And on the hundredth day, the California legislature borrowed from Peter (education) to pay Paul (pass a budget). In the tardiest budget in state history, the public schools will be cut $3.1 billion with $1.9 billion to be deferred and repaid in 2011-2012. (More on that later).
What does a $3.1 billion cut look like? For our student leaders at California for Justice, it looks like a computer lab where only eight of thirty computers work. Or a set of class books that students cannot bring home to do homework. Or a counselor you’re lucky to see once a year.
More so, what does it feel like? “Like no one cares what happens to us,” says Jessica Solano Salazar, a student in the Oakland Unified School District. “I want to go to college and get a good job, but how am I supposed to get there when I don’t have any guidance and support?”
AFSCME
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to slash an additional $1 billion from social programs like child care and CalWORKS after a record-long budget stalemate of 100 days is another example of the fiscal austerity measures that are turning California into a Third World country.
In a statement explaining his recent line-item vetoes, Schwarzenegger said that he was trying to “build a prudent reserve” or rainy day fund.
The purpose of a rainy day fund is to provide cash in lean times or in an emergency.
With unemployment at 12% in California and record rates of poverty nationally, it would seem obvious that now is the time to tap that rainy day fund.
Instead, what Schwarzenegger has done is to siphon off money from the programs and institutions designed to protect us in the worst of times in order to save money for that rainy day fund.
Written by Karina PiserThursday, 14 October 2010 03:40
by Karina Piser -
October 14, 2010 -- In "Lord of the Flies," William Golding's famous allegory about a group of English schoolchildren stranded on a deserted island, the boys gradually begin to bully, hunt and even kill their weaker peers. In the book, however, it is the boys' isolation from civilization that causes standards of decency to be overwhelmed by primitive group think. The implication is that the students would not have lost their moral bearings if they had been at home in the suburbs, in their dormitories or in school classrooms.
If only that were so. The recent suicides of five gay teenagers who were isolated only metaphorically — by the abuse they suffered — demonstrate the flaw in that theory. Their tragic deaths have cast a light on the abuse and bullying suffered by many young gay students on a regular basis right here in the midst of society; a 2009 report from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network found that nine out of 10 lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual students say they are harassed during a given year.
Horrendous as that is, it is important to remember that gays are not the only young people being "bullied to death." The phenomenon is part of a broader problem.
Robert Bobb was the City Manager of Oakland, California until he completed the Broad Superintendent’s Academy training in 2005. That soon led to Bobb becoming president of the school board in Washington, DC. In 2007 Eli Broad backed a mayoral takeover of DC schools which took Robert Bob out of the picture. See: Eli’s Experiment
Under Mayor Fenty and School Chancellor Michele Rhee’s control, the school board was rendered powerless. At that time Robert Bobb moved on to Detroit where he had been anointed Emergency Financial Officer of the
- Wed, Apr 21, 2010Following months of debate, a controversial project to establish the University of California as a leader in online education will begin accepting preliminary proposals from UC faculty on Oct. 29 despite ongoing criticism by university faculty, staff and students regarding the quality of the education the program would provide.
At a Tuesday forum cosponsored by several campus student and worker groups, Christopher Edley, the plan's
The Boston Teachers Union accused Superintendent Carol R. Johnson yesterday of teacher bashing after she joined other superintendents nationwide in signing an opinion piece in Sunday’s Washington Post that railed against unions for protecting ineffective teachers.
One passage the union found particularly offensive: “The glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher . . . has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.’’
Richard Stutman, the Boston Teachers Union president, fired back yesterday morning in a newsletter e-mailed to the union’s more than 5,000 members
Charter schools are all the rage these days. The public is increasingly smitten with them — in this year's Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup education poll, 68% of respondents said they support charter schools, up from 42% in 2000 — but few people know what charters are. When the education journal Education Next asked Americans some basic questions this summer about charter
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