Puerto Rico is the latest example of "disaster capitalism." The Financial Board is promoting a pension cut for all public employees, sub-minimun wage jobs for workers under 25, and layoffs of teachers and other public employees.
The experience of other countries suggests Betsy DeVos' voucher vision falls flat. Research led by an Indiana University professor confirms what school voucher critics have long argued: Voucher programs receive public funding yet discriminate on the basis of religion, disability status, sexual orientation and possibly other factors. Democratic political participation requires access to information, engagement in discourse and electoral activity to be effective.
Backed by the World Bank and billionaires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, Bridge International has launched a massive campaign to privatize public education in Africa. Despite charges the U.S. corporation is experimenting on African children, violating the constitution in at least two African countries, and providing inferior education, Bridge International is undaunted, even suing the government of Uganda for closing down 63 of its for-profit schools earlier this year.
What’s unspoken is that the best proof that the unions didn’t have much of a role in the protest is that historically they’ve shown little ability to mobilize significant numbers of students in the Bay State. Typically, union-backed coalitions like BEJA will pull a few dozen to a few hundred people to such protests. Students or non-students, the story is always the same. The people who turn out will be a mix of union and nonprofit staffers.
School policy ripped out of time and history: In many ways that is Arne Duncan’s gift to us. School policy focused on disparities in test scores instead of disparities in opportunity; a Department of Education obsessed with data-driven accountability for teachers but preferring “game-changing” innovation for itself and paying inadequate attention to oversight; ...
In 2013, for the first time, over half of public school students were low-income—and this poverty growth spurt shows little sign of abating.
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Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation's public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation's public schools were low income in 2013.
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