The Coming Crisis in Public Educati

The Coming Public Education Crisis 

A fiscal calamity awaits public schools once pandemic-related federal assistance ends.

Justin H. Vassallo  Spring 2023A teacher interacts with students virtually in an empty classroom at Hazelwood Ele[1]mentary School in January 2022 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images) 

Of all the social inequities that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted in the United States, the crisis of public education is among the most intractable. Reports of staffing shortages and declining enrollment—twin problems especially acute for poorer districts contending with slashed budgets and meager classroom resources—have persisted even after the introduction of vaccines for children. With most state funding tied to student enrollment, shrinking attendance means smaller budgets to meet fixed operating costs and fewer funds to attract and retain talented educators. A fiscal calamity awaits public schools once pandemic-related federal assistance ends in September 2024.

Left unaddressed, the crisis portends the return of the “K-shaped” economic recovery—in which the well-off see strong gains and those already struggling experience more instability and income loss—that economists warned about in the early days of the pandemic. The actions of congressional Democrats and other party officials have been discouraging. In late 2021, House Democrats abandoned a proposed $100 billion for modernizing school infrastructure during negotiations over President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation. (The subsequent Inflation Reduction Act did not include meaningful provisions for education.) Absent a political reckoning that extends federal funding to restore programs and classroom resources to pre-pandemic levels, let alone make significant improvements, schools could face a new round of disenrollment at a moment when they are already struggling to recover the approximately 1.4 million pupils who withdrew during the first year of the pandemic.

 

 

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-coming-public-education-crisis/

 

Organizing for Education

 

JUL 24

What We’re Up Against: The Historical Context for the Right’s Authoritarian Playbook on Education  Instructors: Loretta Ross and Dr. Nolan Cabrera

JUL 25

What's Working: Organizing Models to Advance Education in Local and National Arenas  Instructors: Jesse Hagopian and Dr. Michael Benitez Jr.

JUL 26

How We Advance our Vision: Forging Legislative Strategies and Building Relationships to Empower Our Base  Instructors: Park Cannon and Deepa Iyer

JUL 27

How We Win: Harnessing Art, Messaging, and Narratives Instructors: Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Erika Alexander

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Anti Union $40 Billion, financed by U.S. Taxpayers. 

Poverty and the Moral Majority

 Moral Poverty Action Congress is underway, and California is in the house!

The PPC’s Moral Poverty Action Congress kicked off this past Monday. This gathering—the convergence on the nation’s capital of PPC groups from dozens of states, ours included—is a crucial opportunity for us to build on our work, raise our voices, strategize for the coming year, and meet with lawmakers, ensuring that the voices of poor and low-wealth individuals are well-represented in the upcoming election and beyond. 

 

Here are just a few highlights:

• On Monday, Bishop Barber helmed a discussion with economists and public health policy practitioners on poverty; you’ll find a recap of that event below.
• The next day, PPC activists visited more than 400 legislative offices. Our state’s delegates visited all 52 California congresspeople and two senators.
• Bishop Barber and PPC activists raised their voices in front of the Supreme Court. Several shared personal stories of struggles with low wages and lack of health insurance and mourned loved ones lost to poverty. 
• Congresspeople Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) participated in a press conference on the reintroduction of the Third Reconstruction Resolution. At least 11 more reps were in attendance, including Ro Khanna, who represents a swath of the South and East Bay.

Meanwhile, a timely Religion News op-ed by Bishop Barber and Rev. Theoharis lays bare the violence that poverty inflicts on millions. It opens with the tragic story of Bertha Montes from Los Angeles, who died after being denied a request for help at her job at McDonald’s and was forced to work while she was sick. The piece outlines the extensive evidence of policy harm and the mission of the Moral Poverty Action Congress.

 

We’ve been posting about the Congress on the CA PPC Facebook page, and you can check the national PPC website for updates and replays.

 

Finally, let’s not forget that the Congress is also a vital step toward our 2024 campaign, which will include actions at statehouses nationwide, our nonpartisan Get Out the Vote effort and the third Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.

Teacher Banned from Teaching About Racism

 In February, as part of Black History Month, a high school teacher in South Carolina had to stop using Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoir “Between the World and Me” in a lesson plan about systemic racism — because teachers are prohibited from making students feel uncomfortable about their race or gender in the state. 

Students complained after Mary Wood, who teaches Advanced Placement Language Arts at Chapin High School in Chapin, South Carolina, included the book in a lesson intended to guide students through participating in civil debate, local news outlet The State first reported. 

Wood’s lesson plan was a part of preparing for Advanced Placement tests and involved watching two videos about systemic racism, reading Coates’ memoir and doing research with a variety of sources. Then, students were meant to write essays on their understanding of the book and make an argument about whether they agreed with Coates that systemic racism is a problem in the U.S. 

“This wasn’t one side or the other,” Wood, who has been teaching for 14 years, told HuffPost. “I wanted them to develop their own understanding.”

Students complained that the lesson made them feel ashamed to be white and were successful in blocking the section on systemic racism entirely. 

“Hearing (Wood’s) opinion and watching these videos made me feel uncomfortable,” one student said in their complaint. “I actually felt ashamed to be Caucasian. These videos portrayed an inaccurate description of life from past centuries that she is trying to resurface.”

In 2021, South Carolina Republicans included a provision in the state budget stipulating that taxpayer dollars may not be used to teach lessons suggesting that any race or sex is inherently “racist, sexist, or oppressive whether consciously or unconsciously” or that cause anyone to feel “guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex.” 

“If the goal is to undermine public education, they’re doing a good job of it,” Wood said of the lawmakers who passed the policy. “You cannot talk about glitter and rainbows and still get students to engage with differing viewpoints.”

Once the lesson, which Wood had taught the previous year without issue, was axed, she said she kept her head down and proceeded with an improvised lesson plan using AP tests from the past.

“I was mortified professionally and I felt my hands were tied,” she said. “I certainly didn’t want to use anything self-selected.”

“If the goal is to undermine public education, they’re doing a good job of it.”

 

Poverty Action:

 

Four days away… The Moral Poverty Action Congress begins on Monday in Washington D.C., and California will be in the house! The Congress is a vital step toward our 2024 campaign, which will include actions at statehouses nationwide, our nonpartisan Get Out the Vote effort and the third Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. It provides a crucial opportunity for us to build on our work and strategize for the coming year, ensuring that the voices of poor and low-wealth individuals are well-represented in the upcoming election and beyond.   We’ll be posting about the Congress on the CA PPC Facebook page, and you can check the national PPC website for updates and livestreams. There’s still time to make a donation toward this event. Every dollar helps!

Rename SCUSD Schools

 

RENAME RACIST SCHOOLS RE

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