Examples include 53 percent of superintendents who report limiting gifted and talented programs, and numerous teachers who report reductions in field trips, extracurricular activities, and in the number and variety of classes. Comments reflect budget-infighting, programmatic triage, and no funds for new initiatives. Written responses show that some schools are sacrificing programs in order to save others. Some teachers listed specific classes such as Spanish, calculus, and consumer education that were completely eliminated in their districts. Mentioned, too, are policies to eliminate classes with less than 15 students, and the necessity of combining classes, such as different levels of French, in order to maintain the program's viability.
Serious questions arise, then, about how best to fund strategies for educational improvement.
It appears possible that new programs initiated by the state to improve quality could have the unintended effect of limiting educational opportunity for children because of school districts' inability to fund them. Thus, even though there have been reductions in K-3 class size in many districts as a result of SAGE and federal programs, class size is increasing at the upper grade levels. The cost of heating, an issue reflected in recent news articles, and a lack of instructional space in some schools, were other concerns also mentioned. The data suggest that districts have a decreasing capacity to serve both special needs and regular education students. This is important because superintendents in declining enrollment districts project lower levels of educational quality in the future, and also are more likely to be critical of the caps than other superintendents.