the CEO”s of the auto industry for “flying in on private jets.” These members of Congress flew a private, government-owned jet which costs $10,000 per hour. Just the airfare on that trip nailed taxpayers for $200,000 ? or five teachers” salary for an entire year.
GM and Chrysler got over $17 billion in loans because laying off “thousands of American workers would be devastating to the economy.” California is cutting $11 billion from education and plans on distributing over 25,000 pink slips. While I understand that teachers may not be as “important to the economy” as auto factory workers, perhaps the government could kick in a little bailout money for our future. If we had used that $17 billion for education, we could have paid 340,000 teachers $50,000 for a year!
So, what are some other sources of potential funding? We spend approximately $1 billion per year to keep prisoners convicted of “marijuana crimes” in prison. That would pay the salary of 20,000 teachers for an entire year (at $50,000 per year). The average cost to house a prisoner in California is $34000 per year ? about the same as a beginning teacher”s salary. Is there really no way we can give early release to some non-violent offenders to pay for a teacher? Every prisoner we release pays for a teacher”s job.
Do I want more criminals on the street? No, but my point is this: We do have a financial crisis right now, but perhaps we could at least look for alternatives to cuts … at least to education.
Something else I would like people to understand is that not putting money into education costs us money. If we give up on our kids, they”ll give up on themselves ? and they”ll drop out. Unemployment rates for dropouts are twice as high as those who graduated high school. Dropouts are eight times more likely to end up in jail or prison ? which, as I established earlier, is a very costly consequence.
I don”t pretend to have all the answers, but as a teacher who was cut this year I am a bit sensitive to the issue. I pray that things will turn around because there are a lot of teachers who will be on the street very soon ? and there are only so many substitute teacher positions out there at the moment.
Robert Griffith
Lakeport
