Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Perfect Storm: More students, less cash

Read two articles in the Salt Lake Tribune today dealing with public ed budgets:
  • Lisa Schenker writes about the increase in students and lower budgets www.sltrib.com
  • Another article talks about the lack of tax revenues (down 22%)

It is a perfect storm of low revenues, no stimulus, more students, lack of support to raise taxes, lack of leadership in the state legislature to make the tough choices. (oh, they want to make districts, actually teachers's salaries, pay more of their retirement).

Our per pupil expenditure will continue to drop while the expectations for teachers, higher test scores, increase. Debra Roberts, chair of the State Board of Ed, understates the problem, "It is going to be tough year..."

Rick