Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, October 12, 2012

VP Debate: Education Insiders Wait To Hear Whether Paul Ryan Sides With His Own Budget

VP Debate: Education Insiders Wait To Hear Whether Paul Ryan Sides With His Own Budget:


VP Debate: Education Insiders Wait To Hear Whether Paul Ryan Sides With His Own Budget

Mitt Romney shocked education insiders during the presidential debate last week when he promised not to cut education spending. Now, they're wondering if education will come up at Thursday night's vice presidential debate, and if so, whether GOP nominee Paul Ryan will reaffirm that promise -- at the risk of contradicting his own budget proposal.

Last week, after President Barack Obama pressed Romney on education spending -- and after countless advertisements attacking Romney on education cuts -- Romney made his pledge, marking his first specific remark on education spending: "I'm not going to cut education funding," he said. "I don't have any plan to cut education funding and grants that go to people going to college."

But the budget proposal produced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that has since been passed by the House of 

Chicago Teachers Strike Contract Leaves Education Issues Unresolved

CHICAGO -- Every Sunday, CEO of Chicago Public Schools Jean-Claude Brizard takes his 2-year-old son to breakfast. It's a "sacred" ritual, Brizard emphasizes, because "he doesn't get much daddy time." But one Sunday in the beginning of September, he felt too sick to his stomach to take his son out.

A few months earlier, members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had voted to give union leadership the authority to call a strike. Under Brizard and Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), teachers said they felt alienated, a circumstance triggered by Emanuel yanking their scheduled raise and aggravated by his ballbusting rhetoric -- once remarking, for example, that teachers' raises meant students "got the shaft." That Sunday, Sept. 9, marked the final deadline CTU had set for announcing a potential walkout. So instead of going out, Brizard