Q&A: Teachers discuss budget hardships

By Angela Tuck

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s been an especially challenging year for metro area teachers juggling the educational needs of their students with furlough days and other cuts. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked three teachers and the head of the Georgia Association of Educators to share their views on the changing landscape for teachers and other school personnel.

Greg Ott is a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Northwestern Middle School in Alpharetta. He is the winner of the prestigious Milken Educator Award.

Q: Budget cuts are the new reality. What sort of challenges do they present for teachers?

A: The cuts will directly result in the loss of some of our youngest and most enthusiastic teachers. The cuts will contribute to significantly higher numbers of students in the classroom and will reduce our effectiveness as professionals.

I don’t worry so much for myself as I do for the future of the profession and the quality of education in this state. Ultimately, I can manage as many kids as they jam into my classroom, and I will teach them all with the enthusiasm they deserve. However, each additional child will undoubtedly carve into the time I can commit to any individual student.

I will know each child just a little less than I do most years. This will likely diminish my impact on each child’s progress even if the effect is imperceptible from afar. ... I, like most teachers, will invest more of my personal time in meeting the increased demands of the job. In addition, we will spend more of our own money next year because of the reduction in the budget for essential classroom supplies, yet our income will be reduced as a result of pay freezes and furlough days.

Because I teach in a community that is affluent and is highly educated, parental support of my efforts will largely offset any negative impact that budget cuts may have on student learning. But I truly worry for my colleagues and students who work and go to school in more challenging school settings.

Q: What is the one thing you want taxpayers to know about the work of teachers?

A: Investment in education is essential to Georgia’s future. During the last legislative session, the building of sports fishing facilities and new athletic arenas seems to have been a higher priority. The human capital we develop or fail to develop with our educational system will determine our future viability within the increasingly competitive global economy.

Q: If you could institute one bright idea that would save money, what would it be?

A: I would reduce transportation costs. At my school and the high school across the street, many of the buses that arrive in the morning and leave in the afternoon run nearly empty. It completely blows my mind that we actually provide bus transportation for the neighborhood across the street from the school. We need to get kids off the buses and onto bicycles or on foot, and we need to provide safe infrastructure to facilitate that movement.

Debra Gunter is an eighth-grade algebra teacher at Lovinggood Middle in Cobb. She is retiring this year after 38 years of teaching fourth through eighth grades.

Q: What are some of the ways budget cuts are playing out in classrooms?

A: We have been trained on white boards, interactive boards, LCD projectors, video streaming, interactive lessons, computer research, blogs, Facebook, e-mail and grades online. The cost of refreshing and replacing is enormous.

Cutting our money prevents us from keeping the lessons updated, interactive, interesting and relevant for our students. Teachers spend around $1,000-plus a year on prizes, incentives, lab items and supplies for students who can’t afford them.

Increased class size is a dangerous idea. It is impossible now, in a 50-minute class, to get to 28 students and I can’t imagine how teachers will manage with 35! The paperwork increases, the tests/quizzes to grade, the students to tutor, the parents to call and just the shortage of time to bond/connect with each student. The rooms are not designed for 35. Labs are impossible with 35.

Jeff Hubbard is in his fourth and final year as president of the Georgia Association of Educators, the state’s second-largest teacher advocacy group. He has 24 years of experience as a middle school teacher and elementary school administrator.

Q: How do you see budget cuts playing out in the classroom?

A: We will see challenges next year unlike any we have seen before in public education. Over $3 billion in budget cuts during the governor’s term, over $1.3 billion in the last two years alone (that is WITH the stimulus funds added in). Therefore, class sizes will be maxed out virtually at all grade levels throughout the state, the amount of student-teacher interaction will be greatly decreased, the potential for decrease in academic performance and [increase in] discipline concerns and the pressures of meeting testing goals will be even greater with the continued movement to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind.

Q: What are the biggest concerns you hear from GAE members?

A: They are worried about being able to successfully work with each child, to be successful given the dramatic decrease in resources and teaching days due to furloughs. For the members losing their jobs, they are worried about finding employment not only in-field but in any professional-level career. Our single-parent families and members close to retirement who are now losing their jobs are deeply concerned. Our new service members and graduating seniors are wondering if they should switch careers altogether.

Q: Some people believe the funding structure for schools should be dramatically changed. How would you suggest education be funded?

A: The Quality Basic Education Act has never been fully funded since passage in the 1980s. The first key is to provide the level of funding as originally intended via the formula. To do that at this point will require some kind of tax increase. GAE proposed a temporary half-cent sales tax to help the state during this time of financial crisis. Rep. Rusty Kidd (I-Milledgeville) proposed an overall 2-cent sales tax increase for the entire budget. Georgians will pay for what they believe is quality. Investing in Georgia’s future by educating our children and doing it well should be our greatest ongoing priority at the state Capitol.

Ed Palombo is retiring after 28 years of teaching. He teaches drama at Cherokee County’s Woodstock High School.

Q: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen over the years, and how do school budget cuts affect the ability of school personnel to keep up with those changes?

A: The single most negative impact brought on by budget cuts has been the increase in class size. Teaching dramatic arts, for the most part, is such an individualized process. Each student has their own performance level(s) and the increased class size or in some cases combining of classes makes it far more difficult or even improbable to meet the individual or collective needs for the class.

The negative impact of increased class size, across the board, will be long term and far reaching. Students of this decade are far needier than those of previous ones and the end result will be that fewer students will be reached in a meaningful way.

Many veteran teachers are taking their retirement rather than continue on in the classroom and many fine new teachers now find themselves unemployed due to cuts. At both levels, it is an irreplaceable loss of talent.

Q: What advice would you offer to parents regarding their children’s education?

A: The arts are such a vital part of a child’s learning in the early years of education. The arts make us all better communicators, allow us to think and problem-solve creatively and to work more collaboratively.

Q: If you could institute one bright idea that would save money, what would it be?

A: One might be to cut back on some of the standardized testing. Remove all but a few benchmark tests that are necessary for certain levels. Another idea would be to allow students to take up to four online courses for initial credit. It could potentially reduce class size and allow midyear graduation.

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How we got the story

Education assignment editor Angela Tuck reached out to a wide variety of educators to get their views on school budget cuts. Some school personnel, including school nurses who are losing their jobs in Clayton County, said they were afraid to speak on the record.