A Perfect Storm Hits Public Schools
Guest post by Steven Sellers Lapham.
Note: Steven Sellers Lapham and Jack Hassard worked together on this post.
Public schools in America are under attack from many directions, and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) seems bent on delivering a lethal one-two-three punch. This decade will likely witness more neighborhood schools shutting down, crowded classrooms, excellent teachers fired, and children fobbed off to "online learning programs." Let's recall that Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed its schools 1959-64, creating a "lost generation" of children who were hobbled, as adults, by years of missed education. Today, a school district in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, cash strapped and unable to pay its teachers, is being kept open only by a federal court order.
We now face the prospect of a school closing because the local tax base has withered, the state government is under water, and the federal government has deemed the school to be unworthy of aid due to lackluster scores