The money-saving measure happening in districts throughout the country leaves too many kids without anything to do—or in some cases, anything to eat.
Late last month, while I was reporting a story on the election season in Arizona, I met a voter registration volunteer named Nick Ethier at a farmers market on the outskirts of Phoenix. Ethier had a 14-year-old daughter, who was enrolled in middle school in the community of Buckeye, part of the Liberty School District. Liberty was one of six districts in the Phoenix Metropolitan area to vote down school bond requests for supplemental dollars to keep its schools running properly. While the 12 districts that voted in favor of the bond request have been able to maintain their education standards, the six that didn’t are facing all kinds of budgetary shortfalls. Liberty has chosen to deal with this by…