Some cuts to budgets are easier than others. According to the Daily Herald, Indian Prairie School District 204 is considering what extracurricular activities to cut to accommodate $210,000 in budget cuts for the programs. That $210,000 represents less than .1% (that’s one tenth of one percent) of the $221 million budget for the 2005-2006 school year.
District 204 School Board member Christine Vickers has expressed concern about the cuts, saying,
“It’s a small drop in the bucket if it’s going to affect the children and their opportunities. This is about the kids.”
I agree.
Perhaps as Neuqua Valley High School Principal Mike Popp said, comparable activities will be maintained for students, like the literary magazine club will be a place for those who used to go to the creative writing club.
“You’re not going to find a student who is going to say, ‘I was involved in this last year, and now I’m not because of the cuts.’ We’re very creative.”
Where there is genuine duplication of programs then the cuts seem quite reasonable. I don’t know about either the literary magazine club or the creative writing club - perhaps they are quite similar, even if they do not necessarily sound like it to me. But I would hate to think that for such (relative to the budget) modest sums of money kids would lose out on educational activities. Losing out on extra curricular activities doesn’t sound like a good investment decision - in money or education.
Comments 2
Education is probably the most important public service that we can provide.
Yet, what is the role of public education? I believe that it is delivery of instruction (for which we need teachers and facilities) to create an informed populace.
Extra-curricular (not part of the curriculum) activities should be provided for by the individual, not the public.
Posted 05 Sep 2005 at 8:40 pm ¶Hi AntiLabel,
Thank you for your comments!
My concern with your take on “extra-curricular” activities is that the success of many students, getting into college or gaining experiences that will help them in future careers and enrich their lives, depends in part on the learning these activities provide. While schools need not provide for every possible extra-curricular need, they can (perhaps uniquely) support two critical categories of needs:
- Activities that other organizations are not likely to support or that are clearly school based (e.g. working on year books) and
- Activities that permit working parents (particularly when both are working with long commutes) to feel secure that their children are supervised in constructive tasks while they (the parents) are working or trying to get home.
Getting rid of school-based extra curricular activities limits the growth of children and penalizes working parents and their children by limiting the children’s activities or placing an extra financial burden on the family.
There are places to save on taxes and reduce the tax burden on residents - one of my favorites is the transportation budget, where tens of millions (or more) in Naperville and DuPage could be reduced through mass transit. Cutting out school extra curricular programs both cuts out too little money (in the overall picture) and too much in the education of children. We can do better.
Posted 12 Sep 2005 at 10:10 pm ¶Post a Comment