Why is EDUCATION being attacked and cut?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

I thought that the USA including the President wanted quality education for the country.

Now we see that teachers are being cut by the thousands throughout the country. High schools are going to be severely cut losing AP programs. Class sizes are going to be in access of 40. This is an absolute disgrace!!!

[Jefferson23]

1. It's all about destroying the unions, not at all about the students imo:

The Obama administration's Race to the Top program intensified the demonizing of teachers, because it encouraged states to evaluate teachers in relation to student scores. There are many reasons why students do well or poorly on tests, and teachers felt they were being unfairly blamed when students got low scores, while the crucial role of families and the students themselves was overlooked.

Teachers' despair deepened last August when The Los Angeles Times rated 6,000 teachers in Los Angeles as effective or ineffective, based on their students' test scores, and posted these ratings online. Testing experts warn that such ratings are likely to be both inaccurate and unstable, but the Times stood by its analysis.
Snip*

Now conservative governors and mayors want to abolish teachers' right to due process, their seniority, and -- in some states -- their collective bargaining rights. Right-to-work states do not have higher scores than states with strong unions. Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members.

Opinion: Reinvent unions, don't gut them

Unions actively lobby to increase education funding and reduce class size, so conservative governors who want to slash education spending feel the need to reduce their clout. This silences the best organized opposition to education cuts.

There has recently been a national furor about school reform. One must wonder how it is possible to talk of improving schools while cutting funding, demoralizing teachers, cutting scholarships to college, and increasing class sizes.

The real story in Madison is not just about unions trying to protect their members' hard-won rights. It is about teachers who are fed up with attacks on their profession. A large group of National Board Certified teachers -- teachers from many states who have passed rigorous examinations by an independent national board -- is organizing a march on Washington in July. The events in Madison are sure to multiply their numbers.

in full: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/20/ravitch.teachers.blamed/index.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. this is happening in states that like unions

[Jefferson23]

3. Yep, all over. n/t

[YvonneCa]

5. It's about finding a way to get rid of the expensive...

...teachers, the ones with defined benefit retirement plans and medical benefits, and replacing them with newbies with few or no benefits.

[geardaddy]

23. Yep, MN just passed a law making it easier

for people to get teaching licenses. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/195894/

[YvonneCa]

33. I guess that Degree I worked on for three...

...years is worthless. :(

[joeglow3]

13. Seriously, people do NOT want to understand the issue

This "expert" makes the claim "Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members."

Now, I am a supporter of union rights. However, this is NOT much of issue in student performance. Instead, unions are an issue of fairness for teachers. If these people are truly interested in looking at school/children's performance, lets look at the real causes of poor performance:

1. In looking up poverty rates, the states they listed are 1, 2, 3, 9 & 14.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate

2. Here is a GREAT site that allows you to look at all sorts of poverty rates, racial makeup, etc.

http://www.nccp.org/tools/demographics/

In short, NOTHING boils my piss more than when someone writes a piece supporting my views and throws in shit like this that anyone with a brain can discredit. There is MORE than enough evidence to support our views that we don't need to make shit up and diminish any impact we can have.

[Jefferson23]

14. Ravitch is not making up anything yet you seem to be presuming she

has a disregard for collective variables that impact student performance. In short, states with unions do
impact positively for students in many areas...class size is one of many.

[joeglow3]

15. Agreed. However, she should be careful in making such statements

While I am sure it has some impact, poverty rates, classroom demographics, class sizes, have MUCH more of an impact. I read the article as she was saying the states she listed were doing as well as they are because of, in large part, unions. Frankly, I think all teachers (regardless of if they are fortunate enough to be in a union or not) are great. I would bet that if you took teachers not in a union and teachers in those states and swapped them, you would see similar results due to the factors above.

That said, it does not diminish the significance of the discussion around unions. However, this about taking care of teachers and their rights. If we want to have a discussion about classroom performance, we are making MUCH better use of our time discussing those items above and not union membership.

[SharonAnn]

29. Actually, it´s because a lot of taxpayer money goes into education. They want the money.

Notice that the right-wing is always looking for pots of money to "handle".

In local and state governments, there is a HUGE amount of taxpayer money going to education, and right now the right-wing isn´t getting any of the money.

It´s an unending pipeline of money and they want to get it into their pockets.

That´s all.

That´s why they want to privatize everything. So they can get the money in THEIR pockets.çç

It´s much easier than starting up a business, working to provide a product or service, pleasing customers, etc.

Once you get attached to the pipeline of taxpayer money, you can suck on it forever, because you´ve BOUGHT the right to the money.

Think of Mat Taibbi´s description of Goldman Sachs, "A giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

[Jefferson23]

34. Privatization, absolutely....great description by Taibbi btw. n/t

[Mimosa]

36. +1,000 SharonAnn

Wish I could K&R a post! :D

[wysingm]

4. Why is EDUCATION being attacked and cut?

Public employees vs. Pensions

Case in point:

Kansas to take money out of classrooms to pay retirees' benefits

School teachers in Kansas have worried about the state pension system for years. By 2009, the fund only had about 60 percent of the assets needed to cover public employees' retirement benefits, one of the worst shortfalls in the nation.

-snip-

Now a solution is finally at hand. But teachers aren't feeling very relieved about it. To help close the financial gap, Gov. Sam Brownback wants to shift money from the state education budget and cut the annual base payment to school districts by about 6 percent. The cuts will increase class sizes and probably spur layoffs this spring, thereby solving the future problem by causing hardship in the classroom today.

-snip-

The nonprofit Pew Center for the States reported last year that only three states had public employee pension plans that were fully funded, and 19 states' systems were in serious arrears, with less than 80 percent of the assets needed to cover projected costs. A survey of 126 large public pension systems gauged their overall gap at about $700 billion.

http://hutchnews.com/Todaystop/A1--Broken-Budgets-Pension-Woes-1st-Ld--20110313-15-49-43--1


Everyone needs to bookmark this site:

Pension Tsunami - http://www.pensiontsunami.com/

.

[Igel]

6. You are confusing levels of government.

Yes, they matter.

Take Texas. Education's funded through a few different mechanisms. Some is local, some is state, some is federal.

The federal level hasn't actually declined from its baseline. The short-term stimulus money that patched over previous years' budget shortfalls ended. This yields delayed budget cuts. It means that the cuts, when they come, are amplified instead of having smaller cuts over several years.

Texas operates based on property taxes, sales tax, and various fees. The property tax revenues have taken a dive. So have sales-tax revenues. This reduction's affecting both state and local funding.

Education is a large portion of the combined local and state budgets, around 32%; 20% for health, or the 8-9% for transportation or protection. 31% or so goes for "miscellaneous," including the judiciary, pensions, retiring bonds, and a billion other smaller things. However, you can't cut some expenses: Some are required by the federal government as a requirement for obtaining other funds. In some cases, a large chunk of local spending is for pensions.

In Texas there are marginal things they could cut. But for big savings you have to cut big things. You have to cut where there are expenses. That means education, transportation, public safety, pensions, and health. One dirty secret is that local school boards aren't being completely honest: They say there's a threatened state budget cut and then say what their budget shortfall is; the local budget shortfall isn't entirely due to the proposed state budget cuts.

The general solution some offer is just raising income taxes on people other than themselves. That would be a problem in Texas. We have no income tax and would need a voter referendum to instate one. Raising property taxes or sales tax would be "regressive." The best solution is not raising on-going, programmatic spending to include every dime (although Tx does have a large "rainy day fund"). A better solution is to stall any budget increase and let natural growth overtake the deficit. We don't have the luxury of waiting for that to happen. Unpleasant

[golfguru]

7. Yeah deficits or not, education should not be cut

May be we can outsource it to India?
Video conferencing makes it quite possible.

[craigmatic]

8. There's nobody standing up for the teachers or the unions. Even some dems support cuts

because they take the unions' support for granted. Some want to see the current system fail so that they can institute either a private system or a charter system and in both cases there will be no unions.

[Skittles]

9. because

really, really stupid people vote repuke

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. because public education is an entitlement...it is part of The Beast

[old mark]

11. Republicans at all levels fear educated people-they tend to think for themselves, at

least ideally and that is the last thing the GOP and the rich who run them want for the US.
I notice here in PA, our new republican governor has cut funding for education ranging from kindergarten, all elementary grade science studies, through ALL state universities and state supported public universities-their budgets are seeing cuts of over 50% from state funds. This will drive out students from working and middle class families, leaving the rich and conservative in private colleges to become our rulers in the future.

The GOP wants to stop the working and middle class people from having opportunities to advance to positiions of authority in American society.


mark

[Littlecat]

12. They want to break

public schools that way they can privatise them. If they bankrupt schools and cut staff and services to the point that they can't function anymore everyone will throw a fit. Then they get to "fix" the situation by handing off education to "professionals" (private companies).

[alsame]

17. I agree, I think most of it is driven by a desire to

make a profit from all levels of education. And since school is mandated, they see huge profit potential.

[mstinamotorcity]

16. Well ever since Brown vs. Board of Education

Children have been systematically removed from public education. Funding has decreased in all phases of public education. Once all children had the ability to receive an equal education under the law in public schools public schools were now somehow bad. And parents start listening and removing their children. then after they started with the schools they worked the kids. They put drugs,guns,and violence around their schools, and made them afraid to go. Well that wasn't enough, they had to destroy public schools once and for all. They would need to find a way to break one of the biggest unions around. The Federation of Teachers. They almost had the UAW, but with successful maneuvering they were able to get the UAW to sacrifice until it bled. The teachers were going to be a push over. To break the Teachers union would mean that only students who could afford to pay would get the best teachers. Hence this would create an ever ending low-wage work force.

[madamesilverspurs]

18. Another plank

in Reagan's continuing platform.

The man was a tragedy for this country, yet he is worshipped by republicans.

-

[Dulcinea]

19. To quote George Carlin:

In one of his last concerts, George Carlin presented a bleak vision of American education: “It will never, ever, ever be fixed. It won’t get any better. Don’t look for it....The owners of this country don’t want that... The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all important decisions. They own you. They own everything... They own all the big media companies. So they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.... They want more for themselves, and less for everybody else.... They don’t want well informed, well educated people... They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork...”

[geardaddy]

26. I think he ends that great bit

with something like "they've got you by the balls"

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

20. Because things like the Pentagon budget are more profitable and very

easy to steal from.

[ehrnst]

21. Public schools are the best example of the basic good that public funding does.

Kids don't vote. Parents don't notice incremental cuts.

People who don't have kids in public school see other priorities.

[toddwv]

22. They are hoping that the public schools system will be privatized.

In addition, they feel that public schools are too secular and so getting their anti-science agenda into the curriculum is proving to be difficult.

Then there's the simple fact that uneducated people don't expect decent pay and benefits.

And I wouldn't put it past some of these assholes to honestly believe that only the creme de la creme of society deserve a decent education.

[Mister Ed]

24. Public education is one of the last large pools of taxpayer money that hasn't already been stolen.

Cut public education funding to help finance tax cuts for the rich, and you have essentially stolen the money from the students and their families, and given it to the rich.

Better yet: defund public education institutions to force their "failure", and you can use that as an excuse to "privatize" them. Give corporations the contracts to operate them, and once again you've transferred wealth from the public to the few and the rich. Which is the whole point.

Always. Follow. The. Money.

[Martin Eden]

25. Because it's PUBLIC education, run by the GOVERNMENT

The government can't do anything right, remember?

Vouchers for religious schooling is the way to go!

:sarcasm:

[Just One Woman]

27. It is about busting the education system as well as the union money

If this keeps going down as it is, our education system will be in shambles. And the right wing history changers will be right there to pick up the pieces and give us the only education left, that of the christian history they want to be real. It is all part of control of history. If one controls the education to the masses, they can make anything real they want, given time. History is written by the winners. We already see the results of false educating, such as the pols that graduated from Robertson's school. They were taught that we are a christian nation and that there is no separation of church and state in our constitution. In other words, a history they want to make real. And you can see this working with many, but just look at Walker. He says he is there because God put him there to do a job. I would tell him just like I tell others, I don't think that is God you are working for buddy!
All the rw trekkers act like they are on a secret mission from God. It is a secret mission to tear this country apart so they can start their own. They are just waiting for the fall. They make no bones about this plan. Just check out the lausanne covenant or for that matter, the many republican agendas. They want to put "their" god at the helm, when this country was set up secular from the start. To do that, they need to re-educate, aye? Knowing that, do you think "W" set the ball in motion? He facilitated the faith based initiatives and I think the NCLB too. He seems to think history will show him as a good president. Why would he think that? Well, they might in a world that does not exist yet. He might have been a good president in a history book that will be written by the right wingers. This is not just about unions. It is about our future as a free society.

[Doctor_J]

28. Because privatized health care works so well

they want to extend that success to schools, access to water, etc.

Also, stupid people are far more likely to be conservative

[Mimosa]

37. ^ Amen ^ We're headed back to feudalism

Back to Sheriif of Nottingham days, when 'government' was nothing but vassals for the owner class.

I've seen this coming since the 1980s.

[wysingm]

30. Charter Schools

Oprah gives http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/oprah-gives-6-million-to-_n_733465.html">$6 million to charter schools to successful charter schools across the country.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation NewSchools Venture Fund - Foundation contributed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Education
">US$30 million to help NewSchools to manage more charter schools, which aim to prepare students in historically underserved areas for college and careers. As of 2010, 56,000 teachers hired, total students served 7.8 million.

Warren Buffett, billionaire investor and founder of Berkshire Hathaway, signed papers that http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5512893">give $31 billion of his fortune to fund the Gates Foundation's work in fighting infectious diseases and reforming education.

.

[bossy22]

31. because its probably the easiest political target

but in all truth we really do need to question our educational spending. We spend more per student (k-12) than any other country (besides norway i think) in the world- yet our system is on the lower end for industrial societies. We can't keep throwing money at it thinking that just a little more will do the trick- we need to fundementally change the way its run. I do personally believe there is a good deal of waste in our public education system (many of my friends who are teachers agree with me on that).

[Dulcinea]

32. Too many overpaid administrators.

When cuts are made, money is always taken from kids & teachers, but never from the people at the top of the heap.

[Imagevision]

35. Why is EDUCATION being attacked and cut? umm, because knowledge is power...!

duh! ;- )

[27inCali]

38. uneducated people make better serfs.

the educated ones are always causing problems.