The Pandemic Is Driving America's Schools Toward A Financial Meltdown
Austin Beutner looked haggard, his face a curtain of worry lines. The superintendent of the second-largest school district in the nation sat at a desk last week delivering a video address to Los Angeles families. But he began with a stark message clearly meant for another audience:
Lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
"Cuts to funding at schools will forever impact the lives of children," Beutner said less than a week after California's governor called for emergency cuts in education spending. The harm children face from these cuts, Beutner warned, "is just as real a threat to them as is the coronavirus."
Similar alarms are sounding in districts across the country. With the nation's attention still fixed on the COVID-19 health crisis, school leaders are warning of a financial meltdown that could devastate many districts and set back an entire generation of students.
"I think we're about to see a school funding crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern history," warns Rebecca Sibilia, the CEO of EdBuild, a school finance advocacy organization. "We are looking at devastation that we could not have imagined ... a year ago."
"Really shocking declines"
Schools receive nearly half of their funding from state coffers. But with businesses shuttered in response to the pandemic, and the unemployment rate already nearing CONTINUE READING: Audio: The Pandemic Is Driving America's Schools Toward A Financial Meltdown | 89.3 KPCC