Learning to Live With Less

For Randy Roguski, 16, a senior at West High School in Rockford, Ill., summer vacation meant a chance to give campaigning a whirl. Not for Jerry or Jimmy but for himself and the 39,000 other students in his school district. What Randy was working for was an increase in the tax levy, which would have brought in $6 million more a year. He lost. In a heavy turnout, the voters rejected the measure 2 to 1. Even his parents were unpersuaded by his efforts. "They just believed the money was there," he explains. But it was not. Thus the Rockford schools have had to make $7 million worth of cutbacks --yearbooks, newspapers, interscholastic sports, debate teams, plays, band and orchestra concerts were all eliminated, and 325 teachers, 14% of the district's staff, were laid off.

Arms and Legs. All across the land this September, the same theme has been played with only minor variations. Taxpayers are voting against increased support for education--one of the few levies on which they do have a voice --and many state legislatures, hesitant to raise taxes this election year, are putting the squeeze on the schools. Illinois, for example, has trimmed $37.5 million from funds allotted for summer school programs, and the Michigan legislature appropriated more than $34 million from the teachers' retirement fund to avoid a deficit. In California, the powerful teachers organization managed to get a $272 million increase in state aid.

But even with that hefty sum, according to California Teachers' Association Chief Ralph Flynn, "we are barely managing to keep the wolf from the door. This just about meets the 6% cost of inflation, so our schools were bailed out for one more year."

In Chicago, the projected deficit for the school year is a huge $123 million, part of which--$29 million--comes from a penalty that the city school district has to pay for closing 16 days early last spring when it ran out of funds. Though 21 schools have been closed and five more may also be shut down, the teachers union avoided any firing of its members when it accepted a new contract at last year's salary level. Still, unless the deficit is reduced, the school district may not be able to borrow more money and may have to close at midterm. Detroit, with a $6 million shortfall, has closed ten elementary schools, dropped some high school varsity sports and fired 600 substitute teachers. In Boston, Mayor Kevin White has ordered $15 million slashed from this year's school budget to help ease the pain of a $56 increase in the city's already inflated $196.20-per-$ 1,000 property-tax rate. The Hub's unhappy school department has decided to layoff provisional teachers and to cut back student health services and special education programs.

Down South, Atlanta is also closing schools--eight elementary and one secondary so far. In New Orleans, Superintendent Gene Geisert says, "We had to cut off some arms, legs and heads. We decided to keep athletics another year, but I don't know how much longer we can go until we have a system of only reading, writing and arithmetic."

With so many of their jobs in jeopardy, American teachers are striking far less than last year, when there were a record 203 walkouts nationwide. By its latest count, the National Education Association shows a total of 55 strikes in 14 states. New Jersey has been particularly hard hit, with strikes by teachers in Jersey City, Gar field and Bayonne recently settled, and one in Newark by cafeteria workers and custodians still going on. One of the problems in the state for both administrators and unions is that the new income-tax school-financing plan, instituted during the summer, left unclear for many school districts exactly how much additional state aid they would be receiving this year.

Seattle's first teachers' strike was settled last week, with the union getting a 16% pay boost and other benefits. As in New Jersey, part of the labor troubles in Seattle resulted from the state's financing system, which calls for most school funding to come from a special levy that must be approved by a 60% majority in a vote in which at least 40% of those who voted in the last general election participate.

Strapped Coffers. New York State, besieged by more financial problems than any other in the nation, fortuitously has only one strike--compared with 21 last year. Buffalo teachers, reacting to layoffs of 325 of the 5,600 teachers, the elimination of the library program, a cut of half the number of guidance counselors and the elimination of music and foreign-language classes, struck to make the "city fathers think twice before they again cut back the school system." The teachers argue that the money the school board is saving during the strike--$4.2 million so far--is enough to reinstate the programs and provide a pay raise.

New York City, the Big Bruised Apple, forced to overhaul drastically its finances last year when it narrowly escaped going broke, opened classes with Board of Education Chancellor Irving Anker saying that "a grim" year was ahead. So it is. The city's 1.1 million students began the 1974-75 school year with 60,000 teachers; after massive layoffs last year, another layoff of 3,700 teachers this September has lowered the total to 44,000. Like other cities and states, New York counts on attrition --retirements and resignations--to help in the necessary staff reductions, but the current economic outlook for teachers dissuades many from voluntarily leaving their posts.

New York teachers earn $9,700 to $20,350 a year, but salary levels have been frozen. The United Federation of Teachers, under the leadership of Albert Shanker, has been restrained in its push for better working conditions, knowing that the strapped city coffers could produce no gains for the teachers. In fact, last year the union allowed the city to borrow $150 million from its pension fund to help meet the city's debt payments, and this year Shanker has mostly played the role of gadfly, selectively criticizing the city for how it is cutting back its school services. Last week, for example, in his weekly column in the Sunday New York Times (actually a paid union advertisement), he argued that the laying off of 3,000 paraprofessional teachers' aides--many of whom are black and Hispanic women--was one cut that was "more stupid than others."

Public Disenchantment. Other draconian measures that New York has taken to cut costs include reducing building plans, shortening the school day, slashing bus subsidies and paring library and guidance services. Some officials argue that the extensive school cuts have been made possible by the changing makeup of the school population. Says Deputy Chancellor Bernard R. Gifford: "In 1960 almost two-thirds of our students were white, but today those two-thirds are black and Hispanic. Many observers see more than casual irony in the 'coincidence' of the school system's present ethnic composition and the drastic level of cutbacks." A U.F.T. spokesman concurs, saying that the reductions could not have been made "when the political potential of the parents of children in schools was greater."

Perhaps so, but even hi largely white, middle-class cities across the country, the schools' budgets are being cut and their services pruned. Says Seattle's new superintendent of schools, David Moberley: "There is disenchantment on the part of the public toward what education has promised. In the '60s, on every social issue, we said, 'Give us the money, and we can solve it.' Now the overpromised public is coming home to roost."

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