Truth be told, I shouldn't have to be writing this today.

As recently as two weeks ago, my plans for today included finishing up the improvements to my room and going to the annual pre-planning meeting of all the teachers in my district. It was going to be a last moment of unity and comradeship before the new school year began.

Instead I am here. At home. Typing this blog and seething with anger over the latest steps that Georgia has taken to alleviate its budget crunch. Today's word, boys and girls, is "furlough."

Back on the 21st of the month, Gov. Sonny Perdue (the man whose solution for our drought situation was to pray for rain) announced that state public schools and Medicaid would take a 3 percent budget cut before the end of the calendar year. In my district, that means In order to deal with the cuts to the budget, teachers and other public school employees must take three days of unpaid furlough time before the end of this week, one in October, and one to be determined.

In case you think it's simply picking on education, it should be noted that other agencies will take a 5 percent budget cut, with contingency plans for dealing with a cut of as much as 8 percent. All in order to keep the legislature from considering the "horrible" prospect of possibly raising taxes in some area or another.

It could be worse, though, as many people have pointed out to me time and again: I could have lost my job. Or, I could be teaching in California. Thanks to the self-imposed budgetary throat slitting that has become an annual tradition in the Golden State, teachers there have endured two rounds of layoffs that have resulted in over 36,000 teachers joining the ranks of the unemployed. It's become a running joke that in terms of education, Georgia's motto is "Thank God for Mississippi." But with the problems in California, there may soon be a new state for that motto.

So, what's the solution? No one seems to know, or want to answer. In conservative circles, public education might as well be destroyed. In their eyes, the public financing of children's education is anathema. Radio hosts constantly harp about the eeevil "Government schools" - when California's budget impasse recently came to a head and Gov. Schwartzenegger stated that schools might have to be closed, one radio host who shall remain nameless said "So what? It's not like they're doing any good anyway."

Basically, teachers often get short shrift in America. They're to blame for falling literacy, cultural ignorance, and kids who disrespect their elders. At least that's what conservatives would like you to believe. Teachers have an incredible job, however. Every day, they go out and try to impart information on anywhere from 12-150 children, depending on subject, grade level and class size. While doing this, they have to remind them of how to behave in public, how things are done in the real world, why they shouldn't use electronic devices to talk to their friends or parents during class time, and why they should think about some of the things the teacher is trying to impart to them.

It is not easy, at all. Something I learned my first year of teaching. Something that I, frankly, learned my first week of teaching. Anyone who tells you that it's all early release days and summer vacations is talking out of an orifice nowhere near their mouth. And as a teacher, I say that if we do not make an investment in our children's education instead of taking away from it, we will end up with a LOT more furloughs in many more states.

During my school's open house this week, I was talking to a parent about the furloughs. She told me "I feel your pain. I'm a state employee, and I have furlough days coming soon." I said, "Yeah. That is my new 'F' word." We both laughed... for the moment.