CMS Double Deals Money Card
Despite all the gnashing of teeth and general angst earlier this year – not to mention teacher layoffs, pay-for-play athletic fees, and scuttled neighborhood bus stops – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools saw its total 2010-11 budget increase by about $10 million, up to $1.15 billion, thanks to myriad, last-minute funding boosts from state and federal sources.
Not only that, the school system was able to bank about $20 million in federal money that it received earlier this year, and this week announced it’s in line to receive an additional $15 million from the feds through the highly touted Race to the Top scheme.
That’s $35 million CMS essentially has sitting in the bank, on top of a $10 million increase to its current-year budget.
Yet here we have school board chairman Eric Davis claiming that mothballing nearly a dozen schools and triggering general tumult for dozens more as part of the district’s ongoing upheaval for continued improvement is because – wait for it – the school system is broke.
Yes, CMS faces a so-called “funding cliff” next year, when federal stimulus money to the tune of $50 million is slated to run dry. But remember CMS is already banking enough to cover more than half of that, and still has plenty of bloat in its allegedly lean budget, where not getting as much as they want is considered a cut.
And recall earlier this year, when none other than schools chief Peter Gorman was insisting that the wholesale changes were being made more as a way to improve academic achievement, rather than a way to save money, and citing as proof the fact that closing schools really wouldn’t save the district that much loot.
And recall also, at that same time, select school board members pining for ways to require that so-called neighborhood schools reflect the “economic, cultural and racial diversity” of CMS.
Now take into consideration that CMS brass is still, even as it rolls out proposals to shutter schools, cooking up impact studies that would give district leaders some estimate of what those proposed changes would cost or save, and how they would affect staffing and student achievement.
And consider that, lo and behold, some of the proposed school closings, boundary changes and student shuffling as part of CMS’ upheaval for continued improvement would create schools that are more reflective of, what do you know, the district’s economic, cultural and racial diversity.
Or consider school board member’s Rhonda Lennon lament at a community forum in north Mecklenburg, where scores of folks turned out to protest plans to close incredibly successful Davidson IB. This from TCO:
Signs of the race, class and neighborhood rifts that dog student assignment changes quickly emerged.
Rhonda Lennon, the board member who represents the northern District 1, got tears in her eyes talking about how it seemed to her that Davidson families were unwilling to send their kids to school with poor black students, who make up a larger portion of enrollment at Alexander.
“I hurts me that they are talking about children like that,” she said during a break between segments.
Nah, CMS’ proposed shake-up doesn’t have anything to do with social engineering. It’s all about the money, right?
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