I cannot understand why States are firing/laying off teachers and

[ensho]

closing/cutting down on school classes.

Its madness!

why are parents letting them do it?

public schools should be the LAST place cuts are made.

has everyone gone mad?

[Blue_Roses]

1. link?

[ensho]

3. no link - just my thoughts on the subject

nt

[conscious evolution]

7. Link here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7894521&mesg_id=7894521 :hide:

[ensho]

11. lol

nt

[dkf]

2. Nothing left to cut

What would you suggest?

[ensho]

6. I don't believe there is nothing left to cut

the only citizens who are sacrificing are the kids.

[BR_Parkway]

13. So lay them off and pay them unemployment instead? Maybe we

should look at how funding is being given to the states

[NightWatcher]

4. $ the states are not getting tax $, so they are cutting education $

the parents do not want their property taxes raised so they go along with it.


and yes, we have all gone mad

[MUAD_DIB]

20. We could probably draw a strait line between the tax ills of today

with the Bush tax cuts for the rich of the aughts.


Those have certainly piddled down on all of us.

[Pirate Smile]

5. No $$$.

[ensho]

8. good grief - 40 to 50% of kids aren't graduating as it is

what kind of a future will the kids have being undereducated?

[no_hypocrisy]

9. First * cut taxes federally, so no federal dollars to the states.

Then states had loss of revenue (read, taxes), pension problems, and no dollars to give to the individual municipalities to subsidize public education.

The municipalities are strapped for cash too. New Jersey has the country's highest property taxes. People can't afford to stay in their homes. So raising property taxes is out.

Therefore, communities are laying off teachers and selling schools. Retired teachers' pensions are in peril as they have not been funded in some cases for several years.

[NoNothing]

10. Well one reason is that

There aren't as many kids as there used to be. A lot of places, especially larger cities, have way more education infrastructure than they need.

[notadmblnd]

12. I'm thinking union busting.

especially the districts that are firing all the teachers and letting them apply to be rehired.

[Gman2]

14. Modern day equivalent of Reagan firing all the air traffic controllers.

[tranche]

24. No even close.

States are broke, dead broke and the citizenry will not stand for a tax hike.

[Gman2]

27. crisis capitalism. The gov is finally small enough to drown in the bathtub.

[Newest Reality]

15. Well ...

We can't go taxing the wealthy more to benefit society at large, can we? That's not fair!

Wall Street should not have to pay for the education of the masses, nor should corporations, because profit is the most sacred thing on Earth today. The motto for these times should be; "If you can't squeeze maximum profits out of it and nonchalantly leave the corpse behind, it isn't worthwhile or valuable at all!"

Besides, the looming question is, just what are we educating the cretins in the lower classes for? All they need to know is how to take orders, some simple math, and throw in some reading and they are all set to potentially join what's left of a slave economy when the graduate.

No sense getting their hopes or skills up when the future is being cast as a reservation for a small, upper-percentile group, ey?

Things are changing ... maybe we should change our perspectives, expectations, lifestyles, etc., too? Oh, that's terrifying for many ... forget I said that.

"Oh,Brave New World, it's wonders to behold!"

[jody]

16. Depending upon a state's balanced budget amendment, school cuts may be necessary after less critical

public services are reduced.

[asjr]

17. What happened to the states? This did

not occur overnight! Did anyone predict this in the years 2001-2008? I realize in most instances this country was asleep at the wheel because no one was in charge of domestic problems--just had to go to war to please certain people. Are we all really that stupid!!?

[Winterblues]

18. MAD...that's "mutual assured destruction" isn't it?

So yes America has indeed gone MAD.

[eShirl]

19. Welcome to the United States of Madness.

[Xolodno]

21. The Los Angeles Mayor....

...was on the radio this morning doing an interview (while he was pushing for funds in Washington for Transportation projects) and he stated that what they did in Kansas may have to be done in LA.

People have been demanding cuts rather than tax increases....well, as they are elected officials, they are going to give exactly what the people want. You reap what you sow.

[shraby]

22. Every since I can remember, when state/local budgets

get tight, the first thing they threaten the taxpayer with is the schools. Always!!

[earthside]

23. The 'Great Recession'

The reality is this ... there isn't any economic recovery.

Indeed, we are sinking and sinking into a deflationary depression.

No matter how the government manipulates statistics to show growing GDP, the fact is that tax revenue collections in the municipalities and states are down because people don't have jobs, because they owe too much on their mortgages or credit cards, and/or they are just plain tapped out.

Closing schools is the hard, concrete proof that the 'good news' statistics lie -- there isn't any money.

I wish Obama and the folks in Congress would embrace the reality instead of hoping and spinning for a 'recovery' -- and then they could actually deal with our systemic problems: the super rich don't pay enough taxes, the military is a money sucking machine, the banks and the stock market are rigged against working people, too many jobs are still going overseas, too much immigration (legal and illegal) is drive down wages, so on and so forth.

But I see pretty much business and politics as usual in Washington ... meanwhile schools are being closed because the politicians just cannot reject their corporate campaign contributors and make the real changes we need.

[tranche]

25. +1 spot on

[Javaman]

26. We are entering into a new dark ages.

notice how the crazy end of religion is now taking center stage?

All you need then is to take away education.

The dumb slides up and the smart slides down.

It's been happening slowly for awhile anyway, but with the whole sale firing and closing of schools thus increasing class sizes thus straining budgets thus forcing unqualified people to home school their kids, we are on a nice ride to the bottom.

What floats? Little rocks?

[Xithras]

28. There's also a population age shift, the elephant in the room..

Where I live, they're closing schools left and right. Not just because of budget cuts, but because of a HUGE decline in enrollment across the board.

From the late 1980's, peaking in 1990, and tailing off by about 1993, the U.S. experienced what demographers sometimes call the late Echo Boom, but what was really the peak of the Gen Y baby boom that started around 1980 (for some reason, the boom started slowly, and then spiked from the late 80's to the early 90's). Following the end of the echo boom in 1994-ish, birthrates fell nationwide and remained down ever since (except for a brief spike in 1999-2000 when hundreds of thousands of people really did try to have "millenium babies").

The first babies born in this boomlet started exiting the public school system in 2003, and the babies born at the 1991 peak graduated in 2008. The remaining boomlet kids are rapidly graduating out of the public school system, and ALL of them who are still in the schools are now in high school and will graduate out within the next few years. By 2013, they will be out of the schools, and the overall number of schoolchildren nationwide will have dropped by something like 15-17% from its peak in 2003 (a nationwide reduction of something like 18 million students, IIRC). That's 17% less schools needed. 17% less teachers needed, 17% less buses needed, etc. On a national scale that work out to HUNDREDS of schools and TENS of THOUSANDS of teachers, staffers, and bus drivers that simply aren't needed anymore.

Based on current national population growth rates, we'll be back at the previous child population levels in another 10-15 years, and we'll rapidly exceed it once the boomlet kids start having children of their own en masse, but in the meantime we're in the initial phases of a nationwide lull in our school age population. Because most states fund schools based on enrollment, this is hitting the public school systems hard.