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I have to admit I think Bernie Lynch is doing a great job. As I said at the budget hearing last night, it was refreshing to see a budget presented with that degree of clarity and transparency. And, as Councilor Milinazzo pointed out, he inherited a real mess when he took over as City Manager. That said, I still think that the proposed cuts of $1.6 million are unfair to the schools for the following reasons:

• The schools sustained massive layoffs in 2003 and 2004, when the city cut its contribution to the schools to about $12 million (it bears repeating that that is half of what the city budget for the schools was in 1992).
• The schools have still not recovered from these cuts.  Maybe if we had 1000 schoolchildren turn out to picket city hall, it would get some attention to the fact that art, music and enrichment programs are important; that more, not less paraprofessionals are needed in the elementary classrooms; that the loss of science teachers in our younger grades and preschool transportation for the children who need it the most are hurting our youngest students every year. 
• The efforts of many people in Lowell and other communities (parents, concerned citizens, taxpayers) went into getting the State to rethink the Chapter 70 formula and to provide more aide to school districts. I met a parent this morning who was very discouraged that their efforts seem to have been wasted.

I do believe that many of the council and certainly the manager do not wish harm to the schools. I hope that a compromise of some kind can be reached.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Education, Money Matters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.