L.A. middle school, students struggle under budget cuts

In a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood school, budget cuts are becoming very evident. At Markham Middle School, a student talks about how her history class has had 10 different teachers (substitutes) during only one semester. This is because, district-wide, 2,000 teachers were let go as state budget deficits. All these cutbacks to the California school system are hurting the students' learning experience, and it's affecting how much they learn. But it doesn't stop there; the principal believes that there will be more teacher layoffs coming this summer. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit saying that these layoffs take away from the rights of the inner city students to an education. They believe that the children who need more help, such as the children in the poverty-stricken neighborhood of Watts, should have the resources to succeed in their education even more than others. If the ACLU lawsuit is passed, there will be layoffs, but not at Markham Middle School.

I think that it would affect a student's education hugely if they don't have a proper teacher. Sharail Reed, the student who has had 10 different teachers in her history class, talked about how it made it more difficult to learn from these new teachers who don't even know her name. The changing up of these teachers halts the learning process and is not desirable at all for a student's education. I don't think that, just because of the budget, they should be cutting back on the teachers. The students in Watts need an education just as much as everyone else. As for the ACLU lawsuit, however, I am not sure if I agree that these students need teachers and an education more than everyone else. Each and every student deserves the right to a good education. We shouldn't transfer the teacher layoffs/budget cuts to another school. We should be looking for a way to provide the students with a good education without depriving someone of this right. If cuts are necessary somewhere, why should it have to be in our schools?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/04/layoffs.education/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+(RSS%3A+Top+Stories)