Being a college student means I care about at least one thing- Education. Right?

So that’s why when I heard the Texas was cutting $10 billion to Public Education over the next two years ($5 billion a year), I nearly fainted. I mean seriously? So in one of my Comm classes, I took it as a challenge to completely cover the story. But I wanted to bring it closer to home.

Recently I have been interviewing teachers and principals in HISD to get their perspective on how this is going to affect public education, not only in Texas but in my hometown Houston. (I’m a hopeless romantic. I’d like to have children one day!)

The consensus is obvious. This is no bueno for Texas public schools. HISD is in the hole $171 million dollars for next year’s budget. This means that the district is going to have to do some major readjusting of staff in order to save a nickel or two.

According to the HISD CFO Melinda Garrett in a recent Budget Workshop even if the district focused on reducing departments at the central office, this would only save HISD around $50 million dollars which would leave the district in need of $120 million. “The end result is that we are going to have to reduce the per-student funding each school receives which means principals are going to have to make cuts on their campus.”

What does this mean for each individual campus?

With a $120 million shortfall, a school campus with 3000 would have to lay off 32.5 staff/teachers.

But what is this going to do for our children?

Most teachers and principals agree that this is going to have a negative effect on their classrooms. Larger classrooms mean less one-on-one with students.

But not only do principals have to worry about laying off their employees, they have to worry about materials and tools that teachers need in order to successfully do their job. What about books and technology?

This is a small glimpse at what I am working on right now. For more information on Save Texas Schools, please visit http://savetxschools.org/. They are planning a rally in front of the state capitol March 11-12th. I am going to try to go.