School districts across the country are cutting summer school and shortening school weeks. Teachers are being laid off and class sizes are increasing. What is to be made of all of this? Some of it is due to the economic recession, others are due to state's having balanced budget amendments (see how smart that idea is), and others are due to Republicans trying to reduce the size of government.
The economic recession is just bad and it wouldn't be right to blame cuts on politicians who enacted them because of this as long as it was done in a balanced way. The balanced budget laws are also not the fault of people who have to abide by them, but they are responsible for the process they use to get the budget balanced.
The most egregious is when Republicans try to reduce the size of government by literally cutting education. Get rid of some teachers, break their ability to unionize, reduce their benefits and the government has shrunk in size.
Teachers are vastly important to a fully functioning society. Kids learn how to read and develop a love for knowledge for knowledge's sake. And there is a strong correlation between poverty and levels of education. The Republicans cut education while in the same breath are giving millionaires and billionaires tax breaks. It's incomprehensible how the current Republican party is considered to be anything but the Guarantors of Poverty for the vast majority of people.
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