芝加哥减支迫使小学生转学

天之聪教育 2013-08-27 天之聪教育 222次

芝加哥减支迫使小学生转学

Children brave ganglands as Chicago budget cuts redraw route to school

Thousands of Chicago children will be walking a different route to school as they begin the new academic year this morning after the city closed about 50 elementary schools to help plug a $1bn education budget gap.

为了堵住10亿美元教育预算缺口，芝加哥关闭了大约50所小学。从今天上午起的新学年开始，成千上万的芝加哥孩子将转到不同的学校就读。

The district last month laid off more than 2,000 teachers and staff on top of the roughly 1,000 culled as part of school closures.

除了此前关闭学校时裁减的大约一千人之外，上个月该学区又解雇了两千多名教职员工。

Chicago’s measures are some of the more drastic being taken by a school district. But the city is not alone and, as the US braces for another round of budget battles in Washington, they are a stark reminder of the impact already being felt by sequestration.

芝加哥所采取的是各学区中较为极端的措施，但该市的做法并非个案。华盛顿即将迎来新一轮的预算之争，而芝加哥关闭学校的举措提醒了人们自动减支所带来的影响。

Districts dependent on federal funding, such as Chicago, where nearly 20 per cent of revenues come from Washington, have been particularly hard hit.

像芝加哥这类依靠联邦拨款的学区受到的冲击尤为突出。该学区近20%的收入来自华盛顿。

“When you’re trying to dig out from the recession, you get hit with this deep cut from Congress and you’re basically forced to cut on bone. There’s no fat to cut any more,” said Marc Egan, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the largest US teachers’ union.

美国最大教师工会——全国教育协会(National Education Association)的一名游说者马克•伊根(Marc Egan)说：“当你在衰退中努力挣扎的时候，国会大幅削减预算会对你造成巨大冲击，而你再也没有脂肪可减了，只能从骨头上减。”

This month Philadelphia was forced to borrow $50m just to be able to start school on time. That came after the district closed 24 schools in June and cut nearly 4,000 employees.

为了准时开学，本月费城被迫举债5000万美元。而6月份该学区刚刚关闭24所学校，裁减将近4000名员工。

Detroit’s school system last week issued $92m in one-year debt to cover expenses for the new school year. It has lost more than 33,000 students since 2010 as Detroit’s population has shrunk.

上周，底特律教育系统发行了9200万美元的一年期债券，为新学年筹措经费。由于人口缩减，2010年以来底特律的学生人数已经减少了3.3万以上。