U.S. schools in ‘category 5’ budget crisis
Thousands of teachers face layoffs as recession meets falling enrollments
At the center of the country’s school funding crisis are little boys and girls like Kyle Wolfe, a 3-year-old pupil in Rising Stars, a pre-kindergarten program for at-risk children in communities near Rockford, Ill.
“I can’t even begin to describe the way Kyle has grown since starting this program,” said his mother, Carolyn.
Last week, the Harlem School District Board of Education, which serves the communities of Loves Park, Machesney Park and southern Roscoe, voted to eliminate Rising Stars because the state of Illinois hasn’t made good on the grants that support it. The vote means the nearly 400 youngsters the program serves “will be entering kindergarten delayed academically and socially,” said Lynn Wade, a pre-K teacher at the Donald C. Parker Early Education Center in Machesney Park.
No one disputes that Rising Stars is “an excellent program,” said Julie M. Morris, the