NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

Budget Bomb:
The ABM Treaty and Missile Defense Versus Schools

Courtesy Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities

This year, states are running a collective $25 billion deficit, and will prepare next year's budgets under the worst fiscal conditions in a decade. This is having a disastrous effect on education programs across the country. Forty-seven states and Washington DC will require $11.3 billion more for K-12 education next year, just to stay even with inflation. While President Bush's education initiative will help address this shortfall, states will still require at least $6 billion just to stay even, and legislatures in several states, like California, are already in emergency session cutting their budgets, so the education shortfall will likely grow.

Against this backdrop, the Bush Administration has informed Russia that America will scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. The justification? To allow the tests of America's national missile defense system, which-if it ever worked-would provide little defense against modern threats and could trigger a major nuclear arms race around the globe.

To make matters worse, the phenomenally expensive national missile defense will eat up scarce budget dollars that could be used to bailout America's school system. For example:

The Bush Administration's FY 2002 budget for missile defense is $8.3 billion. (1)

  • Next year's K-12 education budget shortfall faced by 47 states and DC: $6 billion. (2)
  • Cost to build 1,300 new elementary schools: $8 billion. (3)
  • Federal spending on K-12 education for disadvantaged children (Title I): $8.8 billion. (4)
  • Annual cost to provide Head Start to all eligible three- and four-year-olds who lack it due to budget shortfalls, and to provide Early Head Start to all eligible two-year-olds who don't have it: $8 billion. (5)

The total cost of the Bush Administration's missile defense system is $100 - $500 billion. (6)

  • Cost to renovate all of America's crumbling schools: $112 billion. (7)
  • Annual state spending on education: $180 billion. (8)


The cost of one missile defense test is $100 million.

  • Cost to build 16 new elementary schools: $100 million. (9)
  • Cost to re-instate funding, cut by the Bush Administration, for child care safety, teacher training and recruitment, and child abuse prevention programs: $85 million.(10)

The total amount spent on missile defense systems since the 1950s is $131 billion. (11)

  • Cost to build 8,600 new secondary schools: $130 billion. (12)
  • Annual cost of reducing class size in grades 1 - 3 to 15 students per class: $11 billion. (13)

Examples of Problems Faced by Specific Districts and States: (14)

  • In Vermont, Governor Dean has told the Education Department to cut 4.2%, about $600,000, from its fiscal year 2002 budget. The agency so far has instituted a hiring freeze and ceased out-of-state travel. It has rescinded a new grant for teacher quality improvement. The Department of Education has already cut its budget twice at the request of the Governor, the first cut at 4.8% ($589,000) of the budget, and the second cut at 1.8% ($240,000).
  • In Florida, Manatee County schools are taking in nearly 4,000 students while cutting their budget by $18 million.
  • The New York City Board of Education faces a $400 million gap this academic year. The city is cutting $115 million, or 2.5%, from its education budget. Reading and after-school program funding was cut, as were middle-school sports.
  • In Buffalo, the school district expects a $28 million budget shortfall. It will be forced to fire 500 staff and eliminate overtime pay, field trips, consultants, and equipment purchases.
  • In Yonkers, a $57 million shortfall has led to job cuts for teachers, school safety staff, custodians, and administrators. Yonkers is also eliminating athletic programs, pay raises, and overtime.
Footnotes:

  1. United States Budget, FY 2002. This is a 57% increase over last year's $3 billion funding level.
  2. Council of the Great City Schools.
  3. U.S. General Accounting Office, "School Facilities: America's Schools Report Differing Conditions" (GAO/HEHS-96-103), 1996.
  4. Council on Great City Schools, factsheet, 2001.
  5. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start Bureau.
  6. Stephen Schwartz, co-editor, Atomic Audit
  7. U.S. General Accounting Office, "School Facilities: America's Schools Report Differing Conditions" (GAO/HEHS-96-103), 1996.
  8. Council on Great City Schools, factsheet, 2001. Also see, NCES, Projection of Education Statistics to 2010.
  9. U.S. General Accounting Office, "School Facilities: America's Schools Report Differing Conditions" (GAO/HEHS-96-103), 1996.
  10. National Committee on Education Funding.
  11. Stephen Schwartz, co-editor, Atomic Audit.
  12. U.S. General Accounting Office, "School Facilities: America's Schools Report Differing Conditions" (GAO/HEHS-96-103), 1996.
  13. David Grissmer, "Class Size Effects: Assessing the Evidence, its Policy Implications, and Future Research Agenda," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Summer 1999.
  14. Council on Great City Schools, factsheet, 2001.

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