No more school cuts eh?

Or at least that’s what the Falls Church News Press is calling for in its editorial. I happen to partially agree with this editorial. The quote:

It is absurd for the Council to insist that further spending cuts should come equally from the schools as from the general government. Cutting the baby down the middle, King Solomon style, will only kill the baby. The Council needs to make qualitative, not merely quantitative, value judgments, and above all, that means to recognize the City's school system as its most valuable, and valued, asset.

What an absurd analogy!!! Cutting the baby down the middle? I dare any member of any school board in this great Commonwealth to show me where cuts are being made to harm any child in any regard whether physically or through loss of personnel. I submit that the Department of Education be dismantled and that control over education be returned to the states.

As for qualitative values judgments? (Yes, Northern Virginia, we know what that means.) When a school superintendent is facing budget cuts, his first reaction is not qualitative, it is almost assuredly a quantitative assessment. In other words, Where can we make these cuts with the least amount of disruption of our school system?

Sadly, I have to admit that arts programs are usually on the cutting block first. I say sadly because I am a beneficiary of arts in the schools. Particularly the performing arts.