A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

               To: Education Editor             Feb. 23, 1996                       Contact: Rodger Murphey (202) 401-2310                          Kerri Morgan (202) 401-3026                 U.S. Department of Education Office of                            Public Affairs

Six months from now, a new school year begins. Following the requirements of state law and sound planning, school officials are proposing budgets and preparing to hire teachers now.

Enrollments across America are expected to increase by about a million students from the Fall of '95 to the Fall of '96 in public and private schools. Just to maintain current class sizes would necessitate hiring about 50,000 new teachers. This enrollment increase in America's schools will break the previous enrollment record. And we re not looking at a one-year blip. Enrollments are expected to continue to grow over the next decade.

That is the reality that local communities are facing. Unfortunately, the majority in Congress has been in demographic denial.

The current continuing resolution, the ninth in a series of short-term budget bills, takes about $3 billion away from education, shortchanging our children and potentially eliminating about 50,000 teaching jobs. Enrollment growth in our schools and budget cuts from the Congress have put us on a collision course. Unless we change course, the result will be serious damage to teaching and learning.

At the same time, the absence of a full-year appropriations bill from Congress has kept local school districts in a state of uncertainty. In California, for example, state law requires districts to notify teachers by March 15 whether they will be retained for the following school year. California schools therefore have to know the amount of federal funding they can expect.

Should they deny excellent teachers a contract and lose them for next year when they have more students? Or should they "throw the dice" by retaining them and if federal funds are cut, figure out where in their already tight budgets they can find the money to pay them from other sources?

To cite another example, Boston is required by Massachusetts law to submit its school budget for the next academic year to the Boston School Committee by the first Wednesday in February.

It is unfortunate that some of the same folks who say government ought to be run like a business are willing to let local school principals, superintendents, school boards, and mayors twist in uncertainty with no firm sense of how much federal aid to expect. That lack of planning would be intolerable in the private sector. It ought be equally unacceptable in the public sector.

Across the country, communities are starting to work to raise standards of achievement and discipline in our schools and to improve teacher training. They are helping students to find a path to college and promising careers. They are working to stop school violence and prevent drug use.

We ought to be about the business of reinforcing that effort, not retreating from our bipartisan responsibility to help local schools. Federal assistance makes a very positive difference in the lives of millions of schoolchildren.

The majority in Congress picked a mighty strange time to blow up the tradition of bipartisan support for education. In this Information Age when education is more important than ever before, at this time when enrollments are rising and will soon reach record levels, it defies common sense to reduce America's investment in improving our schoolchildren's learning and safety.

These are real cuts affecting real children and causing real concern for parents. We can close the budget deficit without creating an education deficit. We need to invest in quality education. That is how we meet our obligation to the next generation. That is how we capture the promise of the Information Age. That is how we build a stronger America.