Jan Resseger writes here about the Republicans who refuse to fund teachers’ salaries have placed budget-cutting above education and the needs of the future. The Republicans’ disregard for teachers has been displayed over the past 20 years, as state legislatures and governors have attacked teachers’ rights, their salaries, and whatever they could to discourage teachers. The supply of young people entering education has precipitously declined, in response to the devaluing of the profession.
Among the lingering effects of state budget reductions during the 2008 Great Recession have been widespread drops in teachers’ overall compensation. Although some states and local school districts do their part to pay their teachers fairly, and some provide the fringe benefits such professionals should expect, overall according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, “teachers are paid less (in wages and compensation) than other college-educated workers with similar experience.” And, “(T)his financial penalty discourages college students from entering the teaching profession.”
Our economy has now entered another recession due to layoffs and business closures during COVID-19, and without further federal relief to states, teachers are likely once again to be the victims.
All summer and through September, U.S. Senate Republicans have refused to negotiate with House Democrats, who passed their bid for a second coronavirus relief bill, the HEROES Act, on May 15. Until this past weekend, it looked as though Congress would recess until after the election without the Senate’s agreeing even to take up the bill for consideration.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House negotiator Steve Mnuchin returned to discussions last week, but until the President became ill with COVID-19 over the weekend, it looked as though progress had broken down. The President’s infection by COVID-19 and indications that the economy will continue to lag have, apparently, brought Pelosi and Mnuchin back to the table over the weekend, and have also made Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his caucus more amenable to further federal investment. A relief package is needed to help the unemployed, to strengthen SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid, and to help states avoid catastrophic budget cuts like those that have continued to depress school funding more than a decade after the 2008 recession.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reformers are lousy advocates for public school students and families- public school students bore the brunt of the 2009 financial crash and they are now bearing the brunt of the government’s incompetent bungling of the pandemic.
They simply don’t do any work for students in public schools. As long as the ed reform echo chamber utterly dominate education policy, public school students will continue to be the last priority of lawmakers.
If we want effective advocates for public school students we will have to start hiring people who support public schools.
Conversely, if we want a huge well-compensated cohort of professional public school critics we should continue to hire and pay ed reformers.
RE: GOP war against teachers
It’s obvious that the Republicans have been at war against teachers and pretty much everyone else in the middle class like, forever.
But Is Barack Obama a Republican?
How about Andrew Cuomo?
shades of private school graduates hating on public schools just because that’s how it is done…
As many others here have said, I would never recommend that anyone become a teacher. From poorly trained administrators with little to no teaching experience to public officials concerned only with how to trim the budget, it is a constant battle to even be treated with dignity and fairness. I loved teaching but was deeply wounded by the callous and duplicitous treatment by so-called superiors. It is sad to see what has been done to the profession.
Is anyone who is NOT in the ed reform echo chamber studying what happened to public schools in this pandemic or is all research on public schools now done by people and entities who lobby against public schools?
Would ed reformers accept this? If I told them I was opposed to the existence of charter schools and vouchers would they accept that I produce all the studies and reports on charters and vouchers? Of course now. So why are public school students stuck with an entire educational policy apparatus that is ideologically opposed to the schools they currently attend? How is this fair to them?
Funding schools and teachers is unlikely with the current Congress because Miserly Mitch is controlling the agenda. Although federal legislation in our present emergency, and the HEROES act passed by Democrats in May could help, funding for education is largely a state and local matter, about half and half with some variations.
It is unlikely that the 29 states with Republican-controlled legislatures will support education over tax cuts for their fat-cat and corporate campaign contributors. Democrats control 19 state legislatures but that is no guarantee that state funding of education will be a priority.
Meanwhile, only three days ago, our charter loving U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, announced more than $131 million in NEW grant funding to create and expand hundreds of charter schools. About 43% of the funds are going to the swing states of Arizona, Florida, Maine, Pennsylvania, and Texas
$561,000 goes to Alaska charter school developers Learning Point Alaska.
$6,750,00 goes to Arizona’s Raza Development Fund to subsidize charter school facilities
$9,761,110 goes to California’s Department of Education and State Board of Education for its charter school funding.
$4,995,834 goes in two grants to the District of Columbia for charter schools with most of that to subsidize charter school facilities
$18,330,002 goes to the charter arm of the Florida Department of Education
$299,988 goes to Maine’s Acadia Academy, a charter school developer
$1,208,177 goes to Missouri’s Kairos Academies, a charter school developer
$17,822,710 goes to New Jersey in two grants for charter school developers (Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, and Soaring Heights Charter School) with the third and largest grant the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association
$4,189,643 goes to Nevada’s Opportunity 180 a state level charter authorizer.
$8,000,000 goes to New York’s Equitable Facilities Fund to subsidize facilities
$4,995,834 goes to Pennsylvania in two grants, the larger to the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools , the other to “All Football Club Lancaster Lions Corporation.”
$1,911,781 goes to the charter arm of The South Carolina Department of Education
$33,222,036 to Texas in two grants, the largest to the Texas Education Agency, the second to the Texas Public Finance Authority to subsidize charter school facilities.
Here is the PR pitch with a touch of the virus to justify the money to charter schools, NOT public schools. “Today’s announcement will provide relief to the millions of American families currently stuck on long waiting lists hoping to attend a public charter school. The coronavirus pandemic has made it clearer than ever before that students need the freedom to choose where, when and how they learn,” said Secretary DeVos. “All too many students, particularly the most vulnerable, have fallen further behind because the one-size-fits-all system couldn’t transition and adapt to meet their needs.” The Secretary with ten yachts does not know and does not care what “adaptations” public schools are actually doing to meet the needs of students.
These grants are awarded under the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In this round of grants, USDE also says that “over 90% of the funds will support projects located in certified Opportunity Zones, many of these having no charter schools.
If you did not know, a certified Opportunity Zone offers tax breaks to investors “to spur economic development and job creation in distressed communities.” These zones are “nominated” by the governor each state and the zones benefit investors, they do not benefit local public schools.
In Cincinnati, a certified Opportunity Zone grant helped to finance a new professional soccer stadium plunked down in the middle of a low income community near downtown, displacing a high school (promised it’s own soccer stadium) and taking business from largely black owned mom and pop stores in an historically important district. Gentrification is also displacing low-income housing.
See more at https://www.lisc.org/our-resources/resource/opportunity-zones-101/
The Treasury Department website has a list of Opportunity Zones with a searchable map: https://www.cdfifund.gov/Pages/Opportunity-Zones.aspx.
For the USDE announcement of these NEW charter school grants see: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-announces-more-131-million-new-funding-create-and-expand-high-quality-public-charter-schools
Having provided no practical assistance of any kind to 50 million public school children in a pandemic, the US Department of Education is holding yet another ed reform echo chamber meeting:
“The Federal Role In Education
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Assistant Secretary James Blew and Eric Hanushek discuss The Federal Role in Education on Capital Conversations on October 7, 2020 at 3:00pm ET”
We should think about hiring some people who return some value to students in public schools.
This is just a bad investment.