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Mass. Becomes 13th State to Allow Some Undocumented Students to Pay In-State Tuition by Jorge Rivas, colorlines.com | November 20, 2012
In a letter sent Monday to the Board of Higher Education, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said undocumented immigrants who have obtained a work permit through the Deferred Action program are now eligible to pay in-state tuition in the state’s public colleges and universities. The decision will cut tuition fees by about 50 percent for undocumented students attending state colleges. “Our experience has been that the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition is a prohibitive barrier,” Paul Reville, the state’s secretary of education, told the New York Times. “It’s a step in the right direction but it’s not a substitute for comprehensive immigration reform, we still need that,” Patrick told reporters on Monday. read more »Phony School “Reform” Agenda Takes A Beating by David Sirota, salon.com | November 14, 2012
If your only source of news about American education came from docu-propaganda like “Waiting for Superman,” Hollywood politi-schlock like “Won’t Back Down” and elite-focused national news outlets in Washington, D.C., and New York City, you might think that the so-called education “reform” (read: privatization) movement was a spontaneous grass-roots uprising of good-old-fashioned heartlanders generating ever more mass support throughout the country. You would have no reason to believe it was a top-down, corporate-driven coalition of conservative coastal elites trying to both generally undermine organized labor and specifically wring private profit out of public schools, and you would similarly have no reason to believe it was anything but wildly popular in an America clamoring for a better education system. In other words, you would be utterly misinformed — especially after last week’s explosive election results in three key states. read more »Election Affirms Education "Reform" A Beltway, Rich Person Fetish by Jeff Bryant, OurFuture.org | November 12, 2012
In President Obama's stunningly convincing reelection, only part of his education policies got reaffirmed -- the part he talked about most of the time during the campaign. read more »Romneyism by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | November 5, 2012
By now, in these last remaining days before the election of 2012, we have learned enough about the beliefs of the Republican presidential candidate to see them as a worldview all its own – a kind of creed that explains Mitt Romney. Those who say he has no principles are selling him short. Despite its contradictions and ellipses, Romneyism has an internal coherence. It is different from conservatism, because it does not intend to conserve or protect any particular institutions or values. It is also distinct from Republicanism, in that it is not rooted in traditional small-town American values, nationalism, or states’ rights. The ten guiding principles of Romneyism are. read more »Science Is the Key to Growth by Neal F. Lane, The New York Times | October 29, 2012
Mitt Romney said in all three presidential debates that we need to expand the economy. But he left out a critical ingredient: investments in science and technology. Scientific knowledge and new technologies are the building blocks for long-term economic growth — “the key to a 21st-century economy,” as President Obama said in the final debate. So it is astonishing that Mr. Romney talks about economic growth while planning deep cuts in investment in science, technology and education. They are among the discretionary items for which spending could be cut 22 percent or more under the Republican budget plan, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. read more »Who Really Did "Forget Ed" In The Presidential Debates by Jeff Bryant, OurFuture.org | October 25, 2012
Way back at the beginning of this summer, an eternity it seems in this exhausting presidential campaign, The College Board launched its Don’t Forget Ed campaign to "get the candidates to prioritize education this election." read more »Change.org, Enabler of Davids, Decides To Side With Goliaths Instead by Jeff Bryant, OurFuture.org | October 22, 2012
The online petition site Change.org is best known for enabling individuals to use the viral qualities of the internet to speak truth to power, such as when a 22-year-old nanny used the site to pressure a big bank to drop its debit fee, and an Eagle Scout challenged the Boy Scouts of America's anti-gay policy. read more »Student Loan Mimics Subprime Mortgage Industry by Natasha Leonard, salon.com | October 17, 2012
For many months, writers, commentators, economists and activists have argued that the student loan industry looks all too much like the subprime mortgage industry did on the brink of its collapse. On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau admitted the same again. According to the government watchdog’s annual report, “Student loan borrower stories of detours and dead ends with their servicers bear an uncanny resemblance to problematic practices uncovered in the mortgage servicing business.” The student lending practices directly mimic the risky lending underpinning the housing crisis: private lenders giving out loans without considering whether borrowers would repay, then bundling and reselling the loans to investors to avoid losing money when students default. read more »Education Profiteering: Wall Street's Next Big Thing? by Jeff Faux, alternet.org | October 15, 2012
The end of the Chicago teachers' strike was but a temporary regional truce in the civil war that plagues the nation's public schools. There is no end in sight, in part because -- as often happens in wartime -- the conflict is increasingly being driven by profiteers. The familiar media narrative tells us that this is a fight over how to improve our schools. On the one side are the self-styled reformers, who argue that the central problem with American K-12 education is low-quality teachers protected by their unions. On the other side are teachers and their unions who are cast as villains. The conventional plot line is that they resist change, blame poverty for their schools' failings and protect their jobs and turf. It is well known, although rarely acknowledged in the press, that the reform movement has been financed and led by the corporate class. read more »Romney, If You're Serious About Deficit Reduction, Leave Big Bird Alone by Dr. William F. Baker and Evan Leatherwood , The Nation | October 12, 2012
When Mitt Romney said he’d reduce the federal budget deficit in last Wednesday’s debate, PBS was one of only two programs he mentioned cutting by name. Romney has gone after PBS before, touting its elimination as a “major” potential savings for the American people. There’s an annual $445 million congressional subsidy to public broadcasting that might seem to support Romney’s claim—until you realize that it represents approximately one hundredth of one percent of the entire federal budget. So why does Romney speak as if Big Bird were one of the top two obstacles to national solvency? The reason is simple: he hopes to score a few easy political points. By eliminating funding to PBS, Romney and the Republicans could indeed win some support from radical conservatives, but tens of millions of Americans will lose out, especially poor children struggling to get access to a good education. read more »
The Latest
Schools Turn to Massive Layoffs, Reuters | March 13, 2009
Some U.S. public school districts are turning to mass layoffs of teachers and support staff to ease ballooning deficits in the latest sign of how the recession is hurting ordinary Americans. The Los Angeles Unified School District -- the nation's second largest -- will issue preliminary layoff notices to nearly 9,000 staff members, including teachers. more »
Layoffs Come to Sesame Street, USA Today | March 12, 2009
The crisis on Wall Street is plaguing Sesame Street. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit producer of Sesame Street and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its workforce because of the economic downturn. The company said that it's eliminating 67 of 355 staff positions. more »
"No Child Left Behind" to be "Rebranded", iht.com | February 23, 2009
Two years ago, an effort to fix No Child Left Behind, the main U.S. law on public schools, provoked a grueling slugfest in Congress, leading Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, to say the law had become "the most negative brand in America." Education Secretary Arne Duncan agrees. "Let's rebrand it," he said in an interview. more »
Schools Get $106 Billion in Stimulus, Los Angeles Times | February 13, 2009
The massive federal economic stimulus package hammered out by Congress this week contains about $106 billion earmarked for education, an unprecedented expansion of federal spending into the nation's schools. The money would pay for, among other things, special education, school repair and retaining teachers who might otherwise be laid off. more »
Stimulus Could Aid Colleges, Students, Associated Press | February 9, 2009
The stimulus plan emerging in Washington could offer an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar boost in financial help for college students trying to pursue a degree while they ride out the recession. It could also hand out billions to the states to kick-start idled campus construction projects and help prevent tuition increases at a time when families can least afford them. more »
School Funds Double in Stimulus, Christian Science Monitor | February 5, 2009
The economic stimulus bills before Congress contain a $140 billion boost for education — and most of it would be used to more than double federal spending on America's public schools over the next two years. more »
Democrats Seek Stimulus for Schools, Associated Press | January 25, 2009
Democrats want to use the big spending package designed to jump-start the staggering economy to send billions to long-term programs to help poor and disabled school children. President Barack Obama's recovery plan amounts to the biggest increase ever in federal money for schools. Many Republicans say it is not a short-term boost but an immense expansion that will be impossible to roll back. more »
Schools Get Small Slice of Stimulus, money.cnn.com | January 15, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed an ambitious plan to rebuild the nation's crumbling schools as a part of his economic stimulus package, aiming to help budget-constrained school districts make much needed repairs. more »
Obama Pledges School Upgrades, USA Today | January 1, 2009
Barack Obama probably cannot fix every leaky roof and busted boiler in the nation's schools. But educators say his sweeping school modernization program — if he spends enough — could jump-start student achievement. More kids than ever are crammed into aging, run-down schools that need an estimated $255 billion in repairs, renovations or construction. more »
More Math, Science Teachers Needed, | December 29, 2008
It's no easy task to recruit people with proclivities for science into schools — and to keep them long enough to nurture a talent for teaching. But over the next decade, schools will need 200,000 or more new teachers in science and math, according to estimates by such groups as the Business-Higher Education Forum in Washington. more »
