Lamar Thames

The worldwide economic crisis is wreaking havoc with families, banking, finance, construction, infrastructure and probably more areas that we can even imagine at this time. As I have said before, I am not sure that all of the changes that may come about because of the financial chaos will be bad. There are benefits to a leaner, meaner economy, the least of which is greater efficiencies and more conservation in many areas.

Look at what has happened in the oil industry. Prices went through the roof in the U.S., motorists reduced their driving by billions of miles and prices came down, thus producing a benefit to the environment. (I know gas prices have rebounded against all odds, but there are other reasons for that.) You can see similar results in water usage and prices for all manner of products, from food, to home, merchandise, to appliances, etc. Prices on almost everything you see in the stores are being reduced because people are buying less, using less and saving more. Altogether not a bad thing.

The eventuality here is that when the government props up failing industries and individual companies, we do so at the risk of throwing good money after bad. Let’s just hope the so-called “experts” know what they are doing by bailing out major corporations that have exercised poor financial judgment.

Of course, all this turnabout is causing wholesale changes in business models, profit margins and, especially in Florida, the expectations that growth will pay for economic expansion. For the first time in the last 40 years at least, the school district of Clay County is predicting fewer students to enroll in the year ahead. That, coupled with drastic declines in sales tax revenue and continued unfunded national and state mandates, is creating an unprecedented hardship on this school district; a hardship that will hit administrators, teachers, support personnel, students and parents with equanimity. The district is facing a $43 million budget shortfall for next year and who knows how many staff positions will have to be cut. When the district was dealing with a $23 million cut, they put the number of layoffs at 256. Now, who knows how many will get the ax.

There will be job losses, scheduling turmoil and a greater burden placed on those who remain within the system. Class sizes will have to increase (mandates and constitutional changes notwithstanding); state mandates will have to be put on hold — virtual school, anyone?) and perhaps even changes to union rules.

The auto industry is practically bankrupt, partially because of union rules that almost guarantee workers jobs for life at exorbitant wages. Education could benefit from some radical changes in union rules as well. Why, for instance, must a 20-year teacher be retained under seniority guidelines when some less-experienced teachers may be better? The answer, of course, lies in how well those teachers are evaluated by their principals and then whether the principals have taken the steps necessary to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.

This is what we would like to see happen during these difficult times, the good teachers stay and the not-so-good ones leave. In most cases, I don’t think that is being done and not just in Clay County, but state and nationwide. 

But even weeding out the marginally effective teachers from each school district won’t solve the financial crisis. The cuts will have to go deeper, into mandates, transportation, staff and programs, an area that administrators rue because once lost, a program is difficult to retrieve.

For sure, class-size restrictions are going to have to be reduced and the Legislature needs to take that into consideration at its next session in a few weeks, along with temporarily dropping the physical education mandate and plans for such things as virtual schools in every school district. The irony here is that there is no money to set up virtual schools and once established, the schools will reduce enrollments even further, thus . . . reducing the amount of money available to school districts. Catch-22?

Fifteen years ago, it was not uncommon to see teachers with 30 to 35 students in them. Granted, that was before FCAT and No Child Left Behind, but it can be done. We don’t want to do it for a long period but it can be done in the interim until we have righted the ship.

I don’t envy any district administrator, no matter how much money they make. A school superintendent I saw recently looked sad and depressed. I would be too if I faced what he is facing — firing staff members he has known for decades.