Why cut your core service?

Chris Tessone / August 23, 2011

I shake my head every time I see stories like this: To Cut Costs, 120+ Districts Shift to 4-Day Weeks.

"It got down to monetary reasons more than anything else," Superintendent Larry Johnke said. The $50,000 savings will preserve a vocational education program that otherwise would have been scrapped.

The tradeoff here is not between a fifth day of school and voc-ed. That program was likely just the easiest to cut without running up against the union, school board, or some other stakeholder.

This feels so obvious I shouldn't have to write it, but the basic job of schools is schooling. What ancillary program, benefit, or perk could possibly be so important that it's worth cutting 20% of the core function of schools to preserve? And if you can't afford five days of school a week in your current configuration, reconfigure. Don't cut 20% of the main service taxpayers pay you to provide.

? Chris Tessone

School Finance