“Public Schools Flush with Cash” — Trump’s Assessment Is Tragically Inaccurate
It is state budget season, a time fraught with accusations and distortions and even alternative facts, but one thing is very clear. When President Donald Trump declared in his Inaugural Address that public schools are “flush with cash,” he was either ignorant about some very basic realities or he was hinting about some sort of scorched earth federal policy—or both.
The President’s own federal budget proposal is due within weeks, and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities worries about what he thinks are likely to be large cuts to domestic discretionary spending: “Many of the cuts in the Trump team’s blueprint come from plans that the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Study Committee (RSC) issued last year, according to The Hill. The Heritage report called for more than $8.5 trillion in non-defense cuts… while the RSC report called for almost $7.5 trillion in such cuts. Moreover, the ‘Penny Plan’ that President Trump proposed during his campaign would slash non-defense discretionary funding by 2026 to an amount 37 percent below the 2010 level, adjusted for inflation, and nearly 40 percent below its lowest level under Ronald Reagan, when measured as a share of the economy. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s nominee for OMB director, supports the Penny Plan.”
What are the realities across the state governments, where about 40 percent of school funding comes from? Despite the distortions induced by state budget politics, it is pretty clear that public schools are in trouble in many places.
Take Chicago, where, the Chicago Tribune reports: “Through legislation in Springfield, (Mayor Rahm) Emanuel’s administration had struck a tentative deal for the state to send CPS (Chicago Public Schools) an additional $215 million for teacher pensions, but that fell through when (Governor Bruce) Rauner vetoed the plan… Because of Rauner’s veto, according to the district, “Public Schools Flush with Cash” — Trump’s Assessment Is Tragically Inaccurate | janresseger:
