Budget Crunch and Schools

School districts across the nation are facing a huge budget crunch. In my county, numerous positions have been cut and some schools have been consolidated. More devastating, however, are the cuts to arts and sports programs. In many cases, these are being eliminated entirely. The New York Times is reporting that many districts across the nation are cutting their sports programs. Unfortunately, educators are having to make extremely difficult choices. Other districts are requiring students to pay fees to play sports. Hopefully, these cuts are only temporary until the economy begins to stablize. Unfortunately there seems to be a trend in some places that when programs, especially arts programs, are cut they take quite awhile to come back.