The past few months, Fulton County has reduced the number of days for counselors, graduation coaches, psychologists, social workers and has to increase the teacher-student ratio to 30. With the increase of class size, the numbers of teachers required will likely decrease in many school buildings. Furthermore, addition cuts may be explored to manage the county's 40 million dollars shortfall in the budget. In addition, at the state level, the governor has stated that the position of school nurse will not be funded from the state level. Due to the drastic slowdown in the private and public levels, the federal government is discussing passing an $825 billion dollars stimulus package. From preliminary discussion, a lot of "pork/wasteful spending" is in the bill but we will review the educational component of this bill.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment bill is to increase funding to Title I, IDEA special education and school modernization. The bill will "spread the wealth" for year 2009 and 2010. The stimulus package includes 13 billion for Title I, 13 billion for IDEA, 14 billion for School Modernization and Repair Program and 1 billion for Education Technology program. The bill is expected to go to the House floor January 28, 2009. Moreover, the bill is estimated to increase the amount of funding to FultonCounty in a significant amount.
For the year 2009 the estimated increase to Title I is 10.1million, construction is 22.1 million, IDEA is 8.9 million producing a total of 41.145 million. For the year 2010, the estimated increase to Title I is 10.9 million, construction is 10.8 million, IDEA is 20.9 million producing a total of 62.1 million.
The stimulus package has the opportunity to invest in students and buildings but we must contact our elected officials at the federal level to vote our interest. Listed below is either the email or website address of our elected official. Please contact them with your concerns for this is our responsibility in a democracy. If your elected official is not listed, please email me and I will post your representatives.
President Obama: comments@whitehouse.gov; Vice President Joseph Biden: vice_president@whitehouse.gov; Senator Saxby Chambliss: http://chambliss.senate.gov; Email: Use website's "Contact Me" link; Senator Johnny Isakson: http://isakson.senate.gov; Email: Use "Email Johnny" link; Rep. John Lewis-5th district: www.house.gov/formjohnlewis/contact.html; Rep. Hank Johnson-4th district: http://hankjohnson.house.gov/contact_hank.shtml; Rep.David Scott-13th district: http://davidscott.house.gov/Contact
This blog will keep us aware of what is happening in education at the federal, state and local levels; therefore, come back often and invite others. If you do not want to be informed by this blog, please email me at georgiascholars@yahoo.com to discontinue this blog.
