With the announcement of the proposed relocation of the Atlanta Braves to Cobb County, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa now understands why his pleas for help for Cobb County schools fell on deaf ears.
Cobb leadership was looking at providing a new venue for a roster of 45 young men to play baseball. At a time when Cobb schools face a budget shortfall next year of an estimated $80 million, consideration of a new ballpark is pathetically shortsighted. We have over 108,000 students to educate. In 2011-2012, more than 44 percent of these students qualified for free or reduced-priced lunches.
Cobb County leadership obviously believes, as Ben Mathis, 2013 chair-elect of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a recent column for the AJC, “The Braves complex will reap dividends for decades and will have a tremendously positive economic impact for Cobb and the region.”
However, what might be the potential socioeconomic impact if the leadership believed and supported education as a vital investment?
The $3 million Mathis estimates will go each year to Cobb schools as a result of property taxes from the Braves entertainment complex is a very, very small drop in our educational bucket. It also doesn't come close to the salary of Braves player Dan Uggla who, at age 33, makes $13 million.
Has the Cobb leadership weighed the real impact this immediate budget shortfall will have for the students and families?
Are they aware of the options that must be considered in balancing the schools’ budget? They include a four-day school week, further increases in class size, elimination of P.E., music, and art, elimination of orchestra and chorus programs in middle school, elimination of media center paraprofessionals, half-day kindergarten, outsourcing custodial positions, and the list goes on. (Please note, there are no proposed cuts to any athletic program.)
What impact would a four-day school week have on single-parent families and those with both parents working? What effect would elimination of physical education programs have on our soaring childhood obesity?
Research shows that arts programs help students excel in other academic areas as they stimulate critical thinking, imagination, and problem-solving. What if we eliminate those programs?
Further reducing media center staffs will have a significant impact on student achievement as study after study consistently documents “students score an average of 10 percent to 20 percent higher on reading and achievement tests when their school has a strong library media program.”
What will be the impact of a half-day kindergarten on student readiness? Ask a kindergarten teacher about the dramatic decline in school readiness among their students in the last five years.
Educating our students is a labor-intensive job. Each year, teachers are called on to do more with less. Each year, the number of students entering school with special needs and behavioral and emotional challenges increases. Interventions for these precious children are expensive. Just as parents cannot be replaced with technology, neither can the job of educating our students.
There is a considerable amount of lip service locally and nationally about the importance of education. When are the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles of our students going to put our children first?
If we truly value educational excellence, we have got to make it a priority now.
