Steven Singer warns that public schools are facing deep cuts in state funding due to revenue losses caused by the pandemic.
Hey, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week, just the time to start mobilizing against cuts that could cause the layoff of nearly 300,000 teachers.
That means larger class sizes, fewer electives, cuts to the arts, to everything that is not tested.
Don’t expect Trump to stand up for teachers. He said famously in 2016 that he “loves the uneducated.” He wants more of them. They are the ones who march around with their weapons demanding freedom from public health measures to protect lives.
A society that is unwilling to invest in its children is sacrificing its future.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Societies that respect teachers don’t need Teacher Appreciation Week. That’s weak teacher appreciation. Appreciation would be promoting and listening to their professional judgement, small class size and equitable sufficient resources, buildings in good repair, and support for children and their families.
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Larger classes during a pandemic is not going to work. Reasonably-sized classes are too large for reopening until a vaccine or, at the very least, a treatment are found. We are going to have another fight in the months and years ahead.
In times of trouble, public workers are expected to do with less just like everybody else, but in times of prosperity, public workers are expected to take the status quo while everyone else gets bonuses and upticks in their economic situation. If the status quo is at economically struggling levels, nobody is going to be able to survive as a public worker.
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Other states hit hard by C-19 are trying to also make an education “bait and switch.” The charter lobby vultures, many of whom are well connected, are starting to pounce, Peter Greene posted that House Speaker Turzai in Pennsylvania is starting to make a move perhaps towards on-line instruction despite the fact that cyber charters are the lowest performing schools of all. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2020/05/pa-house-speaker-wants-schools-open.html
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“We saw back in 2008, 2009, it was a tough economy when states made cuts to budgets — poor schools got hit much harder than the wealthy school districts. That’s a real challenge. That can’t happen again. We will see, unfortunately, parents losing jobs. We’re going to see a huge increase in Title I funding across the country. Can we re-envision and reimagine what children coming from very tough situations need?”
That’s Arne Duncan rewriting the history of what happened to public schools between 2009 and 2012.
Public schools had their budgets slashed, that’s true, but the main political drivers of that budget cutting were governors who adopted the ed reform dogma.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana. They all cut public school budgets so they could cut taxes, and they were ALL ed reformers. Scott Walker ran on ed reform- identical to what ed reformers promote today.
A lot of those governors are gone now- turns out the public actually supports public schools- so public school students may fare better than they during the peak of ed reform, which was 2009 to 2012.
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Another 4 million new unemployment claims today. 33 million since mid-March. That is a lot of desperate people. I’ve been lucky so far, even though I’ve been locked in a box with my family for almost two months. If the worst happens, though, I’m worth more dead than alive.
An enormous federal bailout of cities and states is the only thing that can plug this hole. And the longer we stay shut down, the bigger the hole gets.
I am even more despondent. Than I was a few weeks ago. It is too late. We’ve shot ourselves in the face.
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