The headline in the Sacramento Bee today says, “School district is going broke,” Dec.2,2010. P. B1. The article by Diana Lambert.
The article, and the headlines, miss the major points, create a distorted frame for the story, and assign blame for the wrong problem.
The issue is that the Natomas schools have cut their budgets by $31.2 million, and now, due to the failure of the legislature to adequately fund the schools, they must cut even more. Natomas is not a troubled school district. Like all districts it must respond to the draconian cuts imposed from the state.
The new superintendent and the school board wants the teachers to take a bigger pay cut. That is, they insist that teachers take pay cuts to respond to the failure of the legislature to adequately fund the schools. The Bee regularly argues that teachers should take these cuts.
These cuts hurt children. Already the district has raised its class size from 20 to 25 in k-3. This means that some children will not learn to read and some will not learn math. It is difficult to make these cuts since they damage the quality of education.
