Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Emergency Manager Roy Roberts has named 16 Detroit school buildings for closure this fall. The action comes as the latest implementation of a long-standing policy of defunding public education. Roberts, recently appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, has been accorded dictatorial powers to impose whatever measures he deems necessary.
For the last three years, Detroit schools have operated under a budget shortfall, prompting first the Democratic state government under Jennifer Granholm, then the Republic administration of Snyder to appoint so-called emergency financial mangers to impose the rule of the banks on the school system. Teachers and school staff are the principal target of the measures being implemented.
Dr. Michael Barbour is an assistant professor in Instructional Technology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. With 15 years in the field of online education, he has been involved with K-12 distance education in Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. He has taught and worked in research, course design and administration.
In December, Dr. Barbour testified before the state of Michigan’s House of Representatives Education Committee to oppose Senate Bill 619, a measure that removes all restrictions on online cyber charters. The professor noted the limited nature of the research on online education and that the existing studies tend to show “full-time online learning is actually detrimental to student success.”
The Obama administration’s education initiatives have been extraordinarily successful—not as measured by the typical metrics of student achievement, but as tallied on Wall Street by the flow of venture capital.
The amount of private equity entering the education market nearly tripled to $224 million in 2011, up from roughly $130 million in 2010.
‘Having been in this space, covering it for more than a decade, I’ve not seen this level of interest or supply of early-stage K-12 businesses in the last decade by any stretch of the imagination,’ said Adam J. Newman, an Education Growth Advisors (private equity firm) partner, according to Education Week. The 2011 investment level represented the highest transaction value into K-12 education in a decade.
As part of its effort to tailor higher education more closely to the needs of corporate America, the Obama administration and state governments are pushing four-year universities and colleges to drop remedial or developmental education. Instead these courses, which are chiefly used by working class students, are being shunted almost exclusively onto community colleges.
One way this is occurring is by restricting state and federal funding to four-year institutions. Over a dozen states have cut funding for remedial education at four-year universities and colleges.
Oklahoma and Nevada have taken the additional step of simply denying state funding for remediation at four-year institutions, while Colorado and South Carolina shifted remediation to community colleges several years ago.
New York City's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg will “overhaul” 33 schools and phase out another 18. The mayor controls the city’s public schools, the largest district in the United Sates, with over 1 million students.
Most of the schools are in Brooklyn, and their students are drawn overwhelmingly from working-class neighborhoods. The 18 schools to be phased out will not accept incoming first-year classes after this year.
The schools slated for overhaul have been designated under President Obama’s Race to the Top Program as “persistently low-achieving”. These will face a “turn-around” by having their principals and half their teachers fired. While new teachers will be hired, most observers believe that these will be younger, lower-paid teachers with less experience than most of those losing their positions.
Since he took office in 2002, New York's billionaire-in-chief has closed 117 public schools.
Parents and staff at Barber Focus School for children in grades K-8 learned Monday that their school, one of only three public schools remaining in Highland Park, Michigan, will close in one week and merge with Henry Ford Academy. The announcement came only hours after the installation of Jack Martin as emergency financial manager of the Highland Park Schools by Governor Rick Snyder.
Students from Barber will be transported to Henry Ford via shuttle bus. The fate of after-school programs remains uncertain.
Highland Park is the second Michigan school district after Detroit to be run by an emergency manager. There have been suggestions that it may eventually be shut down altogether or merged with another district.
In a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Friday, President Obama outlined his proposed changes to federal college financial aid programs. Presented as a program for college affordability, Obama’s plan in fact sets the stage for further attacks on the right to quality higher education at a time that millions of students are drowning in debt.
Obama’s speech capped a three-day speaking tour following his State of the Union address in states that are considered key for his re-election campaign. The event had something of the character of a campaign rally, and Obama sought to put on his “populist” persona for the largely student audience. The substance of Obama’s remarks, however, revealed the enormous chasm between his administration’s policies and the needs and concerns of ordinary working people.
In a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Friday, President Obama outlined his proposed changes to federal college financial aid programs. Presented as a program for college affordability, Obama’s plan in fact sets the stage for further attacks on the right to quality higher education at a time that millions of students are drowning in debt.
Obama’s speech capped a three-day speaking tour following his State of the Union address in states that are considered key for his re-election campaign. The event had something of the character of a campaign rally, and Obama sought to put on his “populist” persona for the largely student audience. The substance of Obama’s remarks, however, revealed the enormous chasm between his administration’s policies and the needs and concerns of ordinary working people.
On January 19, over 800 students at the University of California, Riverside were met by 200 police as they demonstrated outside a regents meeting. The university officials were discussing plans for another hike in tuition in response to cuts imposed by Democratic Party Governor Jerry Brown.
Students chanted “peaceful protest” while confronted by campus police officers in riot gear and with batons. Students and workers attempted to participate in a sit-down demonstration like those who were brutally attacked at UC Davis on November 18th. (Video of the conflict at UC Riverside can be seen here).
Towards the end of the video one can hear the sound of projectiles being fired, which participants said were paint-filled pellets. An image of one person’s injuries can be seen here.
Two people were arrested in the protests and charged with assaulting a police officer, one by using a handheld sign.
The push for charter schools in Washington started in earnest with the reconvening of the state legislature.
Initiatives to allow charter schools in Washington have been voted down by the public three times in the last two decades—the last time in 2004. The bipartisan proposal to bring charter schools up for a vote within the legislature—thus avoiding a public vote—comes in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month that Washington is in violation of the state constitution’s Article IX, Section 1, which states, “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.”
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