Last week, Buffalo officials announced the impending layoffs of 433 teachers from the city's school system. The result of a $28-million budget gap that, before Sept. 11, was expected to be filled by state aid, the layoffs present Buffalo with a plate teeming with problems. The total number of school system employees awaiting pink slips is nearly 600, creating an immediate problem for public officials trying to keep the city's economy afloat and its citizens' pockets lined with more than Queen City lint.
Still, the problem has a solution, albeit an unsatisfactory one. For now, classes will be combined, hopefully allowing the students to continue where their former teachers left off and resulting in minimal disruption of their studies. What will not soon be resolved, and perhaps not even revealed, is the effect the layoffs will have on the city's schoolchildren.
Imagine yourself in elementary school once again. It's November, which means you've seen your teacher five days a week for over two months. Johnny sits to your left, Janie to your right, and your pencil box is in the same crook of your desk you left it in yesterday afternoon when the bell rang. You know 10 o'clock is math time, 11 o'clock is lunch, and on Fridays you have a full hour of story time. Your day is structured and regular; you've worked out all the social kinks of joining a new peer group; you know and trust your teacher. School is great.
But wait - $28 million of state aid doesn't come through, and suddenly you're funneled into a new class with a new teacher and new set of kids. They're a chapter ahead in reading, a chapter behind in science and have story time on Tuesday, not Friday. You're kind of scared of the new teacher - she seems unfriendly and really tall - and the other kids don't ask you to play kickball with them because they chose teams a couple of months ago. School stinks.
Certainly, children adapt well to change, far better than adults, but this change isn't just about a new class or a new teacher. It's about less personal attention to each child, a greater likelihood of social alienation, and missing chapters of learning that very well lead to significant academic difficulties later on. What if you missed multiplication?
The layoffs downgrade Buffalo's public school system and will, in a decade or so, produce thousands of graduates at an even greater disadvantage to their suburban counterparts than those graduating now. Although they may not be able to get into college, they will find fabulous, minimum-wage, go-nowhere jobs at Buffalo's casino, if it lasts that long.
Herein lies the root of the problem: the search for economic salvation in a magic money fairy. Instead of treating the source, both the casino and the state treat the symptoms of a public education system constructed to ensure unequal funding and a wildly variant quality of education.
The city's school system receives almost three-fourths of its funding from the state, linking its survival directly to fluctuations in the state's fiscal health. It simply cannot survive on property taxes like districts in wealthier areas do. This can be attributed partly to Mayor Anthony Masiello's refusal to raise property taxes, and largely to the system itself. Affluent communities have higher property values, thus providing higher property tax revenues for their school systems and so better resources and far greater ease in providing children with the sound basic education guaranteed to them under New York state law.
The system is designed to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. Despite its claims of equity, it prevents many poor students from receiving the one true socioeconomic equalizer our nation has: a solid education. With a comprehensive education, a child at least has the opportunity to develop his talents and shed the shackles of poverty. Without it, he has nothing more than the reassurance that he is not worth the cost of providing him with an education comparable to his wealthier peers. He is predisposed to pursue poverty, as guaranteed by New York state.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
