Last Friday’s SF Chronicle had two articles detailing the effects of the California budget crisis on local and statewide education. Locally, the $113 million budget shortfall is forcing SFUSD to consider larger class sizes, teacher layoffs and unpaid furlough days, and – as mentioned in our last post – eliminating summer school options.  In a letter to SFUSD staff, Superintendent Carlos Garcia said the district is thinking about suing the state:

“We must all stand up for children and let the governor and legislators know that the current state of education funding is unacceptable,” he wrote.

Across the state, cuts to education budgets are responsible for teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, and changes in busing, counselors, social support services, and more – but schools that serve low-income students are making much deeper cuts, according to a new study by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.

More than 66 percent of principals in high-poverty schools, for example, reported teacher layoffs compared with 15 percent in schools where students primarily come from middle- or upper-income families.

While wealthier communities are better able to supplement their school’s funding with private support, schools serving poorer communities have few additional resources to draw on; at the same time, these schools are seeing an increase in the number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch and whose families face job losses, home foreclosures, and dwindling help from supplementary education, health, and social services (also suffering in the recession). Like these schools, Aim High is anticipating the need to make some difficult cuts at a time when students and educators need an opportunity like Aim High more than ever.  We are hopeful that the Bay Area community will step up to support youth at a time when so much community and school support is disappearing.