Making Reading， Writing and Recession Work Together A．With books tucked neatly on the shel
Making Reading， Writing and Recession Work Together
A．With books tucked neatly on the shelves and a comfy purple-dragon rug in a back comernook， the library at San Diego"s Willard B. Hage Elementary School is the perfect place forchildren to fall in love with reading. Since the start of the school year， however， the libraryhas been off limits to students， who get to go there only when （already overworkeD．teacherscan escort them and handle the record keeping. "With all of the cutbacks we"ve had in thelast few years， the district can"t pay for someone to help check out books，" explains PamWiesenberg， a third-grade teacher at the school. "As a result， the children suffer."
B．As the national economy continues to nose dive， a growing number of public schoolshave found themselves facing similar situations —— and making more and more painfulcutbacks. Advanced Placement programmes， extra help for English learners， art， musicand summer school could be on the chopping block in many places. Ditto （同上） for ef-forts to reduce class size.
C．The huge federal stimulus package should offer some relief to desperate districts; theHouse and Senate are haggling over versions that include at least $80 billion for edu-cation programs， a significant bump up from the Education Department"s $59 billiondiscretionary （ 自由裁量的） budget for fiscal 2008. But there"s a catch: a big chunk ofthe stimulus money that is designed to prevent massive teacher layoffs will be awardedonly to states that spend at least as much on education as they did in 2006 —— a tall ordergiven that a minimum of 42 states are facing significant budget gaps. At least 20 stateshave already cut their K-12 budgets. Moreover， even with the federal stimulus money，school districts will still get the bulk of their funding from state and local coffers， whichhaven"t been this low in decades. As Randall Moody， manager of federal advocacy forthe National Education Association， says， "When you have 40 states with serious budgetissues and that"s where schools get the bulk of their money， naturally there"s going to bea problem."
D．Budget disasters are perhaps most acute in California. The state， the most populous in theUS， spends about $48 billion a year on K-12 education， or nearly half its general fund，which receives revenue from a variety of sources， including income and sales taxes. Thisyear， however， the double hits of endless layoffs and an imploding （剧减的） real estatemarket has mined the fund， with legislators projecting a $42 billion deficit by the mid-dle of next year. To help bridge this gap， Govemor Amold Schwarzenegger has proposedshorting schools $2.1 billion during the rest of this academic year and $3.1 billion thenext. He wants to save an additional $1.1 billion by reducing the number of school days，from 180 to 175. Though the extra time off might cheer students， California school super-intendent Jack O. Connell strenuously opposes the move. Best sound bite: "To close theachievement gap and prepare all students for success in the competitive global economy，we should be offering more time in class， not less."
E. Despite Congress"s holding emergency weekend sessions to push through a stimulus plan，educators in many states lament the fact that schools won"t see a penny of the extra moneyuntil at least July. According to O. Connell， some of California"s poorest districts are run-ning out of cash for subsidised meal programmes. The Hayward district is planning layoffsthat would increase class size in primary grades from 20 students to 32. In Lake Elsinore，schools have turned off the lights in many rooms —— and placed duct tape over the switch-es —— to save money on electricity bills.
F.Terry Grier， superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District， says his districtneeds a cash influx （流入） now. "There are schools in our district that don"t even havenurses on certain days，" says Grier， whose district includes Hage Elementary School andits shuttered stacks. "If a kid skins his elbow， a teacher has to take time out of her lesson todust him off， clean him up and put on a Band Aid."
G. California isn"t the only state grappling with steep K-12 budget cuts. In Florida， officialsin overcrowded school districts are bracing themselves for likely staff cuts. Connecti-cut"s board of education adopted a budget resolution in December that included an over-all 10% reduction —— a move that some fear means that pink slips for teachers are inevi-table. "The biggest line items in most school budgets are staff and benefits，" says BobBrewer， an education consultant in East Hartford， Conn. "No district can absorb thosekinds of hits without trimming some of those big ticket items." Even oil and gas richstates are in a panic. In Alaska， for instance， sinking oil prices have some state legisla-tors scrambling to lock in education budgets for the next few years as the state preparesto dip into its savings to cover a shortfall of approximately $1.65 billion this year andup to $3 billion next year. In Montana， which earned big bucks last year from its naturalresources， education is funded primarily through property taxes， and many fear that theclosing of mines and aluminum plants could trigger a mass exodus and redistribute thetax base. "It doesn"t look good，" says Eric Feaver， who heads the MEA MFT， a union ofteachers and state employees. "People around here are starting to ask themselves whatwill happen if people leave."
H. Where will those families go? And whose school districts can afford to absorb their chil-dren? In California， school officials are expecting to receive upwards of $8 billion overtwo years from the federal stimulus. While this money would enable districts to addresssome of their most pressing needs， John Mockler， an education funding specialist in Sac-ramento， says， "It"s not apanacea （万灵药）. In the long term， Mockler says， states needto come up with new funding sources to support classroom instruction and let teachers dowhat they were hired to do —— teach. In the meantime， some school district administratorshave come up with creative solutions. Superintendent Jerry Vaughn of the Floydada Inde-pendent School District in Texas —— which has 900 or so students —— says he is working to-ward a partnership with a local wind power company that would pay for a laptop for everykid in grades 6 through 12. At the fast growing Forsyth County Schools District in Cum-ming， Ga.， Bailey Mitchell， chief technology and information officer， recently opted to usefree open source software instead of purchasing expensive software licenses from vendorslike Microsoft. Mitchell says the decision will save $1.1 million over three years. "We satback and recognized the money we needed simply wasn"t going to materialize out of thinair，" he says.
I. Back in San Diego， at Hage Elementary， teachers desperate for help in the school libraryare recruiting parent volunteers to staff the facility a few days each week. Juli Finney，president of the school"s Parent Teacher Association， admits that while this solution isn"tideal， it is precisely the kind of effort she and other parents must make to ensure that statebudget cuts don"t deny their children the chance to experience the thousands of books thatare now quite literally behind closed doors. "Technically， the PTA is supposed to put ic-ing on the cake and not provide the cake itself，" she says. But when times are tough， somecake is better than no cake at all.
There might not be enough taxes for school budgets if a lot of people leave Montana.
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