NPR

The Pandemic Is Driving America's Schools Toward A Financial Meltdown

With state income and sales tax revenues crashing, one expert predicts, "We're about to see a school funding crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern history."
Source: LA Johnson

Austin Beutner looked haggard, his face a curtain of worry lines. The superintendent of the second-largest school district in the nation sat at a desk last week delivering a video address to Los Angeles families. But he began with a stark message clearly meant for another audience:

Lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

"Cuts to funding at schools will forever impact the lives of children," Beutner said less than a week after California's governor called for emergency cuts in education spending. The harm children face from these cuts, Beutner warned, "is just as real a threat to them as is the coronavirus."

Similar alarms are sounding in districts

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from NPR

NPR3 min read
Apple Shows Its Steepest Quarterly Decline In IPhone Sales Since Pandemic's Outset
The 10% drop in year-over-year iPhone sales for the January-March period is latest sign of weakness in a product that generates most of Apple's revenue.
NPR4 min read
Cicadas Are Back On The Menu. One Chef Shares His Dish Ideas — And An Easy Recipe
The cicadas are coming! And so are some new flavor profiles. This spring, the bugs of two broods, the 13-year Brood XIX and the 17-year Brood XIII, will crawl from the ground simultaneously across the eastern and southern parts of the United States.
NPR4 min readCrime & Violence
Captain Sentenced To 4 Years In Fiery Deaths Of 34 Aboard Scuba Boat In California
The Sept. 2, 2019, blaze was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent U.S. history, and prompted changes to maritime regulations, congressional reform and several ongoing lawsuits.

Related Books & Audiobooks