Summer of Unrest for Public Education

                This summer will be an important summer for public education.  Public school districts across the country will try to prevent their worst case scenario plans from coming to fruition.  As districts struggle with less money to serve students next school year, difficult decisions will be made that will affect instruction, school climate, and student activities. 

School leaders will have to make tough decisions on instruction that will affect several key areas.  The first is class size.  As districts close buildings and cuts school staff, many districts have sought relief from the state for class size regulations.  The increase in class size could greatly impact instruction and hamper a teachers’ ability to provide quality and differentiated instruction all students need.  Second, school leaders will have to decide on if there should be a change to the school week?  To manage costs, there are a number of medium and small districts that have shortened the school week from 5 days to 4 days.  While shortening the school week has produced mixed results, there is very little longitudinal data to determine if a shortened school week will be a viable cost saving solution to budgetary concerns.  A final instruction concern is whether to keep certain academic interventions that provide supplemental aid to students who are struggling with the core curriculum content and standardized assessments.  To increase scores on standardized tests and improve overall knowledge of the core content, districts spend a lot of money on costly academic interventions that are beginning to show improvement.  The decision to keep costly interventions may lead the termination of other things that might be considered equally important. 

                School climate is another area school leaders will have to address this summer.  Decisions on how to support students when there are cuts to counselors, support staff and cuts to city social services will impact how a school responds to students with behavioral challenges, students who are homeless and students who are truant.  Supporting these students along with the rest of the student body is a complex process.  With less support and security staff, these decisions will become more problematic because school climate directly impacts instruction.  Being sensitive to the challenges that students in crisis face while ensuring the rest of the student body are safe and engaged in learning is a difficult balance achieve and maintain with a full complement of support and safety staff. Combine this with a potential increase in class size and there is a potential for schools to have major climate problems.

                The final area to be considered this summer is cuts to student activities.  School leaders will consider if cutting programs such as art, music, and some varsity and junior varsity sports will produce the financial windfall needed to reduce the deficit.  School leaders will also have to consider if cutting these programs is worth the parental and student backlash that will occur as a result of cutting these programs.

This summer, school leaders are going to make some tough decisions that will impact the educational landscape for their districts.  Decisions about class size, school climate and student activities will greatly impact instruction and student engagement.  Unfortunately, many of these decisions will not be based on what is in the best interest of the students, but in the interest of fiscal necessity.  At a time where our public education system needs to become more competitive on a global level, the summer of unrest may keep our system stagnate or make us further behind our global competition.