Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger bases much of his defense of the deep cuts to public schools in the Republican budget on two things, that the cuts will not affect the classroom and that the state's low high school graduation rate is evidence that the current education system is broken.

Reports from school systems across the state prove that the first claim is not true. Teachers and teacher assistants are losing their jobs every day thanks to the cuts in the budget.

Local school systems have nowhere else to go but the classroom to make the discretionary cuts the budget demands and Berger knows it, or he ought to. Virtually any superintendent or principal can tell him that his talking point about protecting teachers is off base.

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