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.”
In another broadside attack on public education, Republican Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed Senate Bill 618 into law last month lifting a 150-school cap on university-sponsored charter schools. The measure, now Public Act 277, provides for an increase in the state’s 225 charter schools to 300 in 2012, 500 in 2014, with no limit thereafter.
The measure is in line with the policy advocated by President Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who have called for states to eliminate charter school caps in the interest of “cost efficiency” and Race To The Top (RTTT) financing. States that have not facilitated the expansion of charter schools have been penalized in RTTT applications and denied critical funding.
On December 15, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) passed an agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that will bypass traditional job protections in the name of giving more autonomy to local schools.
The measure was passed by seventy percent of voting union members. However, with over 16,000 of the union’s 35,600 members abstaining, only 38 percent of membership actually voted in favor of the deal.
The agreement, known as the “School Stabilization and Empowerment Initiative,” replaces the previous “Public School Choice Initiative,” which had allowed private companies and outside operators to convert new or existing schools to charters. Instead, the new initiative allows only in-district applicants to assume control, with UTLA serving as an administrative adviser.
One of America’s last remaining tuition-free universities, New York City’s Cooper Union, has announced plans to change its policy and begin charging its 900-member student body to attend classes.
Admissions to the art and engineering institution is highly sought after, not in the least due to the full tuition scholarship of $35,000 per year that is awarded to all undergraduate students. Founded upon the principle that education should be accessible to all regardless of means, Cooper Union has maintained a free tuition policy for over 100 years.
Several hundred students at the University of California, Davis participated in protests on Monday in opposition to tuition increases and the pepper spraying of peaceful protesters earlier this month.
Students on campus have set up an Occupy encampment to protest social inequality and spiraling tuition, including plans by the UC Regents to increase fees by as much as 81 percent over four years. The average annual tuition is already $13,181, twice what it was five years ago. Many working-class students are simply being priced out of a quality college education.
The attack on public education is now being overseen by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, who, together with the state legislature, has overseen a new round of punishing austerity measures in the most recent budget.
On November 16, California State University trustees meeting at California State University, Long Beach approved a 9 percent increase in tuition and fees. Students, furious at another round of increases, confronted the trustees and forced them to reconvene at an alternate site, where they passed the fee hike.
The increase of $498 will bring student costs to $5,970 per year. If one were to include the average campus fees of $1,047, the total, not including books or housing, rises to $7,017. The California State system has 412,000 students. Last year, the University lost some 10,000 students who could no longer afford to attend, and there is no end to fee hikes in sight.
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