When Downsizing is a bad thing

3/15/10 Boyds Bear "Teacher Bear" Figurine, sold on eBay for 99 cents

I've co-opted the term Downsizing and thrown it around in a light and fun way for most of the last seven and a half months. But, even as I celebrate my daily downsizing, the original meaning of the word is all too obvious all around us.

Before I could go to the post office this afternoon to mail off this little figurine to the guy who bought it on eBay, I needed to stay late for a meeting, at which we found out about yet another potential lay-off at our school. I ended my day Friday in the same way: hearing that it's fortunate I'm leaving the district this summer, since the plan is to reduce the number of literacy coaches for next school year. A good time for me to move to Denver.

Of course, school districts are forever running tight budgets and worrying about how to to maintain programming. I remember, in my first year of teaching, my roommate received a Reduction in Force letter in the last month of school. He was told he'd probably be hired back, but the standard practice was to RIF every first-year teacher in case the budget got tight over the summer.

Things are even worse, right now, as Maine (and most of the nation) battles an educational budget crisis like nothing I've seen in fifteen years. My district has already scaled back significantly this year, but will receive more than two million dollars less in state funding next year.

You can't cut two million dollars by limiting teacher's access to copy paper.

Downsizing, indeed.

Of course, the children -- about whom this system should revolve -- remain largely unaware, if not unaffected, by budget scrambles and cuts.

I'm not sure who gave me the little teacher bear figurine, but I'm pretty sure it was the appreciative parent of one of my students about ten years ago. The figuring captured the image that the child may have had of educators: rumpled, caring, comfortable.

In fact, of course, we are also cogs in a machine that is, at once, too entrenched to change yet too flawed to continue as is. I'd like to think that the downsizes to come will ultimately lead to a better system, either by forcing us to reevaluate how we educate kids, or helping the whole country to see what it really does cost to teach a nation's children. I'd like to think that will happen, but I'm not betting on it.

Downsizing doesn't always lead to good things.

Editor's Note, 3/16/10: Just to demonstrate how some people are trying to elevate the level of social discourse around these topics, thought I'd share the thoughtful proclamations of a local business. This message greeted Joanna and I as we went on a walk this afternoon and is definitely representative of the tone and nature of this guy's usual postings. I'm unsure how his rants affect gun sales.