In Ackerman’s Hands
Submitted by Frank Murphy, June 8, 2011
Last Thursday I published a post in which I requested that Arlene Ackerman listen to the voice of reason concerning her budget priorities for the upcoming school year. Specifically, I suggested that she redirect the Title One funds targeted to support an eighteen-day district wide summer program, to restore funding for a full day kindergarten program. Interestingly enough, the next day (to the surprise of Mayor Nutter and Ackerman’s other political supporters) she decided to use Title funds to do so.
Now that was an easy solution. It was so easy in fact that you have to wonder how many other of the radical cuts she has proposed could be restored by her merely reordering her spending priorities.
Many of the teaching positions that Ackerman has targeted for elimination could be saved if she would simply rethink how she intends to spend our limited tax dollars. In fact, Ackerman could restore more than a hundred million dollars to important budget items by cutting unproven programs and unnecessary contracts.
The elimination of the extra funding that Ackerman intends to direct towards her experimental Promise