COMMENTARY | When I grew up, "school closure" usually meant something related to the weather, like a snow day. Now there's a different kind of storm threatening whether or not your school stays open.
As I drove home Monday, I listened to National Public Radio, where Elizabeth Fiedler reported the story "Pennsylvania School District Goes Broke." It was a heart-rending story of the Chester Upland School District, a poor area south of Philadelphia on the verge of bankruptcy. It was sad, but it was still someone else's problem in a state far away.
The next morning in my small Georgia town, I was immediately greeted by a panic-stricken colleague, who begged me for the contact information and application of the private school where my wife teaches and my daughter attends. It didn't take too long to figure out why: A local public school that once served as the model institution is facing a similar predicament.
And it doesn't just stop at our local school. According to the LaGrange Daily News, the county faces an $11.1 million budget deficit. It plans to lay off more than 50 art and music teachers, slashing its budget and closing the venerated West Side Magnet School.
Though Georgia and Pennsylvania are far apart, the story of the two districts is strikingly similar. Both have tapped out federal stimulus funds. Both have had state grants significantly cut, though the reasons are somewhat different. In Pennsylvania, a charter school sued to get the funds that would normally go to the district. In Georgia, the arrival of the Kia Automotive plant led state legislators to increase the value of the county in its rating system for school funding, and thereby reduce the state money once allocated for needy counties.
In Pennsylvania, a judge ruled the state couldn't cut off the funds to the district, but the money runs out by the middle of the month. Teachers have expressed a willingness to stay at their posts until the issue is resolved, which fits the attitude of almost all teachers I know.
There's been a lot of anger in the community about the state budget cuts to education, as well as plenty of Internet chatter and emails suggesting that gutting the public school districts would be a good thing. None of them has kids in the school district, of course. But they don't need to in order for them to see how such events will affect their community, crime, property values and the ability to attract future business.
Whether you live in Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts, Missouri or Utah, the number of school closings in the past few years has been dramatic. Parents of kids in public school districts have to think the unthinkable. The only difference is that it is no longer someone else's problem.
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