Still Putting It All Together

New York City’s Education Department will spend $51 million to open more than two dozen new charter schools next year, according to a report released on Thursday by the Independent Budget Office.

I think this could be a good way to generate money, but would be nervous if the ads were directed at the students.  I don’t think that kind of consumer access would be appropriate.

What do you all think?

The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to lay off thousands of employees, as it faces a budget shortfall of more than $640 million. The cuts include 85 school librarians — who have been told that they no longer count as teachers. The change in classification would make it easier for the school district to cut the jobs.

I’ve learned a lot from librarians both as a student and as a teacher.

Public school teachers have been feeling the effects of measures by states and cities, to deal with their budget deficits. In some parts of the country, thousands of educators have been laid off, taken steep pay cuts and lost benefits, along with their right to collective bargaining. But, as the debate around education cuts continues, teachers say their voices are not being heard. In a roundtable discussion, guest host Farai Chideya hears from three teachers from Wisconsin, Ohio and California about how the cutbacks are affecting their work and the children they teach.

The U.S. Senate just voted 91-9 to send a bill that would keep the government running until March 18, while slashing about $4 billion in spending, including eliminating a number of education programs. President Obama is expected to sign it.

The bill would scrap all funding for the rest of the year for the $250 million Striving Readers program, and the $66 million Even Start program. The administration had wanted to see those programs consolidated into a new, broader, $383 million funding stream aimed at improving literacy. Now it appears there may be a lot less available money for that effort.

The measure would also get rid of all funding for the rest of the year for the $88 million Smaller Learning Communities program, which was slated to be funneled into a broader program aimed at improving educational options.

And it would scrap the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships, or LEAP, program, financed at $64 million.

The bill also would defund a lot of programs that are right now classified as “earmarks,” meaning money directed at one particular program or project. That includes a number of national education programs, such as Teach for America, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Writing Project, Reading is Fundamental, and the Close Up fellowship.

Yesterday, a group of 11 senators, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, sent a letter to the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee saying that these programs shouldn’t be lumped in with traditional earmarks, which are usually special pet projects lawmakers request just for their districts.

That’s not the case with the education programs, the senators wrote. “These programs are nationally structured, with many years of bipartisan support,” they said. “They benefit millions of individuals and families in a majority of states, districts, and regions throughout the country.”

But the letter may have arrived too late to make much of a difference, at least on this short-term bill. The measure the Senate passed includes the cuts.

The really tough part is just beginning. As you probably remember, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill recently that would finance the federal government for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. That measure included some major education cuts, $5 billion in all.

I really fear with all these education cuts, that even with being willing to move out of state for a full-time teaching job — I won’t find one.  And at 28, that will mean having to leave teaching.  That’s not something I want to do, but I need healthcare, and I need to be able to support myself.

The House voted to restore the $557 million cuts for special education funding. It is not time to celebrate quite yet. First, the budget bills are far from final and there may yet be cuts before this process is over. Second, as CEC, a lobby group for educational issues, stated; “it amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul. That’s because under the [funding] amendment, the funds restored to special education will be taken from other [general] education programs.”  Taking money out of general education funding will have a negative effect on students with special needs when they are in general education settings. President Obama’s budget proposalcontemplates modest increases in education funding

Why is the rest of the country not more alarmed by the state of education funding in the U.S.?  Everyone has this ideal of how awesome our country “used to be” back in the “good old days.”  Well guess what, not everyone went to school then or for as long.  Special education students were often not even sent to school at all. Of course there’s a difference!