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Now that the Congressional Stupor Committee has predictably zombied its way through negotiations on national deficit reduction - each side blaming the other for being too single minded, who could have foreseen that? - talk of how sequestration cuts will impact schools is raging.

Scariest part in the early reports: this quote from a commentary by Andrew Yarrow in Ed Week, suggesting past could be prologue:

" ... in places such as Keller, Texas, students now have to pay to ride school buses. In my son’s high school, I was recently told not to bother a counselor with something that was part of her job description because her salary had been cut by 17 percent."

Of course, that's Texas, home of Gov. Rick Perry, who famously said if elected president he'll eliminate three federal agencies right away: Commerce, education , and that third one he probably would have remembered if he had spent a little more money on his education ...

Then there's this dire dollar warning in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

"Unless Congress finds a way around the process, the Education Department's budget will be slashed by $3.54-billion in 2013, according to the Committee for Education Funding, an advocacy group."

"Finds a way around the process"? The mere fact that congress started talking about ways around the mandatory cuts before the stupor committee even admitted defeat made it that much easier for them to throw in the towel. How do you survive a doomsday device? Let congress design the trigger.

The big issue raised by the Chronicle article is, understandably, that there will be less money for college financial aid meted out to fewer students under tighter requirement rules.

Yarrow's Ed Week piece, on the other hand, looks at a larger scenario. Federal money is a small percent of total ed spending, but new cuts will come as stimulus money disappears. Add declining property values (thus less revenue from local property taxes) courtesy of the housing market collapse, and we're facing some nasty days in public education funding.

School districts are already going to four-day weeks (Wilkes-Barre Area is exploring the option); classes are getting bigger, burning out teachers faster; money for libraries, textbooks,after-school programs, PE, arts and elective classes has dried up; reform efforts like improved teacher evaluations in the works in Pennsylvania could wither on the vine as money disappears

Part of me cringes at all this. Skimping on education as global market competition heats up sure seems like folly. Part of me sides with the "starve the beast" crowd: it's amazing how many school districts froze administrative salaries when Gov. Tom Corbett cut state ed money this year.

But the big reaction is disgust. A band of almost entirely white, almost entirely male and certainly wealthy  congress people was formed to solve a serious problem and punted.

We've punted enough. Two other committees proposed balanced approaches to deficit reduction and were ignored. Favorite quote on the topic today (again from Yarrow):

“Rarely in peacetime has a single issue dominated politics the way the budget deficit is doing now." It's a direct citation from the New York Times. Problem is, as Yarrow notes, "That was 22 years ago."

The whole thing has been kicked down the road so often congress should have worn the toes off their collective shoes. When it comes to education, you don't get to punt. Kids only get one crack at growing up smart and well-educated.

Apparently the Stupor committee missed their chance.

About this Blog

My column is neither beat or subject specific, and has ranged from whimsical to hard news. Since I'm primarily an education reporter and a native of the Hazleton area, those often draw my focus.

About the Author

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

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