The War On Education

[Deven]

As a resident of Pennsylvania, I'm watching Governor Tom Corbett's War on Education first hand. People are protesting, and school districts are now demanding that teachers take harder cuts (ontop of the fact that most of the teachers I know have to buy classroom supplies, now.)

Harrisburg School District is talking of cutting arts, kindergarten, and the bus system.

Programs such as kindergarten, arts education and busing remain on the chopping block.

Last week, school leaders floated the idea of eliminating bus service. At Monday’s board meeting business manager Jeff Bader said the move would save the district about $50,000. The district would still be obligated to bus certain groups of students, including those with special needs and those attending charter schools.

This has left parents afraid of excessive absenteeism and the possibility that students will drop out.

Some parents also raised the concern of whether the move would lead to increased absenteeism or some students dropping out altogether.

"When I look and I see these cuts are going to happen, it makes me question whats going to happen with my children," says Daria Auguste, who is planning a rally at the Capitol Wednesday to protest cuts to K-12 education.

Ontop of that, in the past 2 years, Corbett has slashed cuts to the State Schools, such as PSU, Pitt, and Temple, by 50%. He keeps explaining that it's the schools that need to tighten their belts, but everyone knows it won't be the Administration that loses: it will be the students.

So I started to wonder. This has to be more than just a Pennsylvania thing, right?

And I was right.

From The Moderate Voice:

One could jump on the old partisan bandwagon and say the present American war on education is a Republican effort. An effort spawned by the fact that teachers unions have been a traditional big supporter of Democrats, and teachers generally have voted the Democratic line. This view can be bolstered further by pointing to the biggest teacher layoffs in Republican run states, and at places like Pennsylvania where a Republican governor has cut deeply into support for state colleges.

Yes, there’s a strong partisan element here. But in reality, important parts of this war on education have often had bipartisan backing. Like when it came to loan programs for college students.

It seemed a great idea to Democrats as well as Republicans to bring the mighty force of the free market more prominently into this lending. Preventing bankruptcy from being a debt escape for student borrowers expedited this idea wonderfully. Private lenders knew these loans were now super safe and would in a pinch have the federal government acting as their dunning agents.

An indeed, it has proven a great idea — for certain vested interests. The government was off the hook for a lot of student lending; Wall Street could package the loans for the secondary market and make its usual high markups; colleges could get their students more financial backing without tapping their own endowments, with savings that could then be used for much bigger administrator compensation packages and building projects bearing the names of major endowment contributors.

Only students ended up being hurt by this “wonderful” arrangement when the job market collapsed.

Personally, I find America’s present war on education not merely grotesque, but incomprehensible. In sane societies the first line of defense against a terminal military defeat is never that society’s children. They are the last thing thrown into battle, and almost always, while even a modicum of sanity pervades a society, surrender comes first because it is deemed a preferable option.

America has chosen to make it educational system, a proxy for its children, the first casualties in our budgetary wars.

Looking for sure symptoms of nation’s decline? Look to a country where its teachers are labeled enemies of the people, where the number of teachers in formative years’ education is being dramatically slashed, where higher education is increasingly viewed as a burden rather than an opportunity.

And these ARE bipartisan reforms that are happening... don't be fooled. Why are we cutting education?

From the LA Times:

After a particularly brutal budgeting season this summer, states and school districts across the country have fired thousands of teachers, raised college tuition, relaxed standards, slashed days off the academic calendar and gutted pre-kindergarten and summer school programs.

Slashed budgets are nothing new for educators, but experts say this year stands out.

Last year, K-12 budgets were cut $1.8 billion nationwide. According to estimates by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers, cuts to K-12 for the new fiscal year may reach $2.5 billion.

A year ago, higher-education budgets across the nation were trimmed $1.2 billion. The expected cuts this year: $5 billion.

"They've long since been cutting deep into the bone," said Michael Leachman of the nonpartisan Center on Budget Policies and Priorities, based in Washington.

At least 22 states have scaled back K-12 funding and at least 24 have made cuts in higher education for fiscal year 2012, the center found.

To cover such shortfalls, experts say, school officials often reduce, or eliminate, personnel and programs vital to the most vulnerable populations: lower-income and minority students.

In California, many school districts cut spending for adult education, libraries, textbooks, arts and music, gifted students, tutoring for low-performing high school students and other programs, according to two major surveys, including one by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. Many districts shortened the 180-day school year by five days.

"These are extraordinarily inequitable cuts for low-income communities of color," said Arun Ramanathan, executive director of the Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based advocacy group.

He said that a shorter academic year and cuts to summer classes exacerbate their generally lagging achievement because many low-income students cannot afford the enriched activities enjoyed by their middle-class counterparts, such as museum visits and private tutoring.

In Florida, state funds for 15,000 children to attend a school-readiness program for low-income families have been cut, and college tuition was raised 15% for the fourth consecutive year. Texas eliminated funding for pre-kindergarten programs that serve about 100,000 at-risk children.

Though cuts in education reach all demographics, they do not affect all students equally, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington.

"If we're worried about the future, we have to be worried about these equity issues," Jennings said. "Who's going to be the employees, the industry leaders in the future? Increasingly, they will be children of color, and they're not going to close the achievement gap."

Across the country, education officials are finding ways to save money:

In California, many districts have cut back on high school counselors, leaving many students to sort out the college application process on their own.

In New Mexico, some school districts have gone to four-day school weeks.

In Illinois, high school juniors will no longer be evaluated on writing skills after the state eliminated a writing test, saving about $2.4 million.

University of California students will pay $1,818 more in tuition this year than last, after increases of 8% and 9.6%, and Cal State University tuition will rise by $294, to $5,472.

In Washington state, lawmakers cut more than $1 billion in class-size reduction, early learning programs and teacher development.

Reaction to such cutbacks has varied. Outside Sioux Falls, S.D., teachers and administrators in the Brandon Valley School District worked without pay during summer school to stave off cancellation of the summer program.

At Wonderland Elementary School in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon, parents have managed to raise $450,000 a year to retain science, art, physical education, teachers' assistants, yard supervision and a librarian for a library completed two years ago, parent leader Teri Levy said.

But they have not been able to prevent class sizes from swelling, as they have around the state. At Wonderland, classes in the lower grades have grown from 20 to 28 students in the last few years.

"It's so packed that teachers can't focus on all of the kids in the class," Levy said.

In many parts of the country, parents and teachers have taken to the streets to protest, but to little effect.

In Philadelphia, parents mustered 400 signatures on a petition in hopes of saving the job of Hau Chau, a bilingual counseling assistant at H.A. Brown Elementary. Chau was the only Vietnamese-speaking employee at a school where 18% of students speak the language at home.

"The students feel comfortable, feel protected when I'm there," Chau said. "I try to guide them and talk to their teachers to find a way for the students to feel comfortable and happy while they are in school."

Seniors no longer evaluated on writing skills? We are sending our future out into the world without the basic education they need. Cutting science? Really?

It reminds me of this, something I read online on one of my comedy sites (that happen to be true stories.) From Not Always Working:

(I have just returned to work after going on vacation in West Virginia. My coworker is a senior in high school.)

Coworker: “So, did you need to get a passport when you left?”
Me: “Why would I need a passport? I was still in the States.”
Coworker: “West Virginia is in a different country, right?”
Me: “Uh, no. It’s in the US. What exactly do you think the US consists of?”
Coworker: “Canada, California, and Mexico?”

And it doesn't end there:

Florida Higher Education to Face Budget Cuts
$834 Million in Education Slashed in Wisconsin
For Texas Schools, Make Do on Shoestring
New York State Budget Slashes Education, Healthcare, and taxes on the Rich
Education Cuts Squeeze NY Teachers

I don't feel I need to continue with the linkage.

My question is, both to Democrat and Republicans alike:

Why are we destroying our Nation's future? Why am I not seeing more outrage from both sides? Why are we voting people in that only care about the NOW... and not the impact these cuts will bring. We aren't reducing the debt by firing teachers. We're hurting the job market even more by placing them into the unemployment line. This isn't saving the economy as they think... it's destroying it along with our future.

 

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