Hold On To Your French Fries
Superintendent Peter Gorman has his eyes on that pack of gum in your pocket, or maybe that bottle of Yoo-hoo on your desk, and the schools chief has already launched lobbying efforts to wrest them from you.
Gorman didn’t come out and directly say as much when he unveiled a series of dire budget forecasts Wednesday afternoon, but the presentation delivered a non-too-subtle message: CMS needs sacks full of more money, or students, parents and teachers are going to feel the pain.
With Mecklenburg County facing its own budget woes, expect the familiar rallying cry to soon be floated in support of a property tax increase: “It’s for the (children, homeless, indigent) and won’t cost you more than buying one (cheeseburger, soda, or bag of fries) per day.”
Or do you not care for children? You’d rather see middle schools without athletics programs and students packed into closets for classrooms, while scores of teachers stand in unemployment lines? You heartless miscreant.
Under the various budget scenarios Gorman laid out Wednesday, CMS faces cuts ranging from $16 million to $82 million, with layoffs of up to 658 teachers in the offing. Other doomsday warnings include an end to magnet busing, increased class sizes, fewer teachers for high-poverty schools, no athletics programs for middle schools, the delayed opening of two new high schools, and the shuttering of inner-city schools that are currently under capacity.
Put those French fries down, mister, we’re facing a crisis here. If you don’t believe it, you can probably catch a rebroadcast of our $300K-a-year superintendent’s performance on CMS-TV.
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