After Dodging Budget Bullets, Education Deans Fear for Future

By Daniel Gursky

Education schools have largely been able to maintain the quality of their teacher-training programs despite the budget cuts that have hit hard at higher education in many states in the past year, say school deans and other teacher educators.

Many deans caution, however, that further reductions this year and next could cause lasting damage to their programs--and ultimately, to the nation's next generation of teachers.

"We're down to the point now where we're no longer cutting fat,'' said James Payne, the dean of the University of Mississippi's school of education. "We're into...