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Separate and Unequal by Bob Herbert, The New York Times | March 23, 2011
More than a half-century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, we are still trying as a country to validate and justify the discredited concept of separate but equal schools — the very idea supposedly overturned by Brown v. Board when it declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality. read more »Educated, Unemployed and Frustrated by Matthew C. Klein, The New York Times | March 22, 2011
We all enjoy speculating about which Arab regime will be toppled next, but maybe we should be looking closer to home. High unemployment? Check. Out-of-touch elites? Check. Frustrated young people? As a 24-year-old American, I can testify that this rich democracy has plenty of those too. About one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed, a statistic that is often cited as a reason for the revolution there. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January an official unemployment rate of 21 percent for workers ages 16 to 24. My generation was taught that all we needed to succeed was an education and hard work. Tell that to my friend from high school who had the misfortune to graduate in the class of 2009, and could find paid work only as a lifeguard and a personal trainer. read more »Whistling Past the Ruins: The "Education Moment" by Robert Borosage , OurFuture.org | March 15, 2011
The President went to Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Virginia to deliver a speech on education, calling on Congress to fix and reauthorize No Child Left Behind by the fall. read more »Pay Teachers More by Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times | March 14, 2011
From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid. That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession. read more »Cut Head Start But Keep Subsidies for Big Oil? Earth to Boehner...Come In! by Robert Creamer, Huffington Post | March 11, 2011
The Republican proposal, HR1, actually proposes cuts in the Head Start program that would mean: 218,000 children from low income families will lose Head Start/Early Head Start services; 16,000 Head Start/Early Head Start classrooms will close; 55,000 Head Start/Early Head Start teachers and staff will lose their jobs; 150,000 low-income families and their children will lose assistance in paying for child care. They say they need to make these cuts because we must "tighten our belts" to cut spending because "America is broke." But at the very same time they voted to cut Head Start, the Republicans voted to continue $4 billion worth of subsidies to Big Oil. That's right, they want to continue to hand over $4 billion of the taxpayers' money to companies like Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in human history. read more »Republican Education Cuts Killing America's Economic Competitiveness by Rep. Mike Honda, Huffington Post | March 10, 2011
Recent weeks have witnessed vastly different approaches to course correction for our country's recessed economy. From debt ceilings to deficit reductions, Democrats and Republicans diverge on the best vehicle to reinvigorate American's fiscal viability and workforce sustainability. Nowhere is this more obvious than education. Democrats believe investments in transportation, infrastructure, energy and education are the key to a sustainable high-growth economy. Republicans, in stark contrast, have proposed unprecedented cuts to education spending in recent resolutions. Not only are Republicans ignoring what the Federal Reserve is telling us, they are ignoring what recent scores on international competitiveness demonstrate: Investments in education are the key to our economic competitiveness. read more »How To Make A Big Success Of A Small Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Guardian | March 8, 2011
Suppose someone were to describe a small country that provided free education through university for all of its citizens, transport for school children and free health care — including heart surgery — for all. You might suspect that such a country is either phenomenally rich or on the fast track to fiscal crisis. For its part, the US has never attempted to give free college for all, and it took a bitter battle just to ensure that America's poor get access to health care — a guarantee that the Republican party is now working hard to repeal, claiming the country cannot afford it. But Mauritius, a small island nation off the east coast of Africa, is neither particularly rich nor on its way to budgetary ruin. Nonetheless, it has spent the last decades successfully building a diverse economy, a democratic political system and a strong social safety net. Many countries, not least the US, could learn from its experience. read more »Degrees and Dollars by Paul Krugman, The New York Times | March 7, 2011
It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. But what everyone knows is wrong. The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated. Why is this happening? read more »Revealed: Who Actually Caused America's Financial Collapse by Robert J. Elisberg, Huffington Post | March 3, 2011
The Republican Party has let us know who they believe is at blame for America's collapsed economy -- a crash which has devastated the nation and caused massive unemployment. Teachers. Not the financial industry that dealt in high-risk, mortgage-backed derivatives which collapsed the housing market. Teachers. Not Wall Street executives manipulating toxic assets, not big bankers manipulating bad loans, not corporate CEOs manipulating markets. No, no. Teachers. The real high-finance scourges of the American economy. Those rich, jet-setting, highfaluting teachers. They're paid truckloads of money, have such cushy jobs, rake in ungodly benefits and have bankrupted America. Teachers. Why do you think they turned down the low-paying corporate jobs, or avoided going to paltry law school, or medical school? Because they wanted to make the big bucks. read more »Wisconsin Teachers, Students Face Uncertain Future by Meredith Clark, The Nation | March 3, 2011
“Care about educators like they care for your child.” It was impossible to miss the thousands of signs with that message in the sea of 100,000 protesters who gathered at Wisconsin’s Capitol on February 26. Since the start of the protests, teachers have been an integral part of the resistance to Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting budget repair bill. The fight against Walker’s bill is now entering its third week, and the governor has already announced that his 2011–13 budget will include more than $800 million in cuts to schools. It is a frightening time for Wisconsin’s public school teachers — and students — and this is only the beginning. The outcome of this standoff will undoubtedly influence the way state governments across the country negotiate with organized labor. read more »
The Latest
Will The GOP Senators Whose States Face Thousands Of Teacher Layoffs Vote Against Teacher Funding? , wonkroom.thinkprogress.org | August 3, 2010
Today, the Senate will be taking a procedural vote on a bill providing $26 billion in aid to state and local governments, $10 billion of which is dedicated to preventing teacher layoffs. This particular batch of funding has been included in, and then cut from, multiple bills, as each time conservatives have objected. read more »
Senate Vote on Medicaid, Education Funds Delayed, thehill.com | August 3, 2010
The Senate tabled a jobs measure Monday because Democrats underestimated the package’s cost. Democrats had scheduled a vote to end debate on their proposal to send $10 billion in funding to states and local governments to prevent public teacher layoffs. The package contains another $16.1 billion to help states with Medicaid obligations.
Education Funds Out of Senate War Bill, Politico | July 23, 2010
The Senate sent back to the House Thursday night a stripped-down $59 billion war funding bill, after striking all of the added education assistance which Democrats had wanted to avert threatened teacher layoffs in the fall. read more »
American Graduates Finding Jobs in China, The New York Times | August 11, 2009
Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home. Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States. read more »
Teachers Could Earn More Under Obama Plan, USA Today | July 24, 2009
States that want a piece of the Obama administration's $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund for schools must hew to internationally benchmarked academic standards and let schools pay teachers and principals more if they work in hard-to-staff schools — or if student scores improve on basic skills tests. read more »
Student Loan Measure Clears House Panel, The Washington Post | July 22, 2009
A bill that cleared a House committee would largely remove private lenders from the federal student loan industry, generating an estimated $87 billion savings over 10 years to fund more government grants and loans. read more »
Black-White Student Achievement Gap Persists, MSNBC News | July 15, 2009
Despite unprecedented efforts to improve minority achievement in the past decade, the gap between black and white students remains frustratingly wide, according to an Education Department report. There is good news in the report: Reading and math scores are improving for black students across the country. read more »
Obama Plans $12 Billion Boost To Community Colleges, USA Today | July 14, 2009
President Obama is expected to announce a $12 billion proposal today that will put the nation's community colleges front and center in his economic recovery plan. Among his goals: to modernize community college facilities, to increase the quality of online courses and to ensure that more students complete their programs. read more »
For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings, The New York Times | June 19, 2009
College life may look different in the not-so-distant future: Students squinting out dirtier windows, faculty offices with full wastebaskets and no phones, sporting events in which opponents never meet, and paper course catalogs existing only as artifacts of the wasteful old days. read more »
School Systems Juggle Cost of Free Lunches, USA Today | June 11, 2009
School systems nationwide are trimming lunch menus, buying more food in bulk and delaying purchases of kitchen equipment to offset the costs of serving free or reduced-price lunches to millions of newly eligible students from cash-strapped families. read more »
