CURMUDGUCATION: More Bogus Research from Rocketship

CURMUDGUCATION: More Bogus Research from Rocketship:

More Bogus Research from Rocketship

When you need some "research" to pump up your ad copy, what better than to just hire it yourself. In fact, why not hire the guys who have been pumping it out reliably for you for years.
Rocketship Academy is patting itself on the back over a new "research" report that it commissioned from good, old SRI International, a group that just happens to be heavily invested in technology-based education. SRI used to stand for Stanford Research Institute, but separated from Stanford in 1970 and changed its name in 1977 (which suggests the split was plenty amicable). That was long before Preston Smith tacked his Teach for America credits onto his resume and looked to enter the lucrative world of edubusiness, but since then, SRI has teamed up with Rocketship to show the awesomeness of the Rocketship Academy product.

Way back in 2011, SRI did a super-duper study of the K-5 Rocketship to show that the Dreambox program (Dreambox because it's what you bury dreams in?)  raised scores on the NWEA MAP test by a couple of points. Dreambox is a company that Reed "Elected School Boards Stink" Hastings (Netflix) bought for the Charter School Growth Fund, a fund that also invests in Success Academy and CURMUDGUCATION: More Bogus Research from Rocketship:

A busy day: Protesting billionaires pushing charter schools & then winning our lawsuit vs the DOE on School Leadership Team meetings- NYC Public School Parents

NYC Public School Parents: A busy day: Protesting billionaires pushing charter schools & then winning our lawsuit vs the DOE on School Leadership Team meetings:

A busy day: Protesting billionaires pushing charter schools & then winning our lawsuit vs the DOE on School Leadership Team meetings

Yesterday was quite a day.  In the morning, I protested with AQE and the Hedge Clippers folks, outside an event at the Harvard Club, where Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker was speaking about the referendum to raise the cap on charter schools in his state called Question 2. 

This effort has been funded with millions of dollars in "dark money," and we were there to make them feel uncomfortable.  Jeremiah Kittredge of Families for Excellent Schools walked into the building while we were chanting, "Governor Baker epic fail! Our public schools are not for sale!"  FES has poured at least $13.5 million into this election -- without disclosing its donors, although one can assume the money comes mostly from the usual suspects -- Walton family members and NYC hedge fund operators. 

After the meeting, Baker was scheduled to meet with Bloomberg, trolling for even more bucks -- after Bloomberg had already given $240,000 to the effort.  Meanwhile, all over the country, from California to New York, Washington to Georgia, billionaires are trying to buy  school board races, judgeship elections, referendums, and control of the NY State Senate - all with the same nationwide goal of privatizing public schools, and wresting them from democratic control. 

Then I returned back to my office and learned that the Appellate Court had finally ruled on our lawsuit to NYC Public School Parents: A busy day: Protesting billionaires pushing charter schools & then winning our lawsuit vs the DOE on School Leadership Team meetings:

What Obama Never Got About Education

What Obama Never Got About Education:

What Obama Never Got About Education

Education may have been mostly left out of this year’s heated presidential election, but that hasn’t stopped the current, outgoing president from shining a spotlight on his education record.

“We’ve made a lot of progress” on education, President Obama recently announced and pointed to record high school graduation rates of 83 percent as proof. Left-leaning operatives inside the Beltway were quick to capitalize on this announcement in order to start the campaign hailing Obama’s education legacy.

Is this a narrative Democrats should hang their hats on as they approach the post-election period, which, with every passing day, looks like will usher in another Democratic party administration?

Every politician wants to be able to point to statistical proof of how effective their policies have been – how many jobs were created, money saved, crimes reduced, etc. Obama is no different in this regard.

But how good really are his education “numbers,” and are Democrats talking about the education numbers that matter most?

What Do Education Numbers Mean?

As NPR reports, the president’s first big number he pointed to in his recent address was this: “When I took office almost eight years ago, we knew that our education system was falling short … I said, by 2020 I want us to be No. 1.”

What does it mean to be “number one” in education?

When people talk about who is number one in education, they most often point to Finland, which is the country that usually does best on international assessments.

So do we want to be like Finland, which has an economy one-eighteenth What Obama Never Got About Education:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL –Testimony ends in lies, tears, and no certainty of justice. |

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL –Testimony ends in lies, tears, and no certainty of justice. |:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL –Testimony ends in lies, tears, and no certainty of justice.

Testimony in the  Bridgegate trial ended Wednesday with lies, tears–and the certainty justice will not be served. Justice won’t be served because not everyone responsible for the prankish but perilous shut-down of the George Washington Bridge three years ago will be held accountable by this and any other forum.

LIES–because both a prosecutor and a defense lawyer ended their questioning of co-defendant Bridge Anne Kelly by leading her through how her testimony disagreed with that of other witnesses–and how those other witnesses disagreed with each other.

Port Authority director Patrick Foye. He sent out a press release filled with lies.

Vikas Khanna, the assistant US attorney, ticked off the testimony of seven witnesses–most of them minor players in this drama–and asked her to agree they differed from her own, especially on  questions of whether Kelly wanted to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for failing to endorse Gov. Chris Christie for re-election.

“I’m telling you all of them have a different recollection than mine –but their livelihoods depend on Chris Christie,” she said, fighting back tears.

Then her lawyer,  Michael Critchley, took over on redirect and led his client through the last bit of testimony the jury will ever hear in this case.

Critchley mentioned one name–then asked whether Kelly heard that testimony contradict that of a second. Then he listed a third, and a fourth, and, in an almost BRIDGEGATE TRIAL –Testimony ends in lies, tears, and no certainty of justice. |:

Is Your District Changing its Grading Policy? Here’s the Real Reason Why. – Save Maine Schools

Is Your District Changing its Grading Policy? Here’s the Real Reason Why. – Save Maine Schools:

Is Your District Changing its Grading Policy? Here’s the Real Reason Why.

All across the country, teachers are suddenly learning that their grading practices are rubbish.

“What does a 72 even mean?” they are asked in PowerPoint presentations delivered by well-paid consultants from Gates and Nellie Mae-sponsored nonprofits. “The problem is that it doesn’t mean anything.”

Then they find out that it’s actually even worse than that.  Teachers, the consultants explain to the teachers, have been factoring behavior into the grades they assign and it is damaging children irreparably. (Of course, you should be grading behavior, they say – all that social emotional stuff is very valuable data  – but you must keep it separate.)

Finally, teachers are told that the real issue at hand is ethics.  Our current practice of assigning A’s and B’s is simply wrong.  (Just ask grading “expert” Douglas Reeves – and be sure to overlook his own history of significant ethical breaches.)

Teachers, of course, who are painfully accustomed to hearing that most of what they do is wrong, listen patiently for the 1000th time to Is Your District Changing its Grading Policy? Here’s the Real Reason Why. – Save Maine Schools:

King of the Castle – EduShyster

King of the Castle – EduShyster:

King of the Castle

What kind of school demands $6,000 in *liquidated damages* from a teacher who changed jobs? This kind of school…

When I heard the story of a teacher at Massachusetts’ largest charter school who received a $6,087 *bill* from said school after he let them know that he wouldn’t be returning to teach there this fall, I had to know more. Surely there had to be some kind of mistake or miscommunication, and by *we’re claiming liquidated damages,* the school really meant *thanks for your years of service and good luck at your new job.* So I did what anyone playing the part of a journalist on the Internet can do. I contacted the teacher and asked him if he would consent to a tell-all on my blog. To which his lawyer said *please don’t.* But I was still left with another unanswered query—call it Question 2—what kind of a school goes after a teacher like this anyway? It’s field trip time, reader, and we’re off to a mystical land known as the Mystic Valley.

The other kind of charters
In our endless, frenzied debate over whether or not to expand charter schools in Massachusetts, there is one varietal that you haven’t heard much about. While scriveners near and far scriven away about our inCREDOble urban charter success stories, the suburban stars have been given short shrift. Those
would be the subset of schools begun by middle-class parents to provide a private-school type education to their own kids at public school prices. Often offering the kinds of specialized programming that middle class parents crave—international baccalaureate! STEM! Chinese immersion!—these schools are known for looking, well, King of the Castle – EduShyster:

Kaine’s wife touts Clinton’s plan for free college tuition at Henderson event | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Kaine’s wife touts Clinton’s plan for free college tuition at Henderson event | Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Kaine’s wife touts Clinton’s plan for free college tuition at Henderson event

By NATALIE BRUZDA and BEN BOTKIN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

At her first campaign event in Nevada, Anne Holton, the former Secretary of Education for Virginia, and the wife of Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, emphasized the importance of reinvesting in public education and making higher education accessible for everyone.

Holton said Tuesday during a roundtable at Nevada State College that she’s “so proud” of Hillary Clinton’s plan to make college debt-free for most families.

“There are industrialized nations that do it,” Holton said. “There’s no reason we — the greatest nation in the world — can’t make higher education much more accessible, especially for those who need higher education as a pathway forward.”

Specifically, Clinton’s policies call for free tuition to in-state public colleges and universities for families with an income of up to $125,000 annually. Clinton’s goal is for that to happen by 2021, with free tuition initially starting for students in families making $85,000 a year or less.

 

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers, also participated in the event, returning to Las Vegas for about the sixth time this election cycle.

Nevada’s story of its economic boom, the downturn and coming back is the “story of the nation,” Weingarten said. “You get a sense of how special the state is.”

Weingarten is on a two-week swing that has included stops in Wisconsin, Illinois, New Mexico and Las Vegas. She next goes to New Hampshire.

“Obviously, the stakes are high here and it’s a battleground state,” she said.

During the roundtable, Weingarten said the election gives the country the opportunity to “recreate a vision of public schools as an engine of democracy and the propeller of the economy,” as opposed to focusing solely on how well a child does on an English or math test.

Weingarten said Clinton’s proposed policies, which include technical and vocational education programs and expanded renewable energy production and jobs, fit well within the state’s framework for the future.

Voters also see the same benefits to supporting Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democratic candidate running for Senate, Weingarten said. She tied Clinton’s policies for economic growth to what Nevadans want after the state’s cycle of booming growth followed by the downturn during the Great Recession. Nevadans are optimistic about the state’s future, she said.

“It is about the hope for the future and what you’re seeing in the last month is a real connection between Hillary Clinton and Catherine Cortez Masto to the hope for the future,” she saidKaine’s wife touts Clinton’s plan for free college tuition at Henderson event | Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2904. Follow @BenBotkin1 on Twitter.Kaine’s wife touts Clinton’s plan for free college tuition at Henderson event | Las Vegas Review-Journal:

 

New Mexico Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!

New Mexico Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!:

New Mexico Lawsuit Update

The ongoing lawsuit in New Mexico has, once again (see here and here), been postponed to October of 2017 due to what are largely (and pretty much only) state (i.e., Public Education Department (PED)) delays. Whether the delays are deliberate are uncertain but being involved in this case… The (still) good news is that the preliminary injunction granted to teachers last fall (see here) still holds so that teachers cannot (or are not to) face consequences as based on the state’s teacher evaluation system.

For more information, this is the email the American Federation of Teachers – New Mexico (AFT NM) and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation (ATF) sent out to all of their members yesterday:

Yesterday, both AFT NM/ATF and PED returned to court to address the ongoing legal battle against the PED evaluation system. Our lawyer proposed that we set a court date ASAP. The PED requested a date for next fall citing their busy schedule as the reason. As a result, the court date is now late October 2017.

While we are relieved to have a final court date set, we are dismayed at the amount of time that our teachers have to wait for the final ruling.

In a statement to the press, ATF President Ellen Bernstein reflected on the current state of our teachers in regards to the evaluation system, “Even though they know they can’t be harmed in their jobs right now, it bothers them in the core of their being, and nothing I can say can take that away…It’s a cloud over everybody.”

AFT NM President Stephanie Ly, said, “It is a shame our educators still don’t have a legitimate evaluation system. The PED’s previous abusive evaluation system was thankfully halted through an injunction by the New Mexico courts, and the PED has yet to New Mexico Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!:

The False Cult of Effort, the Gender Gap, and K-12 Teacher-Bashing | the becoming radical

The False Cult of Effort, the Gender Gap, and K-12 Teacher-Bashing | the becoming radical:

The False Cult of Effort, the Gender Gap, and K-12 Teacher-Bashing

While the U.S. presidency is rarified air, the presidential election often reflects the best and worst of the American character.

As the country sits in the cusp of the end of the first black president’s administration and the likelihood of the election of the first female president, what does the current election show about the lingering privilege of being white, male, and straight in the U.S.?

Being black, brown, female, gay, or transgender requires perfection while being white, male, and heterosexual allows any transgression to be excused.

Hillary must be perfect (her email controversy is oddly identical to millions of erased emails from private servers under George W. Bush, although that is of no real concern to the public or the media, for example), but Trump’s admitted behavior as a sexual predator is swept aside as just a man being one of the boys.

Yes, the glorious sanctity of the office of president must not be sullied—although the Republican Party has elected Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and W. Bush, a who’s who of unethical personal and political behaviors?

And in this dynamic of privilege we find the cult of effort—the implication that all these powerful white males are in power because of effort, because they deserve the success, earned the success.

Recall that Trump built this off the pittance of an inherited few million. …

On a smaller scale, then, is the K-12 teacher, a profession trapped in the cult of effort and the gender gap.

Having spent my career in part as a K-12 public school teacher and now as a tenured full professor, I have witnessed first-hand a powerful and ugly dynamic.

First, let me work backward.

My university has only about 30% female faculty, which reflects a male norm (linked with a white norm) of The False Cult of Effort, the Gender Gap, and K-12 Teacher-Bashing | the becoming radical:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Trump is a pipeline profiteer. Clinton remains silent.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Trump is a pipeline profiteer. Clinton remains silent.:

Trump is a pipeline profiteer. Clinton remains silent.

“We have roadblocks like you’ve never, ever seen – environmental blocks, structural blocks,” he said. “We are going to allow the Keystone pipeline and so many other things to move forwards. Tremendous numbers of jobs and good for our country.” -- Donald Trump

The difference between the two candidates in a nutshell.

Hillary Clinton has promised to "stop fracking" when she's elected. But only "when any locality or any state is against it," "when the release of methane or contamination of water is present," and "unless we can require that anybody who fracks has to tell us exactly what chemicals they are using."

But she remains silent on the Dakota Access Pipeline even as oil company construction crews continue to ravage Lakota sacred lands, while the piping of fracking oil threatens a big part of the nation's water supply, and while madman Sheriff Kirchmeier escalates his assault on peaceful protesters and journalists.

This, even though back in February, the Clinton camp posted to its website the candidate's policy platform for Native Americans. In it, Clinton declares that she "will continue to stand for Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Trump is a pipeline profiteer. Clinton remains silent.:

What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party—but Should | I AM AN EDUCATOR

What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party—but Should | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party—but Should

By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian, first published at the Zinn Education Project

Fifty years ago this month, the Black Panther Party was born. Its history holds vital lessons for today’s movement to confront racism and police violence, yet textbooks either misrepresent or minimize the significance of the Black Panthers.

The first issue of the Black Panther newspaper, which at its height had a weekly circulation of 140,000 copies, asked, “WHY WAS DENZIL DOWELL KILLED?” Helping Dowell’s family demand justice in Richmond, California, was one of the first major organizing campaigns of the Black Panther Party. Anyone reading the story of Denzil Dowell today can’t help but draw parallels to the unarmed Black men and women regularly murdered by the police. The disparity between the police’s story and the victim’s family’s, the police harassment Dowell endured before his murder, the jury letting off Dowell’s killer, even the reports that Dowell had his hands raised while he was gunned down, eerily echo the police killings today that have led to the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Yet when we learn about the early years of the Panthers, the organizing they did in Richmond—conducting their own investigation into Dowell’s death, confronting police who harassed Dowell’s family, helping mothers in the community organize against abuse at the local school, organizing armed street rallies in which hundreds filled out applications to join the party—is almost always absent. Armed with a revolutionary socialist ideology, as the Panthers grew, so did what they organized around. They fought in Black communities across the nation for giving the poor access to decent housing, health care, education, and much more.

This local organizing that Panthers engaged in has been erased in the textbooks, yet it is precisely what won them such widespread support. By 1970, a Market Dynamics/ABC poll found that Black people judged the Panthers to be the organization “most likely” to increase the effectiveness of the Black liberation struggle, and two-thirds showed admiration for the party. Coming in the midst of an all-out assault on the Panthers from the white press and law enforcement, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s claim that the Panthers were “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,” this support is remarkable.

The Textbook Version of the BPP

A few of the major textbooks don’t even mention the Black Panthers, while most give the organization only a sentence or two. Even the small number that do devote a few paragraphs to the party, give little context for their actions and distort their ideology.Textbooks often associate the Pantherswith violence and racial separatism. For example, Teacher Curriculum Institute’s History Alive! The United States reads,

Black Power groups formed that embraced militant strategies and the use of violence. Organizations such as the Black Panthers rejected all things white and talked of building a separate black nation.

While ignoring that the Panthers believed in using violence only in self-defense, this passage also attempts to divide the Panthers from “nonviolent” civil rights groups. The Panthers didn’t develop out of thin air, however, but evolved from their relationships with other civil rights organizations, especially the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The name and symbol of the Panthers were adopted from the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), an independent political organization SNCC helped organize in Alabama, also called the “Black Panther Party.” Furthermore, SNCC allied with the Panthers in 1968 and while the alliance only lasted five months, it was a crucial time for the growth of the Panthers.

The passage from History Alive! also incorrectly paints the Panthers as anti-white, erasing their important work building What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party—but Should | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

Malloy claims $5.7 million state budget deficit … But $400 million is closer to the truth - Wait What?

Malloy claims $5.7 million state budget deficit … But $400 million is closer to the truth - Wait What?:

Malloy claims $5.7 million state budget deficit … But $400 million is closer to the truth

Early last summer the Connecticut General Assembly adopted a budget agreement that had been negotiated between Governor Dannel Malloy and the Democratic leaders of the Connecticut State Senate and State House of Representatives.

In truth, the new state budget was out of balance the day it was signed into law and the situation has only gotten worse over the last four months.

Connecticut Income Tax revenues are down.

Connecticut Sales Tax revenues are down

Of the $209 million in “lapse” savings required in the state budget, Malloy has yet to identify $61 million in cuts.

And while the budget plan required about 2,000 layoffs in order to balance, the governor has only implemented about half that number.

Meanwhile, the poorly developed Malloy/Democratic austerity budget will lead to a variety Malloy claims $5.7 million state budget deficit … But $400 million is closer to the truth - Wait What?:

Uncovering Lasting Lessons from Decades of Education Reform - Living in Dialogue

Uncovering Lasting Lessons from Decades of Education Reform - Living in Dialogue:

Uncovering Lasting Lessons from Decades of Education Reform 

By John Thompson.

Learning from the Federal Market-based Reforms: Lessons for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), edited by William Mathis and Tina Trujillo, details the numerous “opportunity costs” that resulted from a generation of test-driven, competition-driven reform.  The money and energy devoted to the test, sort, reward, and punish approach to school improvement precluded a serious commitment to holistic and humane science-based efforts.  The market-driven reform movement ignored decades of social science research. Often it has devolved into “magical thinking.”

Mike Rose begins the anthology by considering “how this economic focus, blended with the technology of large-scale assessment, can restrict our sense of what school ought to be about: the full sweep of growth and development, for both individuals and for a pluralistic democracy.” Rose notes that “this narrowing of discourse, this pinching of what we talk about when we talk about school,” has defined down what we discuss in the broader public sphere. He challenges us to, “Think of what we don’t read and hear.” He calls for:

Public talk that links education to a more decent, thoughtful, open society. Talk that raises in us as a people the appreciation for deliberation and reflection, or for taking intellectual risks and thinking widely—for the sheer power and pleasure of using our minds, alone or in concert with others. We need a discourse that inspires young people to think gracefully.

As Gary Orfield explains in “A New Civil Rights Agenda for American Education,” we must first Do No Additional Harm. We must reject the judging and punishing of teachers using metrics that are invalid and encourage teach-to-the-test. “We should fund no more intentionally segregating charter schools,” writes Uncovering Lasting Lessons from Decades of Education Reform - Living in Dialogue:

PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable | Parents Across America

PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable | Parents Across America:

PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable 

 PAA interim executive director Julie Woestehoff presented a brief version of the following comments to members of the U.S. Department of Education at a community roundtable on the Every Student Succeeds Act held today in Casper, Wyoming:

Parents Across America Comments on ESSA

Presented at the Community Roundtable on ESSA held in Casper, WY

on October 26, 2016

Good morning. My name is Julie Woestehoff. I am a resident of Evanston, WY, and the interim executive director of Parents Across America, a national network of parents from all backgrounds across the United States who share ideas and work together to improve our nation’s public schools. PAA is committed to bringing the voice of public school parents – and common sense – to local, state, and national education debates. We currently have forty-five chapters and affiliates in twenty-six states.

U. S. Education Secretary John King recently spoke about “What School Can Be,” at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts. Secretary King reflected on the school programs and experiences that had the greatest impact on him — had, in fact, saved his life. The programs he talked about as so transformative and critical for him and other students included performing on stage, going to the zoo and museums, playing in an orchestra, dancing, and going out into the community to tackle real and needed projects – what Secretary King calls a well-rounded education.

A couple of years ago, PAA prepared a position paper, “What is a Quality Education?”, which is quite similar in tone and aspiration. Our vision is that quality education is child-centered, requires skilled professionals, and promotes justice, equity and democracy.

We appreciate the fact that the new federal education law proclaims the fundamental importance of family and community vision and values in setting education goals and making key decisions about the best ways to support and strengthen schools. It was right and necessary to move those decisions back to the state and local level.

Unfortunately, the influence of corporate reform and the push for the monetization and privatization of democratic public education, which has been so strongly opposed by families, communities and educators, remains far too prominent in parts of ESSA and the draft regulations and guidance the department has published so far. These documents continue to misrepresent the real interests and concerns of most parents, using these misrepresentations to justify ineffective, harmful, and expensive programs such as expanded funding for charter schools, misuse and overuse of standardized tests, punitive school labeling, and, more recently, heavy promotion of digital instruction without including adequate protections for student health and data privacy, and all at a time when public education budgets are under severe strain.

Accountability

PAA submitted comments on the draft accountability guidance in July. Briefly, we objected to:

• The extensive, punitive regulations surrounding the requirement that 95% of all students take state accountability tests, which undermine parents’ rights to opt our children out of these tests, even in cases where such tests are misused or overused.

• Requirements that states set three levels and single accountability labels for schools, and give “much PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable | Parents Across America:

Nearly Half the States Persist in Starving Public Education | janresseger

Nearly Half the States Persist in Starving Public Education | janresseger:

Nearly Half the States Persist in Starving Public Education

It is October, when the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) updates its report on overall school spending across the states. In this year’s version, released last week, CBPP presents new numbers (in inflation-adjusted dollars) depicting general fund, school-formula funding lagging in 23 states behind what those states were spending in the 2007-2008 school year, just prior to the Great Recession.  This is a slight improvement; last year school funding formulas remained below 2008 levels in 25 states. But in a country that relentlessly declares that no child will be left behind and every student will succeed, our rhetoric rings hollow when nearly half the states have reduced basic aid for schools over the past decade.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sums up the state fiscal picture: “States cut K-12 funding—and a range of other areas, including higher education, health care, and human services—as a result of the 2007-2009 recession, which sharply reduced state revenue.  Emergency fiscal aid from the federal government prevented even deeper cuts but ran out before the economy recovered, and states chose to address their budget shortfalls disproportionately through spending cuts rather than a more balanced mix of service cuts and revenue increases.  Some state have worsened their revenue shortfalls by cutting taxes… And because property values fell sharply after the recession hit, it’s been particularly difficult for local school districts to raise significant additional revenue through local property taxes….”

On average, according to the new report, states provide 47 percent of funding for public schools while local school districts cover 45 percent of the cost. The federal government averages less than 10 percent. Because federal funds pay for services for children whose needs are greatest, cuts in federal funding undermine schools serving the poorest students Nearly Half the States Persist in Starving Public Education | janresseger: