Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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FLASH: Arizona Teachers Approve Statewide Walkout!

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
17

Arizona teachers have voted overwhelmingly to walk out in response to state budget cuts over many years. Here is news from Linda Lyon, president of the Arizona School Boards Association. 

Arizona, like West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, is a “right to work” state.

Here is the press release from the Arizona Education Association.

“Today, the Arizona Education Association (AEA) and Arizona Educators United (AEU) announced in front of AEA headquarters, that 78 percent of 57,000 Arizona educators voted to walk out of Arizona’s schools – citing 10 years of drastically underfunded schools resulting in overcrowded classrooms, crumbling infrastructure, and low wages for educators. Facebook video | YouTube video

“After years of starving our schools, some classes are stuffed with kids, while others sit empty because there isn’t a teacher to teach,” says AEU organizer and Littleton elementary music teacher Noah Karvelis. “The #RedforEd movement has provided educators the opportunity to voice what action they want to take in an historic statewide vote.”

“This vote was not an easy decision for educators,” says AEA Vice President and Isaac Middle School teacher Marisol Garcia. “As I turned in my ballot today, I thought about my son, my colleagues, and my students. By voting today, I am standing up for my son and all students in Arizona and the public schools they deserve.”

“We’re using textbooks from the 1990s because there’s no money for books. That’s just one of the reasons we’re fighting to make Arizona’s kids, schools and educators a higher priority in the governor’s office,” says AEA President and Mesa government teacher Joe Thomas.

“As educators, the students are at the center of everything we do. Every student deserves a chance at a quality education, and access to services like nutrition, health, and after school programs.

“The decision to walk out also comes on the heels of weeks of #RedforEd walk-ins and a disingenuous budget proposal from the governor that claimed a raise that excluded support professionals like counselors, bus drivers and cafeteria workers – and was not supported by actual funding.

“Education isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. That’s why we’re walking out,” said Noah.”

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teachers

Texas: Why Teachers Should Go Out on Strike

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2018 //
5

 

I always thought of the Dallas News as a conservative newspaper, but here is a column by editorial writer Michael A. Lindenberger arguing that Texas teachers need to go out on strike to force the legislature to fund the schools.

He writes:

”Why not? Nothing else has seemed to work to get state lawmakers to spend more on an education system whose funding is so bad that in 2014 after a 12-week trial a state district judge ruled it was literally illegal.

Even as Texas’ need for a trained and productive workforce — that is, an educated one — becomes more and more acute, lawmakers keep shrinking the state’s share of overall school funding. What’s it going to take to shake them out of this downward spiral?…

”But as the costs go up, the state has shifted more and more of the burden to local school districts, whose money comes straight from taxes on homes and commercial properties. That has homeowners hopping mad, naturally, and Gov. Greg Abbott has formed a commission charged with looking at how to further cap property taxes.

”Meanwhile, no one seems to have stopped to ask: What happens when the real estate values cool off, and the supply of money from homeowners taps out? When is the state going to start upping the share it pays?…

”What’s scary is that the lower the state’s percentage gets, the more underfunded our schools will be, and the harder it will be to fix. This is all made worse because in 2011 the Legislature took a giant cleaver to the school budget and trimmed $5.6 billion right off the top; it has been climbing out of that hole ever since…

”If the courts can’t — or won’t — step in, and lawmakers are too busy talking about bathrooms, who else is going to be heard? How else is anything going to be changed?”

The Legislature was completely transfixed by debate over a bill to prohibit transgender students to use the bathrooom of their choice. So school finance reform was ignored.

“It’s too bad that the Texas Legislature met last year, and has missed the wildfire spreading out from West Virginia. Maybe what the lawmakers needed most was a reminder to get their minds out of the bathroom stalls and back on the urgent need to improve and adequately fund public schools in Texas.

”We can only hope that by the time state lawmakers meet in 2019, teachers here will be ready to make their voices heard, too.”

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Teachers, Texas

New York Times: Shocking Expose of Underinvestment in Public Schools, Students, and Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2018 //
30

 

The New York Times published a shocking expose of the dreadful conditions in America’s public schools, due to underinvestment in buildings, supplies, and personnel.

The stories told in this long article demonstrate the lack of concern for students and education, and the dedication of teachers willing to put up with these conditions. The schools have not recovered from the deep budget cuts that followed the recession of 2008-2009.

After you read the responses from teachers and see how poorly they are paid, and how much they must take out of their own pockets for supplies for their classrooms, you have to wonder why teachers across the nation are not walking out en masse and protesting to their state legislatures.

The Times invited teachers “to show us the conditions that a decade of budget cuts has wrought in their classrooms.” They received comments from 4,200 teachers. The Times published a selections of the submissions, and they are powerful. 

By the way, the median salary at Facebook is $240,000.

These comments help to explain why teachers are walking out, striking, protesting, and demanding new funding for their schools.

Broken laptops, books held together with duct tape, an art teacher who makes watercolors by soaking old markers.

Rio Rico, Ariz.

Michelle Gibbar, teacher at Rio Rico High School

Salary: $43,000 for 20 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $500+

I have 148 students this year. The district skipped textbook adoption for the high school English department, leaving us with 10-year-old class sets, and we do not have enough for students to take them home. Our students deserve better. Our nation deserves better. 

As I near retirement age, I realize I will retire at the poverty level. The antiquated myth of the noble, yet poor, teacher must go. I am passionate about my subject and my students. I am not passionate about living paycheck to paycheck.

Image

Jose Coca uses these textbooks daily in his Tempe, Ariz., middle school.CreditJose Coca

Tempe, Ariz.

Jose Coca, teacher at Kyrene Middle School

Salary: $46,000 with 12 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

The building smells old and dank. There are holes in the ceiling, skylights don’t work, the walls need to be painted, I still use a chalk board, but — more important — my students need new desks and computers.

I can’t speak for other school districts, but mine — in Tempe — can’t get new social studies books for students. Young teachers spend more out of their own pockets because they don’t have supplies stockpiled.

My pay is not keeping up with inflation. I have co-workers leaving midyear, or not renewing their contracts, and I work with a lot of older teachers that have maybe five more years in them. I also work with some who retire and return as workers for a private staffing company.

North Las Vegas, Nev.

Kelsey Pavelka, teacher at Wilhelm Elementary

Salary: $33,000 with three years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

I have six laptops for 42 fifth-grade students (in one classroom) with many broken keys and chargers. My students are supposed to use these to prepare for their state test, which requires typing multiple paragraph responses. I crowdfunded to get 10 Chromebooks with all the keys on the keyboard, so they could learn to type on a machine that works.

Tennessee

Kathryn Vaughn, art teacher

Salary: $50,000 with 11 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,500

I am a public-school teacher in the rural South. I’ve had to become incredibly resourceful with the supplies. Teaching art to about 800 students on a $100-a-year budget is difficult. I do receive some donations from the families at my school, but my school is Title I and the families don’t have a lot to give.

I personally have to work several additional jobs to survive and support my veteran husband. We live in a modest house, I drive a 15-year-old car, and despite all of that, even with my master’s degree, some months we are not food secure.

Warren, Mich.

Elliot Glaser, media specialist at Warren Mott High School

Salary: $94,000 for 20 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

I work in a high school in a suburb north of Detroit. We have about 1,650 students, roughly 25 percent of whom are English Language Learners (students new to our country who don’t speak English well or at all).

After two years with no budget at all, this year I was given a little more than $500 for our library. I was able to purchase about 30 books. I am lucky, since our elementary and middle school libraries received no budget at all for the fourth straight year.

Story after story: the same reports of old textbooks, empty library shelves, obsolete technology, underpaid teachers.

What kind of a nation are we? What kind of future do we want for our children and our society? Why are we still spending millions of dollars every year on testing, when our schools need basic supplies for students and decent salaries for teachers?

By the way, the median salary at Facebook is $240,000. It shows what our society values. Not children. Not education.

All the focus on “school choice” is simply a hoax to distract attention from the billions of dollars that have not been restored to schools to reduce class sizes, update buildings, and pay teachers a professional salary.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding

Colorado: Teachers Plan to Walk Out, Descend on Legislature to Demand Higher Pay, Better Funding

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
5

 

The Denver Post reports that some teachers in Colorado plan to assemble at the State Capitol today to air their grievances, namely, low salaries, which have contributed to teacher shortages.

Inspired by walkouts in other states, teachers will meet with legislators to make their case.

“Earlier this year, 100 CEA members told lawmakers about a survey of more than 2,200 CEA members that showed the average educator spent about $656 a year out of their own pockets for student needs. Many CEA members presented invoices to the General Assembly for the past due amount.

“The CEA said educators in Colorado have had their pay cut by more than 17 percent when adjusting for inflation. A recent study from the Education Law Center, a group that advocates for more school funding, ranked Colorado dead last in the competitiveness of its teacher salaries.

“The typical 25-year-old teacher at the beginning of his or her career in Colorado makes just 69 percent of what a peer with a similar education level who works similar hours earns, the Education Law Center said….

”The CEA on Monday will lobby lawmakers to restore and increase education funding — K-12 public schools in Colorado are underfunded by $828 million in the current school year — and to secure a stable retirement program, CEA president Karrie Dallman said.”

It remains to be seen whether Colorado teachers will enlarge the protest and close down schools across the state. Public schools have been shortchanged by the Legislature.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Colorado, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

Oklahoma: Anti-Tax Group Starts Petitions to Block Teacher Pay Raises

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
14

 

In Oklahoma, there are conservatives who believe that the highest value is cutting taxes, preferably to zero. With tax cuts comes the collapse of public services, like public schools, law enforcement, and public infrastructure. Who needs teachers, Police, firefighters, highway repairs, etc.? So what if some public schools are open only four days a week? Why not three days? Two days? Or let the kids be home-schooled and save money?

So it is not surprising that anti-tax zealots are circulating a petition to block the pay raises won by a nine-day teacher walkout. 

What matters most in Oklahoma? Low taxes for the oil and gas industry. Fracking. Dark Money.

“Lawmakers already passed a historic tax increase to fund those teacher raises, and it was signed by Governor Mary Fallin. But, it would only take a little over 41,000 signatures on an initiative petition to at least temporarily stop those raises from happening.”

Will the new Oklahoma motto be: We don’t need no education.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

Kentucky: No Teachers, No Schools, Walkouts Grow

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
17

 

The teacher walkouts continued and grow larger in Kentucky, where teachers are massing by the thousands in the State Capitol to protest changes to their pensions. The two largest districts in the state are closed.

“School districts across Kentucky will once again shut down as teachers plan to flood the state Capitol on Friday to rally for public-school funding and protest newly signed changes to public pension programs.

“As of Thursday afternoon, at least 36 districts had decided to close Friday, citing teachers calling in sick or the likelihood that they would. The closures include public schools in Louisville and Lexington ― the two largest school districts in the state….

“That frustration began to boil over last year when the Legislature, fully in Republican control for the first time in nearly a century, passed a bill to allow charter schools in the state.

“The issue was the potential “diversion of public money into charters,” said David Allen, a former president of the Kentucky Education Association…

“That laid the groundwork,” Allen said.

”Then, in January, Bevin proposed drastic cuts to schools and public education programs, even though funding was already tight. In inflation-adjusted terms, Kentucky’s K-12 budget was down 16 percent since 2008, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

“Bevin’s proposal prompted dire warnings from school superintendents around the state, who said some cuts would push Kentucky’s poorest school districts to the brink of insolvency….

”Many Kentucky teachers, meanwhile, have come to believe that Bevin’s approach to education isn’t driven by the interests of taxpayers or its public schools. They see it as part of a broader movement, led by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, to further privatize education by deliberately undermining public schools.

“It’s a dismantling, step by step by step, of public education,” said Pam Dossett, a teacher in Hopkinsville. “So they can sit back and say, ‘Our public schools, they’re not working.’ And then they can replace them all with charter schools.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Kentucky, Pensions, Resistance, Teachers

Arizona: Governor Agrees to a 20% Raise for Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2018 //
9

 

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey agreed to a 20% pay raise for teachers by 2020 after previously offering only 1%, on top of last year’s 1%..

Teachers are wary.

“The Associated Press notes that the educators “were also seeking increased pay for support professionals, a permanent raise structure, and a freeze on corporate tax cuts until per-pupil spending reaches the national average.” Ducey’s proposal didn’t include more spending on those items.”

“On Wednesday, Arizona teachers staged a statewide “walk-in,” demanding an increase in pay and more funding for schools overall. And, organized by a recently formed advocacy group, Arizona Educators United, teachers had also discussed the possibility of staging a walkout if Republican lawmakers refused to reinstate about a $1 billion in cuts in state education funding over the last decade.

“The governor’s proposal includes a 9 percent increase that would go into effect this fall, bringing the median teacher salary in Arizona to $52,725.

“Ducey also pledged to give teachers a 5 percent increase in the fiscal year 2020 budget, and another 5 percent in the year after that.

“Those increases, coupled with the 1 percent increase teachers were given last year, would add up to the 20 percent raises and make the average teacher salary $58,130, Ducey said.

“As Casey Kuhn, reporter for NPR member station KJZZ wrote, Arizona teachers are among the lowest paid in the country, according to federal data. Average salaries last year were actually $8,000-$9,000 less than 1990 salaries when adjusted for inflation.”

An article I read today but will post tomorrow said that Republicans planned to link the pay offer to their voucher expansion proposal, which educators and parents have been fighting and which will be the subject of a statewide refendum, unless the Republicans find a sneaky way to keep it off the ballot.

 

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Funding, Teacher Pay

Mercedes Schneider: Oklahoma Teachers Demand Funding for Decent Schools

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2018 //
15

 

Mercedes Schneider places the Oklahoma teachers’ strike in perspective. The teachers want a salary they can live on, without working two or three extra jobs to make ends meet. But that’s not all. They want the state to fund the schools. Like so many red states, Oklahoma has catered to the oil and gas industry, cutting its taxes, while starving public services. The shame of the state is the four-day week that so many schools have adopted as part of the budget cutting. How can a state attract new industries when it isn’t willing to fund its schools?

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

Bob Wise: Building the Digital Future in the Classroom (Beware!)

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2018 //
63

 

Bob Wise is a former Governor of West Virginia and currently president of the Gates-funded Alliance for Excellent Education. He co-authored a report in 2010 with Jeb Bush called Digital Learning NOW, which attempted to promote a vast expansion of technology in the school and classroom with minimal oversight.(I wrote about the report in my book “Reign of Error.”) The purpose of the Wise-Bush report was to urge states to spend more on hardware and software, lest they fail to prepare for the future and/or fall behind other states. The report was financed by the EDTech industry. Each year, the Digital Learning Council issues a “report card” and grades the state by whether they have spent enough on technology. Here is the 2014 report. Such reports rely on the instincts of state officials to want to be #1, even if the goal is wrong. Who would want to be #1, for instance, in infant mortality. Behind the report card is a marketing strategy.

Maine, under its current Governor Paul LePage, jumped aboard Wise and Bush’s digital learning train. A seasoned reporter, Colin Woodard, followed the money and produced this scathing critique, which won the prestigious Grorge Polk Award in 2012 for Education Reporting.

In this article, Wise continues to push technology, but does so on the assumption that there is a “diminishing supply of teachers” and “static state budgets.” Teachers in states like his own West Virginia are fighting those assumptions, on the belief that teachers can and must be paid more and that corporations should pay higher taxes. The possibilities of paying teachers a professional salary and expanding the tax rolls are not on Wise’s agenda.

Funny, I wrote an article in the same publication about the risks of misuse of technology. I mentioned the risk to student privacy; the failure of cybercharters; the lack of evidence for “blended learning” or “personalized learning”; the money spent by tech companies to place obsolete or ineffective products.

Wise mentions none of these risks. He is a cheerleader for EdTech.

Here is an axiom: Learning happens most and best when children interact with human teachers who are in the same room.

Buyer beware. Caveat emptor.

Categories Budget Cuts, Bush, Jeb, Funding

Michigan: Poor Community Under Emergency Management Sold Playground Equipment in Search of $$

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2018 //
10

 

Chris Savage of Eclectablog writes here about the disaster of Governor Rick Snyder’s “emergency manager” plan for poor school districts.

In Muskegon Heights, Governor Snyder installed an emergency manager because the poor, almost all-black district had run out of money. Instead of bailing out the district, which was the state’s responsibility, Snyder put an outside manager in charge. He proceeded to give the district to a for-profit charter operator, Mosaica. After two years, Mosaica departed because it couldn’t make a profit.

The emergency manager had to borrow more money.

Finally, in 2016, the school district was returned to local control. However, things are still not good. In fact, the district is still dealing with the fallout from the state takeover of their schools. As it turns out, in an effort to find every last nickel and dime under the sofa cushions, the Emergency Managers sold off everything that wasn’t nailed down.

That includes the playground equipment. Apparently the Emergency Manager thought the kids could just do without things like swings, slides, and monkey bars to play on at recess.

Now the children have a bare playground.

Does anyone care? Obviously no one in the state government cares. If they can’t raise the money locally, why should the state care. If they were white kids, that might be different. But they are not.

Chris Savage writes:

The day of funding schools using crowd sourcing efforts like GoFundMe drives appears to be at hand.

I have another idea. How about requiring the failed Emergency Manager to pay the cost of new playground equipment?

Categories Budget Cuts, For-Profit, Funding, Michigan
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