Back in May, school funding experts predicted a looming financial disaster for the nation's K-12 schools.
"I think we're about to see a school funding crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern history," warned Rebecca Sibilia, the founder of EdBuild, a school finance advocacy organization. "We are looking at devastation that we could not have imagined ... a year ago."
But those warnings, like everything else that happened in May, feel like a lifetime ago. Where do things stand now? First, a little good news:
"So we're not looking at a disastrous year this year," says Michael Griffith at the Learning Policy Institute. He says the CARES Act, signed in March, helped states avoid a short-term school funding disaster.
Remember: Schools get about half their funding from state tax revenues, which have taken a big hit in the pandemic. States were facing budget cuts in the 20-30% range, Griffith says. But thanks, in part, to those federal CARES Act dollars, it's just "a bad year," he explains — "between 15 and 20%."
The bad news is: Those cuts are still pretty deep.
"There are about 570,000 fewer local education jobs" this year compared to the start of the previous school year, says Michael Leachman, who studies state fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Those are teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, librarians, counselors."
Sibilia says one reason we haven't seen even more cuts is "because all of our elected leaders are putting their head in the sand."
Many politicians are wary of making big, unpopular cuts before the election, Sibilia explains, and instead are draining their rainy day funds or hiding the pain with CONTINUE READING: Audio: America's School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight | 89.3 KPCC
