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Republicans Propose Massive Cuts to Education

 House Democrats warned that hundreds of thousands of teachers could lose their jobs if legislation advanced Friday by a Republican-controlled appropriations subcommittee becomes law.

The panel's draft Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill for the coming fiscal year calls for nearly $64 billion in total cuts, a proposal that Democrats said "decimates support for children in K-12 elementary schools and early childhood education" and "abandons college students and low-income workers trying to improve their lives through higher education or job training."

The nonprofit Committee for Education Funding noted that the Republican proposal would impact "virtually all" education programs, hitting teacher funding, student aid, and more. The bill, one of a dozen appropriations measures that Congress is looking to pass by the end of September, would bring Department of Education funding to below the 2006 level, according to the group.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday that "we are witnessing a widespread attack on public education that should shock every American family."

"If left to their own devices," DeLauro added, "Republicans would gleefully take public education to the graveyard."

The GOP legislation would slash Title I grants to local educational agencies that serve children from low-income families by nearly $15 billion compared to fiscal year 2023 levels. Appropriations Committee Democrats said the massive cut "could force a nationwide reduction of 220,000 teachers from classrooms serving low-income students" amid a teacher shortage.

The legislation would also completely eliminate funding for a number of Education Department programs, including Federal Work-Study, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, Promise Neighborhoods, and Child Care Access Means Parents in School.

"Disgraceful to say the least," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) tweeted in response to the GOP measure.

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. 

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/republican-education-cuts

 

Charter Schools and Death by a Thousand Cuts

Death by a Thousand Cuts

BYJOANNE BARKAN

Privatization in education has been slow and halting. But it's already crippling many public schools.

ed. note. And it will be on the California ballot in November in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

In this marketized system, competition would, theoretically, eliminate low-performing schools because they wouldn’t attract enough customers to stay in business. In the real world, the poor buy necessities at a price they can afford even if the quality is inferior. This is why the free market has always failed to meet the real needs of low-income people; they get what they can pay for.

In a school voucher system, wealthy families can (and will) add as much money as they want to their vouchers to pay for their choice of schools; middle-income families will pull together whatever resources they can for the best schools in their price range. Low-income families without additional resources will “choose” schools charging the value of the voucher. Almost no higher quality schools will be available because they will have no incentive except altruism to offer their products at the minimum price. (For example, the value of a government voucher for high school in Washington, D.C. in 2016–17 was $12,679 while tuition at Washington’s elite private schools exceeded $40,000 a year.) As a last resort, low-income families could choose a “government school.” For free-market ideologues, government schools are always a last resort and available to the poor.

Many Southern states anticipated the 1954 Brown school desegregation decision and prepared policies to evade racial integration. Between 1954 and 1959, eight states adopted what were whites-only versions of Friedman’s voucher system. They used public funds to pay for white students to attend all-white private schools, which were called “freedom of choice schools” or “segregation academies.” States also leased unused public school property to private schools.

Read the entire essay.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/06/us-public-schools-charters-vouchers-privatization

Tax cuts for the rich, or essential public services for all?

by Randi Weingarten 

President, American Federation of Teachers 

What do basketball legend Charles Barkley and the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. have in common? An understanding that taxes fund things that we need and value.

Holmes told a law clerk who complained about paying taxes, “I like to pay taxes. It’s what we pay for a civilized society.” More than a century later, Barkley came to a similar conclusion. He used to say he did not like paying taxes, until he got a call from basketball icon Bill Russell. Russell pointed out that money from taxes paid for the public schools Barkley attended growing up, and for police officers and firefighters in his community. Russell said, “Now that you got money, you don’t want to help other people out, but when you were poor other people took care of you.” Barkley replied, “You will never hear me complain about my taxes again.”

Weingarten with AFT members in Oklahoma marching to the state Capitol April 2. Photo by Adam Derstine.

But many people do complain about paying their share for essential public services. Some wealthy Americans calculated that they could pay more in campaign contributions in order to pay less in taxes. The Republican-controlled Congress responded with a tax overhaul last December that lavishes the wealthiest 1 percent with 83 percent of the cuts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week reported that the plan will increase the deficit to nearly $1 trillion in fiscal 2019, and that, by 2028, the national debt could equal nearly the entire value of all the finished goods and services produced in the country.

Republicans claimed that these massive tax cuts would pay for themselves and benefit all Americans. But retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately backtracked on that pledge. Ryan said Congress would now “tackle the debt and the deficit” the tax cuts create, providing the GOP an excuse to make deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other programs the neediest Americans depend on.

Americans are not fooled. A recent AFT- Democracy Corps poll found that most respondents have not personally benefited from the tax plan and are unhappy their wages are not keeping up with rising costs. They are angry the GOP plans to pay for tax cuts they don’t benefit from by shredding the social safety net. And they feel strongly the funds being redistributed to the rich should have been invested in public schools, healthcare or infrastructure.

Such investments are vital. Twenty- nine states still spend less on public education than they did before the Great Recession. And many states have seen devastating consequences after sharply cutting taxes. Kansas enacted an extreme form of trickle-down economics, on the premise that it would usher in an economic boom. Instead, state revenue plummeted, the deficit exploded and officials slashed spending on everything from road repair to Medicaid and public education. Kansans across party lines railed against the decimation of public goods and services, prompting the Legislature to pass a $1.2 billion tax increase last year, but the state is still struggling to fund essential public services.

Officials’ choices to cut taxes for the wealthy rather than invest in essential services lie at the heart of the teacher walkouts now gripping the country. In Oklahoma, income tax cuts and tax breaks for the oil and gas industry deprive the state of $1.5 billion a year. West Virginia lawmakers have cut taxes by more than $4 billion in the last decade.

These irresponsible tax cuts have made it impossible to, in Justice Holmes’ words, “pay for a civilized society.” In Oklahoma, textbooks are held together with duct tape, and, while a student was excited to be issued a textbook once used by country singer Blake Shelton, her mother was horrified to realize Shelton had used it nearly 40 years ago. Teacher pay in West Virginia and Oklahoma ranks 48th and 49th lowest, respectively, in the nation.

One of the starkest current examples of disinvestment is in Puerto Rico, where the governor is proposing to close 450 public schools in less than one year. In the wake of the devastation caused by recent hurricanes, this will further tear at the fabric of community life and promote the continuing exodus from the island.

Teachers, students and parents are standing up to prevent this catastrophe.

Meanwhile, it’s testing season in America’s schools. And while many so-called education reformers fixate on algorithms, outputs and accountability, the teachers waging these walkouts offer a reminder that, before anything else, we have to take care of the basics—investing in and supporting our students, their educators and their schools.

We all benefit from safe communities, great public schools and a civilized society. And we all have a responsibility to contribute our fair share to make that possible.

Download the Column (472.9 KB)

When the Pundits Misrepresent Public School Issues

By Jeff Bryant

Government funding for public schools has been cut so dramatically that now most states are funding schools less than before the recession.

Legend has, political disputes are supposed to be resolvable only when parties “meet in the middle” and shake hands on points of agreement that are possible.

But in the much-contested issue of “education reform,” only one of the disputing parties in the debate tends to be implored to seek compromise.

What this looks like in one of the nation’s largest school district, Los Angeles, came to the attention of many recently when a Facebook campaign led by a local teacher provided a cavalcade of photographs showing the deplorable conditions of that city’s public schools. “The images,” reported the Los Angeles Times, include missing ceiling tiles, broken sinks and water fountains, ant invasions, dead roaches and rat droppings.”

California test scores dip -- results of budget cuts

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Releases 2013 STAR Results

Statewide scores slip slightly amid budget cuts, transition to Common Core

SACRAMENTO—Scores on the annual Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) assessments slipped by a fraction of a percentage point this year as schools dealt with ongoing budget reductions and the transition to the Common Core State Standards, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.

Students managed to hold on to the vast majority of gains posted over the last 11 years, with a majority of students statewide continuing to achieve at the proficient or advanced level in mathematics and English-language arts. Only one student in three achieved proficiency in 2003, the year that the STAR tests became fully aligned to the former state content standards.

"As you would expect for a school system in transition, results varied from grade to grade, subject to subject, and school to school, but the big picture is one of remarkable resilience despite the challenges," Torlakson said. "While we all want to see California's progress continue, these results show that in the midst of change and uncertainty, teachers and schools kept their focus on students and learning. That's a testament to the depth of their commitment to their students and the future of our state."

Torlakson also noted that schools across the state continued to deal with the effects of years of budget cuts and financial uncertainties throughout the 2012-13 school year. Led by Governor Brown, voter approval of Proposition 30 in 2012 averted $6 billion in further cuts to education budgets.

Federal Sequester hurts our schools

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Urges Congress to Prevent Devastating Cuts

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today urged Congressional leaders to work together and immediately pass legislation that would repeal drastic budget cuts set to take effect Friday under sequestration.

"Without Congressional intervention, automatic budget cuts from sequestration will take effect on March 1," said Torlakson in aletter to Congressional leaders. "After years of extensive state and federal budget cuts to education, these cuts will devastate communities across California…. These automatic cuts will cause long-lasting and irreparable harm."

Sequestration cuts could represent a $262 million funding reduction to California’s federal education program. These include estimated cuts of:

• $91 million for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, intended to improve education for disadvantaged students;
• $72 million in special education funding for programs that serve the needs of students with disabilities;
• $2.8 million for public charter schools;
• $6.9 million for Career and Technical Education;
• $9.6 million in funding for English learners; and
• $3.7 million in Impact Aid affecting students in federally impacted school districts in California, including children of active duty service members.

"Further, these cuts come at a time when California is just beginning a recovery from state-level cuts of over $20 billion to education spending over the last five years," Torlakson added. "The California Department of Education, school districts, and local educational agencies will need to find ways to cut costs even further under sequestration. This could result in school closures; teacher and administrator layoffs; increased student-teacher ratios; the elimination of college counselors and school-based mental health personnel; and deferred purchases, renovations, and repairs. These cuts would come at a crucial time in a student’s life. Many of these students may never make up the lost ground."

Statement of Feb. 26.  Since then, the sequester has happened. 

Chicago Teachers Union oppose school closings

This is what austerity looks like.

Chicago Teachers Speak Out Against School Closings - CTU President Karen Lewis Statement on CPS School Closings CTU Communications March 21, 2013 Chicago Teachers Union   Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care anything about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them. There is no way people of conscience will stand by and allow these people to shut down nearly a third of our school district without putting up a fight. Most of these campuses are in the Black community. Since 2001 88% of students impacted by CPS School Actions are African-American. And this is by design.     Mahalia Jackson Elementary second- grade teacher Tamara Faggins passionately condemns the CEO's recommended school closings., Photo by Nathan Goldbaum, CTU Communications.,     Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said the following at a news conference regarding proposed school closings:   "We are standing here today in the beautiful Mahaila Jackson elementary school in our city's Auburn-Gresham neighborhood. This school was named for one of the greatest gospel singers in our nation's history, a woman who sang at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral, a woman who was instrumental in our Civil Rights struggle. Unfortunately, we are gathered here today not to talk about this pioneer or even about how this school does an outstanding job of providing a great learning community for some of our special needs students. We are standing here because this school, along with scores of others, has been targeted for closure by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Chicago Public Schools district.   "Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care anything about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them. There is no way people of conscience will stand by and allow these people to shut down nearly a third of our school district without putting up a fight. Most of these campuses are in the Black community. Since 2001 88% of students impacted by CPS School Actions are African-American. And this is by design.     "Closing 50 schools is not grand or glorious. This is nothing to celebrate or marvel.   "These actions unnecessarily expose our students to gang violence, turf wars and peer-to-peer conflict. Some of our students have been seriously injured as a result of school closings. One died. Putting thousands of small children in harm's way is not laudatory.

Cancel the Sequester

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supports the bill advanced by John Conyers (D-MI), HR 900, to simply cancel the $85 billion in “sequestration” cuts. These cuts will harm millions of low-income Americans, while weakening an already anemic, jobless recovery. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if the cuts are fully carried out, they will cause a 0.6% drop in GDP and a loss of over 700,000 jobs. The layoffs of 700,000 public employees since 2008 have already contributed to unconscionable levels of unemployment.

   The sequester will cut 10,000 teaching jobs, 70,000 spots for preschoolers in Head Start, $43 million for food programs for seniors, $35 million for local fire departments, and access to nutrition assistance for over half a million women and their families.

   And the reason congressional Republicans let these cuts go into effect is because they simply wouldn't support closing tax loopholes for millionaires and billionaires -- for things like yachts and corporate jets

We do not have a deficit crisis in this country; we have a jobs crisis. Sequestering will increase the deficit--not decrease it--by slowing the economic recovery and by keeping more people out of work and not paying taxes.

Fiscal Cliff Created by Republican Irresponsibility

This article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:

 If your tax bill goes up $2,200 a year, or you're one of the millions who would stop receiving unemployment benefits, the cause of your economic pain is not some a natural disaster, or a major structural flaw in the economy. The cause is Republican fear of being beaten in a primary by people like Sarah Palin, Sharon Angel or Richard Mourdock - funded by far Right Wing oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers. It's that simple.

Most normal Americans will have very little patience with Republicans as they begin to realize that GOP Members of Congress are willing to risk throwing the country back into a recession because they are worried about being beaten in low turn out primaries by people who do a better job than they do appealing to the extreme right fringe of the American electorate - and to the far Right plutocrats that are all too willing to stoke right wing passion and anger.

We are not broke. We were robbed !

DSA is a part of the Coalition on Human Needs. ( See list at end of post).  We ask that each of you contact your Senators and Congress people to preserve essential  human needs from Republican budget cuts.   Sample letter below.  Do not allow the Corporate CEO's who are funding the Fix the Debt campaign to cut the budgets for poor and working people.

1. NO tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans.

2. NO benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare or

Medicaid.

SAVE for All

Strengthening America’s Values and Economy for All

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear (Representative or Senator):

Last year, organizations from across the country came together to endorse basic principles to address America’s short- and long-term economic and budgetary problems. These are the imperatives of Strengthening America’s Values and Economy (SAVE) for All: to protect low-income and vulnerable people; promote job creation to strengthen the economy; increase revenues from fair sources; and seek responsible savings by targeting wasteful spending in the Pentagon and in other areas that do not serve the public interest.

We call on you to follow these principles as you face budgetary decisions of immediate and long-lasting national consequence. To achieve sustained growth, fiscal stability, and economic security for all our people we must invest in job creation, ensure that job seekers have the opportunity to work, and protect vulnerable people from hardship. We cannot promote the common good by cutting more and more services and jobs. But we can meet our nation’s needs responsibly by ending tax reductions benefiting the wealthiest two percent and by seeking savings that do not compromise human or military security.

Putting the most vulnerable people at risk is the wrong response to our nation’s fiscal situation. Automatic cuts to domestic programs that are scheduled to take effect in January 2013 under the sequestration provisions of the Budget Control Act will inflict devastating harm. Estimated conservatively, a year of sequestration cuts1 will deny WIC nutrition aid to 750,000 mothers and young children, prevent more than 413,000 adults and youth from getting job training and deny education and training to more than 51,000 veterans, eliminate reading and math help to more than 1.8 million low-income public school children, deny child care to the low- to moderate-income families of 80,000 children, stop nearly 34,000 women from being screened for breast and cervical cancer, prevent nearly 27,000 infants and toddlers from benefiting from special education early intervention services, force 185,000 households to lose rental assistance vouchers, and stop 734,000 households from receiving home heating and cooling aid. These are only a few examples of the impact of the scheduled cuts. They threaten children’s healthy development, deny security to seniors, throw roadblocks in the way of a competitive labor force, and allow preventable disabilities to hold back our children.

These and other cuts have steep costs, among them hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, lagging productivity, and escalating medical expenditures in the years to come. Coming on top of cuts written into law through FY 2021 they will drop domestic and non-military international appropriations to their lowest levels in 50 years as a share of the economy. Allowing such a wholesale abandonment of investments in education, preventive health, housing, public infrastructure, and nutrition is an affront both to conscience and to common sense. We urge you to avert these sequestration cuts.

Teacher of the Year: Yes on Prop 30

A Gold Star for the Chicago Teachers' Union

After 10 years of top-down disruptions, teachers showed
the power of collective action by those who work in
schools.

By Karen Lewis and Randi Weingarten Opinion

Wall Street Journal September 23, 2012


After more than a decade of top-down dictates,
disruptive school closures, disregard of teachers' and
parents' input, testing that squeezes out teaching, and
cuts to the arts, physical education and libraries,
educators in Chicago said "enough is enough." With
strong support from parents and many in the community,
teachers challenged a flawed vision of education reform
that has not helped schoolchildren in Chicago or around
the country. It took a seven-day strike - something no
one does without cause - but with it educators in
Chicago have changed the conversation about education
reform.

These years of dictates imposed upon teachers left
children in Chicago without the rich curriculum,
facilities and social services they need. On picket
lines, with their handmade signs, teachers provided
first-person accounts of the challenges confronting
students and educators. They made it impossible to turn
a blind eye to the unacceptable conditions in many of
the city's public schools.

Teachers and parents were united in the frustration
that led to the strike. Nearly nine out of 10 students
in Chicago Public Schools live in poverty, a shameful
fact that so-called reformers too often ignore, yet
most schools lack even one full-time nurse or social
worker. The district has made cuts where it shouldn't
(in art, music, physical education and libraries) but
hasn't cut where it should (class sizes and excessive
standardized testing and test prep). The tentative
agreement reached in Chicago aims to address all these
issues.

26 States Cut Their Education Budgets For This School Year

26 States Cut Their Education Budgets For This School Year: pStates have made deep cuts to their education budgets in the years since the Great Recession, and as their budgets remained crunched by lower levels of tax revenues, more than half are spending less on education this school year than they did last year, a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [...]/p

Here come more cuts

      California fell almost $2 billion below estimates in personal income taxes paid in April.  The Legislative Analyst Office says that the state is some $3.5 billion behind the state forecasts for this year which are the basis for the current budget.    Thus, the legislature will again face cuts.  More cuts to schools, more cuts to social services, health care,  child support, police and fire protection.

            This approach to economics is called austerity.  It doesn’t work.  Austerity is being tried in Greece, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and Ireland, among others.  It does not work.  Austerity makes the economy worse – and thus further reductions of tax receipts and further cuts.

The economic crisis of 2007 to the present made matters worse.  The state took in some $30 billion less in taxes and thus had less to send to the schools.  School budgets have been cut by some $10 billion.  K-12 education receives about 40% of the California budget.  Thus any decline in the state budget leads directly to cuts in school services.

            The question for the corporate agenda, promoted by  the Chamber of Commerce among others  is can the economy prosper with a poorly educated work force.  California grew and prospered from 1970- 1994 based upon a well educated work force.  Then, in the 1994-2008 period over $10 billion of tax cuts were passed – making the current crisis much worse. This week we learned that Apple, and other corporations, are avoiding over $10 billion in taxes by moving one small office to Nevada.   California suffers from a decade of  corporate tax cuts and public disinvestment.  Today,  instead of following the education  approach,  conservative anti tax forces have imposed an Mississippi approach on California.

California public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse. This is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years.  Total per pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result- massive class size increases.  Students are in often classes too large for learning.  Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have been eliminated.  Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face lay offs this fall. This is not the fault of teachers. 

6000 students march on California Capitol

More than 6,000 students from Central and Northern California marched on the California Capitol today to demand full funding of education,  student debt relief and Tax the Millionaires to pay for it. The impressive demonstration was organized primarily by student associations of the community colleges, the CSU and U.C. campuses in the northern half of the state.

Key legislative leaders addressed the crowd and offered legislation to fund public education- which they can not pass do the constitutional requirement of a 2/3 vote to raise taxes.

There have been many promises of an occupation of the capitol, and the police presence was immense.

The first rally of the day was to end at 12:30.  Occupy folks have set up a site on the North Side of the Capitol where they held  a general assembly and non violence training.  The occupy supporters numbered about 100.   

Yet a third event today was the  5:30 PM rally organized by labor.   About 400 trade unionists showed up and supported the students and workers.  See photos.

The several unions supporting and funding the Tax the Millionaires signature gathering used an effective strategy which we used in March of 2010 while gathering signatures for the California Democracy Act.   They printed several hundred well done posters saying Tax the Millionaires.  They went to the student assembly points where thousands were arriving without signs and gave the posters away free.  In the march at least one of every six marchers was carrying a Tax the Millionaires sign – an impressive showing.  Tax the Millionaires is supported by the California Federation of Teaches (AFT), the California Nurses (CNA) and most recently Moveon.  In addition to tabling, some 60 signature gatherers traveled through the crowd to collect signatures of voters. 

  UC Davis YDS members at the rally.

Greece and California budgets

Pain without Gain.  Paul Krugman. 2/20/12. NYT.

“And this downturn is hitting nations that have never recovered from the last recession. For all America’s troubles, its gross domestic product has finally surpassed its pre-crisis peak; Europe’s has not. And some nations are suffering Great Depression-level pain: Greece and Ireland have had double-digit declines in output, Spain has 23 percent unemployment, Britain’s slump has now gone on longer than its slump in the 1930s.

Worse yet, European leaders — and quite a few influential players here — are still wedded to the economic doctrine responsible for this disaster.

For things didn’t have to be this bad. Greece would have been in deep trouble no matter what policy decisions were taken, and the same is true, to a lesser extent, of other nations around Europe’s periphery. But matters were made far worse than necessary by the way Europe’s leaders, and more broadly its policy elite, substituted moralizing for analysis, fantasies for the lessons of history.

Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead to a surge in consumer and business spending, while nations failing to make such cuts would see capital flight and soaring interest rates. If this sounds to you like something Herbert Hoover might have said, you’re right: It does and he did.

Governor Brown promotes race to the bottom

Governor Makes Deep Cuts to the Safety Net

On Thursday, January 5, Governor Jerry Brown released his proposed 2012-13 spending plan, addressing a $9.2 billion projected shortfall for the remainder of 2011-12 and the upcoming 2012-13 fiscal years. The Governor proposes $10.3 billion in “solutions” to close the identified gap and provide a $1.1 billion budget reserve. The gap stems from a $4.1 billion shortfall in 2011-12 and a $5.1 billion projected shortfall in 2012-13.

 The Governor continues his poorly informed, misguided austerity program which proposes  to reduce the budgets through cut backs in services, cuts to public employment, and reduction in public pensions.

Budget cutting to balance the budget will not get us out of this hole.  Look at Ireland, Greece, or Spain. Do we  really want to follow the lead of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Mississippi (each of these economies is smaller than California)?   Budget cuts only start a downward spiral of pain. We can not simply cut our way out of the crisis, budget cuts and lay offs make the recession worse. Budget cuts and lay offs lead only to more budget cuts and lay offs.

The current budget crisis was caused by the real estate crisis, the sub prime loan crisis, and the  national economic crisis.  This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street ,ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America,  Washington Mutual,  Country Wide, AIG, and others.   Finance capital produced a $ 2 trillion bailout. 

Further budget cuts are coming - Severe

Additional state budget cuts to higher education, k-12, and other services are predicted for this week.
They are called Trigger Cuts.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/12/4116082/californias-financial-forecast.html

Cuts to K-12 education

Wisconsin has the dubious distinction of reducing state aid per student this school year the most of 24 states studied by an independent, Washington-based think tank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

According to a preliminary study released Sept. 1 by the  nonprofit research organization, the dollar change in spending from the last fiscal year to this year dropped $635 per student under Gov. Scott Walker's budget that took effect July 1. New York was in second place, cutting state school aid $585 per student. California was third at $484.

The study only reports on the 24 states where current-year data is available. Those states educate about two-thirds of the nation's K-12 students.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/blog/article_f4f6e008-d848-11e0-a158-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1XVMyV1uF