After living beyond its means for decades and shifting its debt onto future generations, an entire society is seeing the bills come due earlier than expected. And Kelly Egan's students are about to pay the price.
Egan teaches high achievers in math and reading, a job that barely survived budget cuts last year - but the reprieve was short-lived. At the end of this school year, the position is almost certain to disappear along with dozens more in West Bend, adding to the hundreds of thousands of public employees nationwide whose employment has been cut short by the meanest economic downturn since the 1930s.
"Parents ask, 'What should we do with our children as the West Bend School District continues to cut and cut and cut programs,' " said Egan, a 20-year veteran who is likely to be reassigned to teach the regular curriculum.
For the first time since the Depression, virtually every strata of American government is caught in the same viselike squeeze: Cities, counties and states find themselves deep in debt and lacking rainy day reserves to tide them over in hard times. Even with federal stimulus funds, local governments are laying off police officers and teachers, closing firehouses and selling public assets. During the past two years, state and local governments nationwide have cut 242,000 jobs, and public schools have shed an additional 200,700, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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