CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many U.S. public school districts are starting a new school year with fewer teachers as less state funding and other factors leave them with gaping budget holes and nothing else left to cut but instructors, school and teachers union officials say.
Some states, still struggling to leave the economic slowdown behind them, have reduced funding to schools or shaved promised funding increases because of their own budget troubles, the officials said.
Schools also blame the teacher layoffs on inadequately funded federal educational mandates, soaring health care and utility costs, competing charter schools and reluctance by voters to boost local funding.
Fewer teachers could boost class sizes and eliminate programs not considered to be core subjects for students like art and music, education advocates said.
The National Education Association has seen tens of thousands of teacher layoffs with some due to state budget cuts dating back to last year, according to Daniel Kaufman, a spokesman for the union, which represents more than 2.7 million primary and secondary school teachers.
"The last two years have been a very difficult time for public schools," he said. "Many tried to avoid cutting teachers and cut in other areas."
The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is another problem, Kaufman said, contending the program was inadequately funded and hurting school finances.
"They are required to do more without the funding they need from the federal government," he said.
The federal law requires annual student testing, training and hiring of qualified teachers and school accountability measures that allow students in failing schools to move to better schools.
In Ohio alone, the shortfall for implementing the federal program has been pegged at $1.5 billion a year.
OHIO VOTERS NIX TAX HIKES
That state also lacks a remedy for its school funding system, which has been ruled unconstitutionally inadequate and unfair by the Ohio Supreme Court.
More than 3,000 Ohio teachers lost their jobs this summer, according to Michele Prater, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Education Association.
She said districts were forced to let teachers go after cutting other things like extracurricular activities.
"Everything that could be cut has been cut," Prater said.
Meanwhile, Ohio voters are becoming increasingly reluctant to back higher taxes for schools. Just a quarter of the 103 school tax issues on the Aug. 3 ballot passed, according to the Ohio Department of Education (news - web sites).
For the Cleveland Municipal School District, a $100 million budget deficit led to two rounds of teacher layoffs totaling more than 700, although negotiations over union concessions could restore about 95 of those jobs.
The result will be bigger class sizes for the district's 70,000 students, with elementary classes growing from 19 to as many as 25 students and middle and high school classes mushrooming from 25 to 30 students, said school district spokesman Alan Seifullah.
Oregon school districts have chopped 2,000 teachers over the last two years as high unemployment ate into the state's income tax collections.
Detroit Public Schools will begin its new school year with 1,300 fewer teachers due to budget troubles, although some laid off teachers may be called back to fill jobs vacated through an employee buyout program.
Minneapolis Public Schools reduced its teacher ranks by about 600 to close a budget gap caused by inadequate state and federal funding and declining enrollment.