Belt-Tightening Puts State Chiefs on Spot
Education Departments Squeezed Between Mandates, Districts’ Needs
Even as education advocates nationwide fight to hold the line against district-level funding cuts, the state education departments responsible for overseeing K-12 policy are coming under the budget ax.
In state after state, ballooning deficits that already have forced layoffs and other belt-tightening across state governments are hitting an education bureaucracy charged with carrying out a growing list of state and federal mandates.
South Carolina Superintendent of Education Jim Rex last month had to put his entire staff on a mandatory, five-day furlough in hopes of saving 15 jobs. Colorado education commissioner Dwight D. Jones is coping with a hiring freeze just as his department implements a new mandate: regulating online...
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