Fighting Privatization, Occupy Activists at CUNY and UC Kick Into High Gear. Every afternoon last week, students, teachers, and neighbors gathered to hold classes on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. Everyone was welcome. They sat on the ground, or on what are now called the Mario Savio Steps. Topics included the economics of debt, the poetry of persecution, and Chilean student movement. There has also been a massage train and a gospel chorus. “There are no walls,” said graduate student Michelle Ty, “And it’s free.” About the Author Josh Eidelson Josh Eidelson (josheidelson.com) is a Nation contributor and was a union organizer for five years.
Also by the Author At its LA convention, organized labor vowed to reinvigorate organizing and strengthen progressive alliances. Union presidents challenged the Obama administration to fix Affordable Care Act issues which they warned could devastate their health plans. In the decade leading up to 2007, the UC system's management positions grew four times as quickly as its faculty. Romero’s observation is damning. Redefining “public” schools. Student Debt at Colleges and Universities Across the Nation - Interactive Graphic. Chicago Teachers Union Vs. Astroturf Billionaires. Diane Ravitch: First: starve & regulate p... What research exposed about market-based ed reform in 2011 - The Answer Sheet. This was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post originally appeared on the institute’s blog. By Matthew Di Carlo If 2010 was the year of the bombshell in research in the three “major areas” of market-based education reform – charter schools, performance pay, and value-added in evaluations – then 2011 was the year of the slow, sustained march.
Last year, the landmark Race to the Top program was accompanied by a set of extremely consequential research reports, ranging from the policy-related importance of the first experimental study of teacher-level performance pay (the POINT program in Nashville) and the preliminary report of the $45 million Measures of Effective Teaching project, to the political controversy of the Los Angeles Times’ release of teachers’ scores from their commissioned analysis of Los Angeles testing data. This (2011) was perhaps an unprecedented year for charter school proliferation. REPORT CARD Here Comes Success. Much of Brooklyn’s school District 15—which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, and Red Hook—is a comfortable, brownstone-studded idyll, with schools so popular that they drive up real estate values and boast long waiting lists.
Many of the district’s parents are privileged and have, commendably, used their advantages to improve their local public schools, insulating them from the budget cuts that devastate the rest of the borough. But an escalating charter school battle serves as a jarring reminder that even District 15 parents are still only the 99%—and that it’s the 1% that runs the show. Education entrepreneur and former city councilwoman Eva Moskowitz plans to open a new branch of her Success Academies in the district, as well as one in Bed-Stuy.
She already operates several other schools, including in Harlem, the Bronx, and the Upper West Side. In Cobble Hill, the unlucky District 15 neighborhood in her sights, she’s not welcome. What real education reform looks like. As 2011 draws to a close, we can confidently declare that one of the biggest debates over education is — mercifully — resolved. We may not have addressed all the huge challenges facing our schools, but we finally have empirical data ruling out apocryphal theories and exposing the fundamental problems. We’ve learned, for instance, that our entire education system is not “in crisis,” as so many executives in the for-profit education industry insist when pushing to privatize public schools.
On the contrary, results from Program for International Student Assessment exams show that American students in low-poverty schools are among the highest achieving students in the world. We’ve also learned that no matter how much self-styled education “reformers” claim otherwise, the always-demonized teachers unions are not holding our education system back. Thus, we arrive at the factor that decides so many things in American society: money. Policy-wise, it’s a straightforward proposition. Student Occupiers: It's the Debt, Stupid. College students have, to some extent, always been poor and hungry. But in the past few years, undergrads' plight has become truly dire. It's not hard to see why the Occupy Wall Street movement has struck a chord on campuses. Just check out these stats: Unemployment among college grads is twice what it was in 2007. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds is twice the national average; grads under 25 are twice as likely to lack a job than their older peers.
An analysis by The New York Times of Labor Department data about college graduates aged 25 to 34 found that the number of these workers employed in food service, restaurants and bars had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though the sample size was small. Earlier this week, students from an OWS offshoot called Occuppy Student Debt pledged to refuse to pay back their student loans. I was one of those kids who always pushed hard and dreamed big. Sticker Shock Deeper in Debt School vs. NBC Nightly News Brian Williams: student loans. Casualties of Debt. Dylan Ratigan: Americans Under 35: Going Broke Trying to Become Middle Class? It’s a look at our nation’s future through the eyes of the folks who have to make it work for the next 50 years — Americans under the age of 35.
They’re everywhere across the spectrum, whether it’s stuck in traffic on the way to their job, waiting in the unemployment line, protesting at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, or fighting our longest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Facing fewer job opportunities and high student loan debt, many 20-somethings now expect that they will do worse in their lifetimes for themselves than their parents generation. Some facts: Average tuition is three times higher today than in 1980.Two out of three students graduate with student loan debt, at an average of over $24,000.African American students are more likely to take out student loans, and to graduate with higher debt levels.The student loan default rate rose 31% over just 2 years.
The full report on The Economic State of Young America is available at Demos’ website. Erica Cadell: I’ll be 20. EC: Yes. Student Loans (U.S.) USAToday: Student loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion this year. Students and workers seeking retraining are borrowing extraordinary amounts of money through federal loan programs, potentially putting a huge burden on the backs of young people looking for jobs and trying to start careers. The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.S. Department of Education and private sources. Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what's owed on home loans and credit cards.
Taxpayers and other lenders have little risk of losing money on the loans, unlike mortgages made during the real estate bubble. •Defaults. •For profit-schools. The American Nightmare: Student Debt Will Be A Long-Term Drag On The Economy. Student Loan Debt Leads to Despair, Defaults. (Corrects Bureau name in sixth paragraph.) William Prince, of Rosenberg, Texas, knows just how inescapable student loans can be. The 52-year-old father of two started paying off $51,000 in college debt 15 years ago and now owes $57,000. "I don't expect to pay these loans off in my lifetime," he says.
Prince, a criminal justice major who works in private security, had to defer payments during three bouts of unemployment, and the accumulated interest left him deeper in debt. Americans now owe about $950 billion in student loans — more than their total credit-card debt. Desperation may have something to do with that outcry. Eroded Borrowers' Rights There are very few ways to reduce or renegotiate education debt; unlike credit-card debt, few can do this via bankruptcy. For federally backed loans, the situation is better, though still far from perfect. The federal government is taking steps that could make the debt burden more manageable.
Income-Based Repayment The program has drawbacks. Occupy colleges? How to shut down student debt – Reuters. One of the more compelling issues to emerge from the Occupy Wall Street movement is subject of crushing student debt. College financing has gotten to be too onerous and complicated, so it’s difficult for families to negotiate the process and, as a result, it’s hobbling graduates’ attempts to live normal lives.
Congress has largely ignored these Americans, though, as it focuses on the national debt and the Tea Party agenda. There’s been a sharp uptick in student loan defaults — the highest rate in a decade — as more students come out of college an average $24,000 in debt, yet can’t find jobs. Part of the psychology embedded in a college education is that the diploma should enable you to get a living-wage job, pay off debts and live a prosperous life. That was the big selling point of a high-cost diploma. That isn’t happening now for most graduates. See full article and photo from Reuters author John Wasik.
Reuters Photo Tags: occupy colleges, occupy wall street, Student Debt. Proprietary colleges. There are three types of for-profit schools. One type is known as an educational management organization (EMO), and these are primary and secondary educational institutions. EMOs work with school districts or charter schools, using public funds to finance operations. The majority of for-profit schools in the K–12 sector in America function as EMOs, and have grown in number in the mid-2000s. The other major category of for-profit schools are post-secondary institutions which operate as businesses, receiving fees from each student they enroll. A third type of for-profit schools, which is less prevalent in the United States, are K–12 schools which operate as businesses.
EMOs function differently from charter schools created in order to carry out a particular teaching pedagogy; most charter schools are mission-oriented, while EMOs and other for-profit institutions are market-oriented. Growth[edit] Potential benefits[edit] Potential drawbacks[edit] According to James G. Business failures[edit] College Board reveals the real Occupy Wall Street problem - ComPost. “This is the only dollar I have after my student loan payment.” (SHANNON STAPLETON - REUTERS) Thumb through the Tumblr of the 99 percent, and one phrase comes up again and again: Student Loans.
Student Loans. Student Loans. On October 19 the College Board announced that Americans owe more in student loans than in credit card debt. Need a coherent cause? Student Loans were supposed to be good loans. And now we’re paying. Responsible people don't have debt. Until they weren’t. Subtract the student loans, and we might not have an Occupy Wall Street movement. Subtract the student loans, and we might still be solvent. One trillion dollars in debt. Maybe it's the notion that more people going to college is necessarily better.
Maybe it’s the idea that college conveys value regardless of what you study, or the concomitant fallacy that everyone deserves to get good grades because — hey, they were smart enough to get in in the first place. Maybe it’s the idea that college needs to cost this much. WP: A primer on corporate school reform - The Answer Sheet. This is an edited version of a commentary given by Stan Karp, a teacher of English and journalism in Paterson, N.J., for 30 years. Karp spoke on Oct. 1 at the fourth annual Northwest Teachers for Justice conference in Seattle. He is now the director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey’s Education Law Center and an editor of the 25-year-old Rethinking Schools magazine. A video and fuller version of the commentary can be found here. By Stan Karp “Corporate education reform” refers to a specific set of policy proposals currently driving education policy at the state and federal level. These proposals include: *increased test-based evaluation of students, teachers, and schools of education *elimination or weakening of tenure and seniority rights *an end to pay for experience or advanced degrees *closing schools deemed low performing and their replacement by publicly funded, but privately run charters *vouchers and tax credit subsidies for private school tuition.
Chris Hedges: Empire of Illusion. USA. New Orleans: Beachhead for Corporate Takeover of Public Schools « Education Talk New Orleans. New Orleans The national media consensus is that New Orleans has discovered the miracle cure for urban education. Their conclusion is largely drawn from data provided by the Louisiana Department of Education, which obviously has a vested interest in emphasizing the good and ignoring the bad in the post-Katrina education changes.
New Orleans is important in the national education debate, but not for the reasons we commonly hear; it is important because it is the beachhead for a national movement to remove schools from local democratic control and accountability. The privatization trade-off is that the public sacrifices control of schools for a privatized system that delivers better education for the same tax dollar. While the citizens of New Orleans certainly lost control of their schools, it cannot be said that they have received a better education, if that also means an equitable education, nor can it be said that it came at the same cost. Guest Blog by: Lance Hill, Ph.D. Like this: Lance Hill (@LanceHill2011) sur Twitter. Yes, the marketization of education is still a bad idea « Kritische Studenten Utrecht. Posted by kritischestudentenutrecht under Oktober 2011 | Tags: onderwijsbeleid, zijlstra | [2] Comments by Alexander Beunder This article appears in Krantje Boord #9 Oktober 2011 The “Strategic Agenda” of the Dutch Ministry of Education, approved in July 2011 by the government, is to pursue more marketization of education and stimulate intensive cooperation between education and business.
Is this so bad? Do we have to discuss this again? The “strategic agenda for higher education” – a long-term vision on Dutch higher education - was written under state secretary of Education Halbe Zijlstra. The philosophy behind the Strategic Agenda is pretty obvious: higher education is to be subjected to market forces. It all sounds very plausible: let markets rule education, submit schools to the rules of competition, supply and demand, and you will see they’ll become more efficient, innovative and dynamic (there’s no shortage of buzzwords). The Indian economist, Jandhyala B. Future of Journalism -justanotherpicnic- Students / teachers / facilitators protests initiatives. United Kingdom as analogue ? Demise of journalistic independency & access to Uni / HE Media. University Inc. - corporate corruption of Research & Higher Education.
Play 'corporate òr state' publishing power. Play corporate edu power. Bill Gates' Big Play: How Much Can Money Buy in Education? - Living in Dialogue. The Regency -University of California - UC. OWS – Make Sure Education is on the Agenda! | On Saturday afternoon, while driving through downtown Spokane – as isolated and homogeneous a city as you can imagine – we drove past a small group of Occupy Wall Street protesters. We rolled down the windows, clapped, honked, and cheered, but couldn’t take time out from our busy consumerist life to participate.
I feel that this is the sentiment of most of the "99%," and it is sad because this movement is something I personally have been looking for since 2004. What I failed to understand until recently, is that the revolution could start right under our noses and many of us wouldn’t even realize it – despite how important it is to our future. The people’s movement currently underway in more than 100 cities across the, U.S. and 1,500+ cities globally, is important in many ways, but none more so than for what it could mean for education. Harvard economics professor Lawrence Lessig explains the larger meaning of the Occupy Wall Street movement: How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools. Gothamschools: ‘Occupy the DOE’ Leia petty (@cleiapatra) sur Twitter. The Big Picture: undercurrents / influences / inspirations. Selling Schools Out | Corporate Accountability. Silent Majority: California's War on its Students. Guardian: Birmingham University gets high court injunction against sit-in protesters.
Universities hold students' transcripts hostage over debt.