Word: kalkaska
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Dates: during 1993-1993
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...Kalkaska, Michigan, the students know all about cramming. They just tried to cram a year into seven months. Their spring term bumped to a halt last week when local school authorities, glumly eyeing a $1.5 million shortfall in their $8.2 million budget, chose to declare summer vacation in March. All through a cold winter, Matt Johnston had trudged to a 7:30 a.m. calculus class he hoped would earn him advanced-placement credit at college next year. Though teachers rushed through their lesson plans as the premature vacation neared, Johnston still wonders whether he should have stayed...
After approving a hike in local property tax rates in 1989, Kalkaska voters, about a fourth of them retirees living on fixed incomes, have three times in the past year turned down requests for additional increases -- most recently by a 2-to-1 ratio. Some of them want officials of their rural district to follow the example of other cash-strapped schools and pare programs. "No way" is the reply from district leaders, who four years ago temporarily cut art, music, field trips and some athletic programs, then shortened the school day by an hour. "It was devastating," says Kalkaska...
What there was of it, at least. The predicament of Kalkaska's schools is not unusual, but their decision to shut down rather than slim down is. Making do has become the working philosophy of American education. After a long recession and an even longer era of citizen tax revolts, schools around the country are rebinding old textbooks, letting ceiling plaster crumble, cutting out art and sports programs or closing down for days at a time. All the while, parents and educators are wondering which cuts are tolerable, which fatal. Is it O.K. to use outdated history books? How badly...