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The Edutopia Poll
by Laila Weir
As education budgets dwindle and pink slips go out to teachers en masse in many areas, plenty of educators, parents, and students are unhappy -- and they want their politicians to know it. In Tucson, Arizona, middle school students wrote letters opposing planned budget cuts to the governor for a class assignment. In San Jose, California, high school students and their teachers held an outdoor teach-in protesting cuts, and administrators dismissed students early one day for a demonstration. Elsewhere around the country, students are protesting, with and without educator involvement. Though some schools and teachers support student action, others discourage it: Officials at one Tucson high school stopped would-be demonstrators from leaving campus, and some schools punish absent protesters as truants. We want to know your take on how much educators should allow -- and encourage -- students to protest cuts.
Students Protesting Budget Cuts
Take a lesson from President Obama and sit all parties to school spending - with the students as moderators/facilitators - to hammer out reasonable suggestions and an action timetable for cutting overall cost and improving learning effectiveness, building by building.
Consolidation of purchasing activities, electronic and textbooks on demand instead of purchasing "Texas/California" approved books (see the Rice University example for Chemistry), building a common data base IT application for required reporting to higher levels of government, students from more affluent schools organizing year long reading and homework support efforts for less well funded schools at the elementary level, etc., etc., etc.
Protest if you must but have solutions in hand when you do. Don't just protest since your efforts will be ignored by both the media and politicians.
Apply the students' imagination, creativity and energy. Follow their lead.
Student Pprotest on Ed Budget
I feel that debate for whatyou think is right is always a good thing, but the education budget? Now there's an animal. I have asked many teachers if their students were, cooperative, their environment safe and functional, would they need more money. I'd get the same response every time. NO! We spend more money on education in America than anyplace else and we have one of the poorest performing systems of all of the industrialized nations. Let's allow our stuidents to protest, but let's get them to research the "real problems" with our system, which we all know is not the money, but how we utilize the funds we have. Our students will become better stewards of what will eventually become their responsibility.