Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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Does It Help to “Throw Money” at Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2013 //
66

I occasionally get a comment on the blog that says something like this: “Throwing money at schools doesn’t work. We already spend too much. …” The other day, I responded to a comment of this sort by pointing out that the people who say this have no issue “throwing money” at the schools their own children attend. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the city and state will no longer “throw money” at the public schools; the students will have large classes, no art, no music, no sports, no librarians, no guidance counselors, etc. meanwhile, the corporate reformers and tycoons are still throwing money at the schools where they send their own children, to make sure their every need and wish is satisfied.

A regular reader, known as KrazyTA, added the following comment:

“Throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve anything?

For the edubullies and their edupreneur backers, let’s see what that means when it comes to THEIR OWN CHILDREN…

Harpeth Hall, home to at least one of Michelle Rhee’s children. Please go to their website for the info and quotations below:

http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151797

Fine Arts: multiple arts courses, including art, music, theatre [their spelling!] and dance.

Athletics: “Harpeth Hall athletes have won 11 state championships in cross-country and 14 state titles in track–both state records for the most championships won by any school, boys or girls; Harpeth Hall varsity teams have also won championships in basketball, golf, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. Middle School teams have recorded conference championships in basketball, cross country, tennis, track, and volleyball.”

Exchange Programs: “For several years, Harpeth Hall has offered an international exchange program for our students with schools in China, France, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa.”

Library and Technology: “The Ann Scott Carell Library, the centerpiece of Harpeth Hall’s campus, was dedicated on November 18, 2001. This 20,000-square-foot facility serves as the information and technology hub of the campus, housing traditional library services along with the school’s network and technology support team.

Comfortable and inviting spaces are available for all who enter the doors to the Ann Scott Carell Library. A fireplace, surrounded by comfortable seating, is the central feature of the reading area on the main floor. Six group study rooms provide quiet areas where individuals or small groups can work together, do research, read, or study. Non-fiction spaces include tables, workstations, and window seats.

The lower level includes two classrooms for library and technology instruction, and the Bear Cave, our laptop help desk. Also on the lower level are the Archives room, and a meeting room with state-of-the-art equipment.”

I invite viewers of this blog to peruse “Academics” and other areas at their leisure.

And to just include one more detail, this one from Cranbrook:

“The Summer Theatre School, our oldest summer program, presents classic theater skills like character acting, lighting, dance, voice, costuming, set design and other stage crafts. The Theatre School operates from Cranbrook’s beautiful Greek Theater grove, an outstanding full sized stone replica of a classic outdoor Greek theater setting nestled in a mature pine forest. Evening outdoor theater productions attract ample crowds from neighboring communities.”

Link: http://schools.cranbrook.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=146451

I guess that clinches it: throwing money at education doesn’t solve A thing—it solves
ALMOST everything.

For those who still don’t get it, heed these words of Marx:

“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.” [Groucho Marx]”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts

Matt Farmer: “”You will hear our voices in your sleep.”

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2013 //
13

Parents in Chicago complained about budget cuts to their schools. CPS blames the cuts on pensions, but parents don’t believe them.

Attorney Matt Farmer warned that parents would go to the streets. He said to CPS officials: “You will hear our voices in your sleep.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Chicago

NC Governor: Phony Claims About Education

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2013 //
22

Governor Pat McCrory presented his budget and boasted it was the largest education budget ever.

But it isn’t true. Adjusted for inflation, North Carolina is spending half a billion dollars less than in 2008.

The fibs just kept on coming at a news conference.

“Gov. McCrory also repeated a claim he made as he signed his tax reform package into law that teachers making between $40,000 and $45,000 annually will actually get 1% of their earnings back, thanks to tax reform.

“But according to tables that accompanied the tax reform bill, citizens don’t get a 1% tax break until they have a household income of $250,000.

“McCrory also said that teachers are not able to get raises in this budget because of high Medicaid costs. He did not address the fact, however, that state revenue availability was reduced by $684 million over the biennium as the result of tax cut package he signed into law.

“When talking about the state of teacher pay, McCrory said that North Carolina ranked “in the 40′s” in 2010, just as we do now.

“Again, however, this does not comport with the facts. North Carolina actually ranked 27th in teacher pay in 2005-06 and has dropped to 46th in the nation in less than 10 years.

“Governor McCrory took no questions at the conclusion of his remarks.”

– See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/08/01/mccrory-claims-nc-education-budget-largest-in-history/#sthash.VTz1cy2t.dpuf

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina

If CPS Has a Billion Dollar Deficit, Why Is It Funding These Programs?

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2013 //
7

Chicago school officials and the mayor have a mantra: CPS is broke. CPS has a deficit of $1 billion dollars.

With that rationale, CPS lays off thousands of teachers and closes dozens of schools.

But at the same time that officials plead poverty, they still find the money to do what they want to do.

Here is this Chicago blogger’s top ten.

It includes the bizarre expenditure of $1.6 million for Teach for America at the same time that CPS is laying off veteran teachers.

There may be others.

And the list doesn’t even touch on frivolities like a new $55 million stadium.

True, it is not from the school budget, but then Chicago has mayoral control and the mayor funds what he favors.

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago

Bruce Baker: Three Smokescreens to Avoid Talking about Resources

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2013 //
5

In another great post, Bruce Baker explains the smokescreens that reformers use to divert attention from resource inequality.

One smokescreen is choice. The idea is that liberty should replace equality. But says Baker, choice is highly inequitable. “But these arguments are merely a diversion, sidestepping whether, when applied in practice, adequate alternatives are equitably distributed.

“One problem with this assertion is that variation in resources across private providers, as well as across charter schools tends to be even greater than variation across traditional public schools (Baker, 2009, Baker, Libby & Wiley, 2012). Further, higher and lower quality private and charter schools are not equitable distributed geographically and broadly available to all. At the extreme, in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina where traditional district schools were largely wiped out, and where choice based solutions were imposed during the recovery, entire sections of the city were left without secondary level options and provided a sparse few elementary and middle level options (Buras, 2011).

“Baker, Libby and Wiley show that in New York City, charter expansion has yielded vastly inequitable choices. Table 1 shows the demographics, spending and class sizes of New York City charter schools, by their network affiliation, compared to district schools. Most New York City charter school networks serve far fewer children qualifying for free lunch (<130% poverty level), far fewer English language learners and far fewer children with disabilities than same grade level schools in the same borough of the city. These patterns of student sorting induce inequities across schools. But, these schools also have widely varied access to financial resources despite being equitably funded by the city. Some charter networks are able to outspend demographically similar district schools by over $5,000 per pupil, and to provide class sizes that are 4 to 6 (or more) students smaller.”

Another is the claim that we are spending enough or spend too much.

As Baker writes, “Finally, an argument that reoccurs with some consistency in debates over the adequacy of education funding is that there exists little or no proof that adding more money would likely have any measurable positive effects. This argument hinges on the oft repeated (and as frequently refuted phrase that there exists “no systematic relationship between funding and outcomes.” This argument fails to excuse the facial inequity of permitting some children attending some schools to have twice or more, the resources of others, especially where, as in New York State, higher need children are the ones with systematically fewer resources.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Poverty

Join NC’s Moral Monday Protest Against Assault on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2013 //
7

Supporters of public schools in Virginia will be car-pooling to join the weekly protest at the North Carolina state Capitol called Moral Monday. If you can be there to support public schools, to oppose budget cuts and privatization, please join them.

This comes from Rachel Levy in Virginia:

“There is going to be a big Moral Monday event in support of public education & in protest of education cuts in NC: http://www.ncae.org/whats-new/moral-monday-protest-walk-join-us/

The VEA in neighboring Virginia will be hosting car pools to the event. From the VEA: “car pools are forming at VEA headquarters, 116 South 3rd Street, Richmond, at 11:15 am for a noon departure. The rally is being organized to protest steep cuts to North Carolina public education. The North Carolina Association of Educators HQ, the pre-rally meeting spot, is at 700 South Salisbury St. NCAE asks that you wear RED. Get more information at http://www.ncae.org.&#8221;

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina, Vouchers

NC: Schools Lose, Corporation$ Win

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2013 //
5

A reader explains the logic behind North Carolina’s budget cuts and other school “reforms”:

“They cut millions in education in NC to give corporations $365 Million in tax cuts.

“So with Citizens United, they have financed their own re-election campaigns for next year by giving the corporations the money to donate.
See how Teabagastan Politics work?”

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina

North Carolina: Public Education in Peril

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2013 //
22

Dr. June Atkinson, the state superintendent of instruction in North Carolina, said, ““For the first time in my career of more than 30 years in public education, I am truly worried about students in our care.”

Lindsay Wagner summarizes the damage done to public education by the North Carolina legislature:

It cut more than $500 million from the state’s public schools.

It passed a voucher program to allow students to take public money to private and religious schools.

And more:

The 2013-15 biennial budget introduces a raft of spending cuts to public schools that will result in no raises for teachers, larger class sizes, fewer teacher assistants, little support for instructional supplies or professional development, and what could amount to the dismantling of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program. Teachers can also say goodbye to tenure and supplemental pay for advanced degrees.

Wagner asks, “Is this the beginning of the end for public education in North Carolina?”

The privatization movement is in full swing in North Carolina. What was once the most progressive state in the South is now leading the attack on public education. For the first time since Reconstruction, the governorship and both houses of the Legislature are in the hands of Republicans, and these are not moderate Republicans who want to preserve a strong public education system. These are radical privatizers who want to send public monies to private schools, religious schools, and entrepreneurs.

The governor’s education advisor, Eric Guckian, is a Teach for America alum. TFA won $5.1 million in the new budget.

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, Education Industry, For-Profit, North Carolina, Privatization, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

9-Year-Old Tells Chicago School Board: Stop the Closings!

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2013 //
5

Asean Johnson, a nine-year-old student in Chicago, read the riot act to the Chicago school board. He told them they should be helping schools, not closing them. He made more sense than any of the grown-ups on the other side of the podium. He had only two minutes, and he used them well:

“With tears sliding down his cheeks Johnson told the school board, “You are slashing our education. You’re pulling me down. You’re taking our educational opportunities away.”

Will they listen?

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Closing schools

Pa Supt: State Funding Is Criminal Negligence

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2013 //
17

At a discussion of equity and excellence in education in Pennsylvania, John Sarandrea, the superintendent of the Néw Castle district, said:

“I don’t have any problems saying this, because it’s true: Poor kids are getting the shaft right now,” he said to loud applause from the audience.

“How can you possibly not invest in these children early, knowing what will be the outcome if you don’t?” Sarandrea wondered. “It’s negligence. It’s criminal.”

The state has cut nearly a billion dollars from the school budget in the past three years, while giving out corporate tax breaks and opening charter schools. The most successful charter operator–who manages the Chester Community Charter School–is Governor Corbett’s biggest campaign contributor. Vahan Gureghian has made millions managing and supplying his charter school. The local district, meanwhile, has gone bankrupt.

William Hite, the superintendent of the cash-starved Philadelphia district, said a new state funding formula was needed:

“He said any formula for distributing state aid should consider the number of students who live in poverty and are learning to speak English. Hite said Philadelphia has a larger share of those students than any other district in the state but has less money to spend to educate them.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Pennsylvania
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