Yesterday I met a doctoral student at Berkeley studying the “history of capitalism” in the history department (in six years, the first history student I’ve crossed paths with, oddly enough). And then this morning I stumble on this piece from last year: In History Departments, It’s Up With Capitalism – NYTimes.com. (linked from an article…
Category: Education
The death of a school district
Heartbreaking story of a Michigan school district that elected to literally shut its doors last week in response to a budget crisis. Teachers voted to work for free (after also voting for four years in a row to freeze their salaries and reduce their numbers by 50%), but the school has locked the doors. In…
Let the austerity begin
One of the first lines of cuts at the bottom of the “fiscal cliff” (or one of the first victims of the austerity bomb) will be local public education. Schools that serve poor and English-language learning children receive more federal money, so will be hit the hardest. The cuts would follow efforts in many school…
New York City After-School Programs Threatened by Mayor
It’s budget season for many cities, including New York, most of which start fiscal year 2013 on July 1. I like this summary of the NYC budget process, which seems pretty universal: Every year, the mayor proposes cutting certain vital city programs and then, at the last minute, the City Council comes to the rescue…
Philadelphia’s School District, dissolving in silence
In what should be the biggest story of the week, the city of Philadelphias school system announced Tuesday that it expects to close 40 public schools next year and 64 by 2017. The school district expects to lose 40% of current enrollment to charter schools, the streets or wherever, and put thousands of experienced, well…