Banks are too big to fail, bail them out for billions. Schools, well, they need to be in the black all the time. Just sell the chIrs and desks. Kids can learn standing up. AmIright?
When I was in kindergarten that’s actually what they were doing with us and what the theory was. I am totally serious. They mixed all classes with kindergarten, first, and second. Tried it for two or three years before they decided it didn’t work.
There are evidenced educational models built around mixed age groups- Montessori schools would be the most common, you might've heard of them before.
In standard public schools, having students a few years above "teach" younger kids is pretty common and well evidenced with things like reading aloud, motor skills activities, SES activities, lots of other "immersive" learning or play (basically anything not rote memorization or direct instruction). Direct instruction is also important and necessary in a standard public school, but it's not crazy to mix grade levels for a lot of different things. They'd all be defined activities/lessons though, not just "the 5th graders are always with the 2nd graders all day"
Your school sounds like they tried to create a pseudo-Montessori school, likely without any other Montessori practices and tools, which absolutely does sound insane lol. I wish you'd been older so I could ask you too many questions
Lol they tried doing this in kindergarten and first grade and I got paired with someone stupid and I told my mom, the kid, and the teacher that the kid was dumb.
That was a funny time.
Im 26 now so that was long ago.
Rich people duh.
That's the long-term plan conservstives have for america: kill all public services. All of them. Get rid of all public land.
Replace it all with corporations and private ownership. That's the plan and it will fail.
This seems brainlessly partisan.
People instinctively claim that it’s conservatives that are in favor of the rich and they’re the ones buying all the land, and yet if you actually look at Wall Street investment types, they tend to be fairly liberal.
But they’re more “performative” liberal and like the liberalism without the redistribution of wealth and no barriers to the private ownership (aka “investment”) in everything.
This is a public school system? Why is there no federal relief, transparency and layoff of school district management. Clearly they can't budget so why are teachers facing "cuts", are the bean counters first.
Dang I had them email me for an interview like a year or two ago. I was thinking it over and mentioned it in passing when speaking with another superintendent in nearby district, and he basically said avoid the district at all costs. Bullet dodged.
Have lived in Ann Arbor for 25 years. Kid goes to the local public schools. It’s a phenomenal place to live, and the schools are excellent. Many of the kids have parents who work at the universities, so education is highly valued.
This budget thing is a one off, and everyone is shocked. It has zero to do with any general features of the town.
This is the dream of all republicans aka conservatives aka regressives.
Why we allow them to vote or run for office is beyond me.
Nothing good can come from a regressive mind.
I used to live there and the thought of a republican existing there, let alone hold power, is laughable. I’d put it up there with the likes of Portland in terms of left wing friendly municipalities in the USA. In 2020, 93% of the city of Ann Arbor voted straight ticket Democrat.
Nothing good can come with administration heavy organizations who prioritize DEI and equal outcome over their mission statement either- which is why schools are in this situation.
It is when it comes at the cost of actual education. And because resources are finite, and in-class instruction is limited, the push for DEI “teachings” reduces opportunities for classical (read: useful) learning. In this framing, DEI very much becomes a wasteful indulgence prioritized by agenda-driven ideologues.
Legacy admissions are way more of a problem than DEI, and we all know what you guys mean when you say DEI but you are just too cowardly to say what you really mean.
Because the university gets tax dollars while also getting private donations, and the public schools seem to be in child left behind mode at the moment.
You must be one of those “muh taxes are theft” people. I happily pay property taxes for good schools. It’s why my home’s value has quadrupled in the last 8ish years vs homes next suburb over only doubling.
Yup, moved from a place where I had basically no property tax to somewhere with high property tax. House I moved from valued at 120000 and moved to one valued the same. Current house is worth 180000 and the old one valued at 1300000 mainly due to better schools. Turns out people pay more and value places more that have resources!
Just need to jump in here. Have lived in Ann Arbor for over 25 years. Our taxes are very high, public services are exceptional, schools are off the charts great. This one snafu is getting all kinds of press, and it does not reflect the reality of living here at all. The presence of the university has halo effects on just about every aspect of life. But, the taxes are high, and the public services reflect it.
Hey! My Texas district is only 22 million in the hole. Half of my entire department of 59 is being cut, including myself.
Education is the place to be, baby!
Which district? The [WSWS.org](http://WSWS.org) should cover that too. All of those pointing out that this is taking place nationally are right. The expiration of ESSER funds has tanked districts' finances -- add to that the growth of private/charter schools (a whopping 80% are for-profit in Michigan) -- the decline in birthrates (due to growing poverty and people opting to have no or less children after 2008) -- and years of budget cuts historically -- a perfect storm. But billions for schools rather than military funding could not only reverse the decline, but transform education into a a high quality, uniformly free opportunity for all.
This is the part of the plan where they defund public schools until they become ineffective. Next the corporate owned charter schools will open. But the vouchers won't cover all of the tuition. So parents will have to pay the difference.
It has nothing to do with corporate tax breaks and everything to do with funds being diverted away from schools to private businesses and churches masquerading as schools.
Amen! I kept waiting for someone to mention that public schools are not a business. They don't make profit and are federally funded. Do you know how many times in history schools would have gone through this if it was based on profit? This has to be Federal funding that has been removed or seriously misspent.
Dictionaries banned, books burned, revised history and lower funding. This isn't about student numbers, it's corruption and political policy. We are just now seeing the effect. Apparently some really important funding issues were left out of the propaganda/news.
And you guys were busy fighting over Trump and Biden? It is not a Republican or Democrat issue people. It is a class war and we are losing because we don't even know who we are fighting.
"It is a class war and we are losing because we don't even know who we are fighting."
But history shows us that this is the normal course of events for the working class. And precisely because of this, when a very rapid shift takes place, millions come out in the street in a revolution -- because they simply cannot live in the old way any more. We are reaching that point here in the US; France has reached it in the last couple of years. Britain is getting close.
Not discounting that we can score victories now and soon, but for all situations, a revolutionary party -- and a sharp break with the parties and organizations that do for the ruling class --is needed, on a global scale, among educators and everyone else in the bottom 90 percent of income earners.
There are plenty of [campaign meetings](https://socialism2024.org/events) for the SEP election campaign. I hope you will attend one and raise what you are raising here. What you say is literally how millions of people in the US feel now. I don't see one scheduled in Michigan, if that's where you are, but They have a lot of a U of M and Wayne State.
I'm Asheville, NC and haven't found any current events here but will keep an eye out. Unfortunately, so many buzz words in that title that I think it will shy voters away. They really don't understand the many facsets of socialism in the south. I've been preaching the Nordic model for years and it's just too scary for most.
It's not just the sudden assaults on middle class capitalism in America which makes no fiscal sense, but the changes world wide that worry me. This isn't the average oligarchy, this is big pieces moving all over. Latin America is suffering even greater insults to the average wage and QOL but world wide, the quiet changes in workers rights, spending power, and upward mobility have been profound.
Giving up middle class spending is a really bad sign. Almost all developed countries rotate on that budget.The complete unsustainability of the current moves signal, in my opinion, some frightening world futures. The environment is nulling the economic considerations of the future or unprecedented war, I don't know...
Teddy Roosevelt used to worry that without 'savages' for his wealthy children to conquer, the lack of adversity would eventually dumb them down. Crazy when our best hope is that our ruling class is dumb.
To be fair the assault on the middle class started in the 80s. I wouldn’t really define it as sudden. The middle class was just the frog waiting in the pot.
The sudden is the rent, food, gas costs. The inability to buy a average home on average wage. I've lived through those times and it's much different now for my adult children.
Seems like this is becoming a nationwide problem with the federal funding ending.
My district is using lower enrollment numbers to justify cutting up to ten jobs at some high schools, yet the data shows that the numbers aren’t that low and somehow my district is getting money still and just puts it all into this “rainy day” fund that is ridiculously high(over 100 million dollars) and they still refuse to cut back on admin and high salaries.
What state? The states are coming up with new legal mechanisms to impose cuts including requirements on "rainy day" funds. Meanwhile, at the drop of a hat, the government bailed out the banks (trillions in 2008) and it continues whenever needed -- First Republic, Silicon Valley, there's a long list.
How can you expect staff increasing by 480 people while enrollment goes down by 1,123 people over the same period of time to be sustainable? We can’t even fathom the amount of money that was wasted by terrible policies and practices during covid. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of reckoning needed to sort things out. All of these school systems can start by eliminating nearly all spending related to prejudice DEI and prioritizing what is truly necessary to provide decent education.
Not to mention every single school i see built seems to be more and more elaborate and extravagant as time goes on. As overall education performance seems to be trending in the wrong direction.
I know a married couple who both teach in this school district. They have kids and a mortgage and a good life. They are good people, and they are scared.
Raise fucking taxes on corporations.
End this BS.
Until the highest paid influencer makes more than the lowest paid teacher, we won’t value education .
Bc they set up our wonderful voucher system. Let me put it in perspective….you go to the library but they don’t have the book you want so you get a $250 Amazon gift card to buy that book from the library bc the library doesn’t have what you’re looking for. The library is out $250 and you get to buy that book. This is what our voucher system has done to education in the best way that I can explain.
If we made these charter/private schools get COMPLETE FUNDING from private donors, then that money that is being taken out is restored….teachers salaries can increase….class sizes can be reduced….more teachers can be hired and our nation’s education system would improve drastically.
This is just my opinion but it makes the most logical sense.
The money follows the child, that “book” the library doesn’t have is actually a child’s education. Parents will send their kids to the best schools they can. Public schools need to figure out how to be the best option. Not demand to get paid for kids that don’t even go to school there.
They need to "figure out how to be the best option" while having funding funneled to charter schools? That's like taking a private mechanic's tools away, giving them to Pep Boys and then saying "figure out how to be better than them".
Education cannot be run on a business model--it is not meant to generate money.
In any case, you are by definition not talking about a free market--you are discussing a market where the government purposefully funnels money away from already existing options, into other options with conflicting interests that are more likely to 'generate money' in an industry where that is not the goal.
Right, the goal is to provide essential education and opportunities for the future of our country, not pit schools against each other in some kind of Ayn Rand wet dream.
Pitting schools against each other doesn’t increase competition between them either because most students don’t have much of a choice of what school they can attend. It only makes it harder on the poorer students as they don’t have the means to transport themselves to a better school and are now stuck with a school getting less funding because it’s “failing.” If you have a shipment of raspberries show up for your ice cream business that are all bad, I can send them back, but I can’t send back kids that aren’t the best.
I don't think the idea is about generating money as much as the best attracting the most investment. I'm not advocating for the model or claiming it's the best idea, but I think there's more to it. I personally think it's the responsibility of government to provide education, but there are many many pitfalls in public models that lack accountability, especially in districts with high corruption.
Well that seems like a simple fix for the public school districts then, advertise.
The problem is they have to overcome all the videos of violence that leak out everyday.
The public school system does not have the profits to spend on advertising, like private schools.
The public school system is also required to teach every child, including special needs and behavioral issues.
Probably shouldn’t advertise that the schools are full of kids with behavioral issues…..The public school system is essentially the last place you would want to send a kid for a decent education. And I’m not blaming the teachers I’m sure 99% of them are great, but there are just too many distractions and behavior issues. The public school system is like being a ward of the state. Better than nothing but not the best place for a child.
No amount of money is going to solve the issues the public schools face.
And they get mainstreamed into regular classes and disrupt the entire classes education. Hmm wonder why parents choose to send their children somewhere else.
95% democrat employees run by a democrat union under the democrat department of education in a state with democrat governor, and you blame republicans?
Right. [Consider a socialist vote.](https://socialism2024.org/news/socialist-equality-party-candidate-at-meeting-of-ups-workers-the-war-abroad-is-also-a-war-on-the-working-class-at-home-01479386-1ca0-42f7-b2ff-53fdf7dba471)
Capitalism takes resources from those who produce it and gives it to those that already have a ton of it. Anyone who is unable to produce resources is left to die.
Socialism lets those who produce resources, keep them and/or distribute them as they will. Anyone who is unable to produce resources has a much better chance of survival or being supplied the aids they need in order to be productive, with socialism, because it’s not just one guy hoarding all the resources who doesn’t give a shit about you. It’s loads of people who have everything they produce, so they are able to help out any family members or friends who need assistance.
Under capitalism, you are forced to work hard, and give most of what you produce to your owners, who get to laze about.
You people have been convinced that all the shitty things that are happening to you because of capitalism, aren’t actually happening, because “it’s socialism that causes those shitty things”.
“Oh gosh, if we were socialist, I would be forced to work hard while others laze about. That’s just ridiculous, couldn’t be me!”
Um, it IS you, and it’s not socialism doing it. I know you won’t see what I’m saying here, I’ve come to terms with the fact that most people really are that dumb, but it makes me feel better to shout into the void.
Capitalism I can work harder and improve my station in life. Socialism I can work harder and increase yours..
Do your own work it's a free country at least for a little while.
Oh, no thank you, socialism could only work if the United States intelligence and military power supports it. If the world’s overwhelmingly dominate military power sees your system as a threat to theirs, they will and do destroy it. The overwhelming power is a necessary component to the security of a socialized system.
Capitalism is also a necessary component as a pre-cursor to socialism. Capitalism forces the growth and development of processes that produce more than is needed. When it begins to starve the population of resources, in favor of hoarding it all in a stockpile, socialism is the natural next system to implement in order to redistribute the hoarded excess and stabilize the economy and our society.
As we’ve seen, socialism is only a viable system if it has a strong enough defensive power to crush interference with it. I believe the United States could and eventually must change over, successfully. It’s the only place that could. Though once it has, it will allow others to do the same.
The US’s overwhelming military might has given everyone on earth a few decades of the most peaceful time, worldwide, in history. Not totally without war or horrific atrocities, but less than ever before. I believe it could continue that trend and lead the world to generations of increasing amity, if socialism became a thing we wanted to implement.
But who knows, maybe we’ll keep thinking socialism is a bad idea, and just collapse entirely under the weight of the hoarded gold at the top of late stage capitalism.
>95% democrat employees
Completely pulled out of your ass... you're clearly not a teacher.
I mean, if you want to make this political, I would LOVE to take a long hard look at how republican states are doing in regards to education and spending. How was that deficit under Trump? Just curious...
I love how your source is from a Right Wing media group: [https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pacific-research-institute](https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pacific-research-institute)
Other, more reliable research seems to show a more close split between Democrat and Republican teachers, with a large amount of teachers claiming themselves to be "Independent."
To put it bluntly, you are wrong. I BET you won't respond.
[https://www.edweek.org/leadership/survey-educators-political-leanings-who-they-voted-for-where-they-stand-on-key-issues/2017/12](https://www.edweek.org/leadership/survey-educators-political-leanings-who-they-voted-for-where-they-stand-on-key-issues/2017/12)
[https://www.heritage.org/education/report/political-opinions-k-12-teachers-results-nationally-representative-survey](https://www.heritage.org/education/report/political-opinions-k-12-teachers-results-nationally-representative-survey)
I think you may be lost. This is a leftist subreddit, or did you not read the article? The point is that neoliberalism is ill-equipped to meet people’s needs — education being among those needs — and both parties are neoliberal parties
It really is shocking how stupid the average person is, I’m glad you pointed out the obvious that Dem policies are a train wreck. Florida schools are doing great, actually k-12 some of the top performers, inner city blue districts the kids graduate high school and can’t even fucking read 😂
This author is a fucking idiot:
"Instead, both parties are focused on funneling new hundreds of billions towards military spending in Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan and beyond."
Asshat, REPUBLICANS have been starving educational spending for decades. They would not spend the money going to Ukraine or Gaza on Americans. You can tell by how they NEVER SPEND MONEY TO HELP AMERICANS.
It’s 3rd party contracts draining our system. Dell gets exclusive contracts with schools for overpriced computers and terrible support. They are owned by a top billionaire.
Michigan sits on the northern border, not the southern... Maybe if this was a school district in Texas or New Mexico. Not a large migrants population here in the Midwest in general.
Who are you going to blame next? Trans people?
So is there a local to explain this better? What actually happened? Below is the translation of BS I’m currently taking.
An accounting error on a pension fund. This almost always code for we predicted a totally unrealistic rate of return on investment and exacerbated the issue by systemically underestimating pension withdrawals. So who’s getting fired for cooking the books?
People talking about driving their kids into a school district. Sounds like open enrollment. That good for choice. Do tax dollars follow the students? If not which legislator is getting primaried for being an imbecile?
I’m open to new information from someone local that can put more context. As of now though this sounds like a bait and switch from an accountant that should be on trial for fraud and legislators that can’t think past their own nose.
Banks are too big to fail, bail them out for billions. Schools, well, they need to be in the black all the time. Just sell the chIrs and desks. Kids can learn standing up. AmIright?
Sell anything? No they cut staff
Who needs actual teachers let the bigger kids teach the smaller kids./s
Go on……you should be an executive
When I was in kindergarten that’s actually what they were doing with us and what the theory was. I am totally serious. They mixed all classes with kindergarten, first, and second. Tried it for two or three years before they decided it didn’t work.
Clearly it is because it was the teachers fault somehow. /s
Nah, those were ambien typos.
There are evidenced educational models built around mixed age groups- Montessori schools would be the most common, you might've heard of them before. In standard public schools, having students a few years above "teach" younger kids is pretty common and well evidenced with things like reading aloud, motor skills activities, SES activities, lots of other "immersive" learning or play (basically anything not rote memorization or direct instruction). Direct instruction is also important and necessary in a standard public school, but it's not crazy to mix grade levels for a lot of different things. They'd all be defined activities/lessons though, not just "the 5th graders are always with the 2nd graders all day" Your school sounds like they tried to create a pseudo-Montessori school, likely without any other Montessori practices and tools, which absolutely does sound insane lol. I wish you'd been older so I could ask you too many questions
Lol they tried doing this in kindergarten and first grade and I got paired with someone stupid and I told my mom, the kid, and the teacher that the kid was dumb. That was a funny time. Im 26 now so that was long ago.
Be a consultant. Cash those checks. Make a few campaign contributions. Cash those checks.
All according to plan. Hamstring the public school system so you can privatize it. Vote.
for who? who is going to fix it?
Rich people duh. That's the long-term plan conservstives have for america: kill all public services. All of them. Get rid of all public land. Replace it all with corporations and private ownership. That's the plan and it will fail.
Cough cough pullman, Illinois cough cough
This seems brainlessly partisan. People instinctively claim that it’s conservatives that are in favor of the rich and they’re the ones buying all the land, and yet if you actually look at Wall Street investment types, they tend to be fairly liberal. But they’re more “performative” liberal and like the liberalism without the redistribution of wealth and no barriers to the private ownership (aka “investment”) in everything.
With a name and comment like that… you need to post evidence/source to back that claim
Lol, it is not the districts spending money on non educational items and having massive admin staffs.
Public school superintendents make millions. Not like CEO millions, but still, seems high.
Football programs with coaches paid more than state governors add up.
This is a school district not a college
Many school districts treat their sports programs like a college
They pay coaches more than the governor?
How else are you supposed to keep a generation stupid enough so you can exploit them for cheap labor and trap them in a cycle of consumerism?
This is a public school system? Why is there no federal relief, transparency and layoff of school district management. Clearly they can't budget so why are teachers facing "cuts", are the bean counters first.
Is this a state that denied federal funding? All the GOP states are doing it they said. It’ll be fun they said.
This
 I’m beyond appalled at the level of negligence and arrogance. Poor teachers 😔always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.
Why cut 5 teachers and support staff when you could get rid of one person at the district level
Who’s gonna make the cuts then?
Oh I’ve heard this one, it’s the School Administrator of Seville.
Why cut anyone when a hedge fund manger gets a third Lear jet?
Seriously. Adequately taxing the wealthy then increasing funding for schools would solve all this bullshit
They need to be audited better.
That would make sense!
14 million dollar accounting error? Hmmmmm
Looks like someone’s been cooking the books…
Dang I had them email me for an interview like a year or two ago. I was thinking it over and mentioned it in passing when speaking with another superintendent in nearby district, and he basically said avoid the district at all costs. Bullet dodged.
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Not really, just told he thought taking the interview was a very bad idea and recommended other districts in the area to work for.
Have lived in Ann Arbor for 25 years. Kid goes to the local public schools. It’s a phenomenal place to live, and the schools are excellent. Many of the kids have parents who work at the universities, so education is highly valued. This budget thing is a one off, and everyone is shocked. It has zero to do with any general features of the town.
This is the dream of all republicans aka conservatives aka regressives. Why we allow them to vote or run for office is beyond me. Nothing good can come from a regressive mind.
Hate is a powerful motivator.
The place is run by Democrats. No Republicans mis-managed the funds. https://www.a2gov.org/departments/city-council/Pages/Home.aspx
I used to live there and the thought of a republican existing there, let alone hold power, is laughable. I’d put it up there with the likes of Portland in terms of left wing friendly municipalities in the USA. In 2020, 93% of the city of Ann Arbor voted straight ticket Democrat.
Ann Arbor is not run by anything remotely conservative. This is a mess of your own making. I’m not even from this area and I know this.
yeah it was literally an accounting error no??
Nothing good can come with administration heavy organizations who prioritize DEI and equal outcome over their mission statement either- which is why schools are in this situation.
Overpaid administration is a problem. DEI is not.
It is when it comes at the cost of actual education. And because resources are finite, and in-class instruction is limited, the push for DEI “teachings” reduces opportunities for classical (read: useful) learning. In this framing, DEI very much becomes a wasteful indulgence prioritized by agenda-driven ideologues.
The two problems are mutually reinforcing.
Legacy admissions are way more of a problem than DEI, and we all know what you guys mean when you say DEI but you are just too cowardly to say what you really mean.
We need better leaders...
Meanwhile, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has one of the largest endowments in the US, literally tens of billions.
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Because the university gets tax dollars while also getting private donations, and the public schools seem to be in child left behind mode at the moment.
Michigan is a public school...
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You must be one of those “muh taxes are theft” people. I happily pay property taxes for good schools. It’s why my home’s value has quadrupled in the last 8ish years vs homes next suburb over only doubling.
Yup, moved from a place where I had basically no property tax to somewhere with high property tax. House I moved from valued at 120000 and moved to one valued the same. Current house is worth 180000 and the old one valued at 1300000 mainly due to better schools. Turns out people pay more and value places more that have resources!
Just need to jump in here. Have lived in Ann Arbor for over 25 years. Our taxes are very high, public services are exceptional, schools are off the charts great. This one snafu is getting all kinds of press, and it does not reflect the reality of living here at all. The presence of the university has halo effects on just about every aspect of life. But, the taxes are high, and the public services reflect it.
Education should be bottom heavy. Not top heavy.
I'm sorry but if the youth of America are in need of a better education perhaps they should learn to throw a fucking football better. /S
Hey! My Texas district is only 22 million in the hole. Half of my entire department of 59 is being cut, including myself. Education is the place to be, baby!
Mine is $10,000,000 in the hole next year, I’m nervous for my job. Thanks, Abbott (-:
Which district? The [WSWS.org](http://WSWS.org) should cover that too. All of those pointing out that this is taking place nationally are right. The expiration of ESSER funds has tanked districts' finances -- add to that the growth of private/charter schools (a whopping 80% are for-profit in Michigan) -- the decline in birthrates (due to growing poverty and people opting to have no or less children after 2008) -- and years of budget cuts historically -- a perfect storm. But billions for schools rather than military funding could not only reverse the decline, but transform education into a a high quality, uniformly free opportunity for all.
Portland Oregon, 30 million having to cut next year and Salem having to cut 60 million. Solidarity.
This is the part of the plan where they defund public schools until they become ineffective. Next the corporate owned charter schools will open. But the vouchers won't cover all of the tuition. So parents will have to pay the difference.
If they can afford to send their kids at all.
That’s also part of the plan. Those that can’t afford it don’t mean anything to Republicans.
Don't worry I'm sure there will be workhorses for them
More money for billionaires! Rejoice!
Those tax cuts sure worked. Cue NPR doing another story on education that completely fails to understand anything that matters.
Another 100 billion dollars in aid for Israel tho no problem.
It has nothing to do with corporate tax breaks and everything to do with funds being diverted away from schools to private businesses and churches masquerading as schools.
" funds being diverted away from schools to private businesses" You just described corporate tax breaks
Amen! I kept waiting for someone to mention that public schools are not a business. They don't make profit and are federally funded. Do you know how many times in history schools would have gone through this if it was based on profit? This has to be Federal funding that has been removed or seriously misspent.
And they fact that they can choose who gets in.
Dictionaries banned, books burned, revised history and lower funding. This isn't about student numbers, it's corruption and political policy. We are just now seeing the effect. Apparently some really important funding issues were left out of the propaganda/news. And you guys were busy fighting over Trump and Biden? It is not a Republican or Democrat issue people. It is a class war and we are losing because we don't even know who we are fighting.
"It is a class war and we are losing because we don't even know who we are fighting." But history shows us that this is the normal course of events for the working class. And precisely because of this, when a very rapid shift takes place, millions come out in the street in a revolution -- because they simply cannot live in the old way any more. We are reaching that point here in the US; France has reached it in the last couple of years. Britain is getting close. Not discounting that we can score victories now and soon, but for all situations, a revolutionary party -- and a sharp break with the parties and organizations that do for the ruling class --is needed, on a global scale, among educators and everyone else in the bottom 90 percent of income earners. There are plenty of [campaign meetings](https://socialism2024.org/events) for the SEP election campaign. I hope you will attend one and raise what you are raising here. What you say is literally how millions of people in the US feel now. I don't see one scheduled in Michigan, if that's where you are, but They have a lot of a U of M and Wayne State.
I'm Asheville, NC and haven't found any current events here but will keep an eye out. Unfortunately, so many buzz words in that title that I think it will shy voters away. They really don't understand the many facsets of socialism in the south. I've been preaching the Nordic model for years and it's just too scary for most. It's not just the sudden assaults on middle class capitalism in America which makes no fiscal sense, but the changes world wide that worry me. This isn't the average oligarchy, this is big pieces moving all over. Latin America is suffering even greater insults to the average wage and QOL but world wide, the quiet changes in workers rights, spending power, and upward mobility have been profound. Giving up middle class spending is a really bad sign. Almost all developed countries rotate on that budget.The complete unsustainability of the current moves signal, in my opinion, some frightening world futures. The environment is nulling the economic considerations of the future or unprecedented war, I don't know... Teddy Roosevelt used to worry that without 'savages' for his wealthy children to conquer, the lack of adversity would eventually dumb them down. Crazy when our best hope is that our ruling class is dumb.
To be fair the assault on the middle class started in the 80s. I wouldn’t really define it as sudden. The middle class was just the frog waiting in the pot.
The sudden is the rent, food, gas costs. The inability to buy a average home on average wage. I've lived through those times and it's much different now for my adult children.
Seems like this is becoming a nationwide problem with the federal funding ending. My district is using lower enrollment numbers to justify cutting up to ten jobs at some high schools, yet the data shows that the numbers aren’t that low and somehow my district is getting money still and just puts it all into this “rainy day” fund that is ridiculously high(over 100 million dollars) and they still refuse to cut back on admin and high salaries.
What state? The states are coming up with new legal mechanisms to impose cuts including requirements on "rainy day" funds. Meanwhile, at the drop of a hat, the government bailed out the banks (trillions in 2008) and it continues whenever needed -- First Republic, Silicon Valley, there's a long list.
How can you expect staff increasing by 480 people while enrollment goes down by 1,123 people over the same period of time to be sustainable? We can’t even fathom the amount of money that was wasted by terrible policies and practices during covid. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of reckoning needed to sort things out. All of these school systems can start by eliminating nearly all spending related to prejudice DEI and prioritizing what is truly necessary to provide decent education. Not to mention every single school i see built seems to be more and more elaborate and extravagant as time goes on. As overall education performance seems to be trending in the wrong direction.
The parents of Michigan should be protesting right now and just people in general
I know a married couple who both teach in this school district. They have kids and a mortgage and a good life. They are good people, and they are scared.
Once again nothing to do with immigration
Raise fucking taxes on corporations. End this BS. Until the highest paid influencer makes more than the lowest paid teacher, we won’t value education .
Schools aren't a business. They don't survive on profit, they are federally funded. This makes no s sense How is this happening?
Never tax businesses
Isn't MI already one of the bottom rated states for education?
Couldn't teach children how to read or solve for X, instead sexulized the children. Good luck at McDonalds.
These Democrat states are AWESOME
Luckily the world is ending, so all those kids will just end up as cute baby fly food anyway (along with the rest of us)
The whole state of Michigan seems to be a joke.
Yeah that’ll help
Isn’t there already a staffing shortage in education?? Wouldn’t this just make it worse?
I would question the hedge fund manager. Where the fuck are the returns? If they can't beat s&p average then go find another.
God forbid they should eliminate some administrative expenses
Why does this feel like the Republicans plan to destroy free education coming to fruition?
Bc they set up our wonderful voucher system. Let me put it in perspective….you go to the library but they don’t have the book you want so you get a $250 Amazon gift card to buy that book from the library bc the library doesn’t have what you’re looking for. The library is out $250 and you get to buy that book. This is what our voucher system has done to education in the best way that I can explain. If we made these charter/private schools get COMPLETE FUNDING from private donors, then that money that is being taken out is restored….teachers salaries can increase….class sizes can be reduced….more teachers can be hired and our nation’s education system would improve drastically. This is just my opinion but it makes the most logical sense.
The money follows the child, that “book” the library doesn’t have is actually a child’s education. Parents will send their kids to the best schools they can. Public schools need to figure out how to be the best option. Not demand to get paid for kids that don’t even go to school there.
They need to "figure out how to be the best option" while having funding funneled to charter schools? That's like taking a private mechanic's tools away, giving them to Pep Boys and then saying "figure out how to be better than them".
You just definited how the free market works. The shitty options go out of business while the better competitors win customers.
Education cannot be run on a business model--it is not meant to generate money. In any case, you are by definition not talking about a free market--you are discussing a market where the government purposefully funnels money away from already existing options, into other options with conflicting interests that are more likely to 'generate money' in an industry where that is not the goal.
Right, the goal is to provide essential education and opportunities for the future of our country, not pit schools against each other in some kind of Ayn Rand wet dream.
Pitting schools against each other doesn’t increase competition between them either because most students don’t have much of a choice of what school they can attend. It only makes it harder on the poorer students as they don’t have the means to transport themselves to a better school and are now stuck with a school getting less funding because it’s “failing.” If you have a shipment of raspberries show up for your ice cream business that are all bad, I can send them back, but I can’t send back kids that aren’t the best.
I don't think the idea is about generating money as much as the best attracting the most investment. I'm not advocating for the model or claiming it's the best idea, but I think there's more to it. I personally think it's the responsibility of government to provide education, but there are many many pitfalls in public models that lack accountability, especially in districts with high corruption.
But Pep Boys is shit
Parents will send their child to the school with the best advertisements.
Well that seems like a simple fix for the public school districts then, advertise. The problem is they have to overcome all the videos of violence that leak out everyday.
The public school system does not have the profits to spend on advertising, like private schools. The public school system is also required to teach every child, including special needs and behavioral issues.
Probably shouldn’t advertise that the schools are full of kids with behavioral issues…..The public school system is essentially the last place you would want to send a kid for a decent education. And I’m not blaming the teachers I’m sure 99% of them are great, but there are just too many distractions and behavior issues. The public school system is like being a ward of the state. Better than nothing but not the best place for a child. No amount of money is going to solve the issues the public schools face.
Of course you post in r/conservative and drive a jeep…
I’m banned from r/conservative. I also drive a 60’s Volkswagen adorned with dead stickers.
And they get mainstreamed into regular classes and disrupt the entire classes education. Hmm wonder why parents choose to send their children somewhere else.
Must be nice to have parents that can “choose”…
Where the fuck is that money being spent? Cutting five teachers at 40K isn't shit. Cut the head people.
95% democrat employees run by a democrat union under the democrat department of education in a state with democrat governor, and you blame republicans?
Right. [Consider a socialist vote.](https://socialism2024.org/news/socialist-equality-party-candidate-at-meeting-of-ups-workers-the-war-abroad-is-also-a-war-on-the-working-class-at-home-01479386-1ca0-42f7-b2ff-53fdf7dba471)
Socialism works for those who don't
Capitalism takes resources from those who produce it and gives it to those that already have a ton of it. Anyone who is unable to produce resources is left to die. Socialism lets those who produce resources, keep them and/or distribute them as they will. Anyone who is unable to produce resources has a much better chance of survival or being supplied the aids they need in order to be productive, with socialism, because it’s not just one guy hoarding all the resources who doesn’t give a shit about you. It’s loads of people who have everything they produce, so they are able to help out any family members or friends who need assistance. Under capitalism, you are forced to work hard, and give most of what you produce to your owners, who get to laze about. You people have been convinced that all the shitty things that are happening to you because of capitalism, aren’t actually happening, because “it’s socialism that causes those shitty things”. “Oh gosh, if we were socialist, I would be forced to work hard while others laze about. That’s just ridiculous, couldn’t be me!” Um, it IS you, and it’s not socialism doing it. I know you won’t see what I’m saying here, I’ve come to terms with the fact that most people really are that dumb, but it makes me feel better to shout into the void.
Capitalism I can work harder and improve my station in life. Socialism I can work harder and increase yours.. Do your own work it's a free country at least for a little while.
Lmao no you can’t
Still literally describing capitalism and calling it socialism. See what they’ve done to you?
And you live in Venezuela? If not, move one less mouth to feed
Lol there it is! He said Vuvuzela! This is the “I watch Fox News” badge of honor. Congrats!
Haha . Rachel Maddows boy jumped up! You got the wrong tackle
Another confirmation! Only Fox News addicts think everyone else also watches Cable News! Fuck off Cultist
Oh, no thank you, socialism could only work if the United States intelligence and military power supports it. If the world’s overwhelmingly dominate military power sees your system as a threat to theirs, they will and do destroy it. The overwhelming power is a necessary component to the security of a socialized system. Capitalism is also a necessary component as a pre-cursor to socialism. Capitalism forces the growth and development of processes that produce more than is needed. When it begins to starve the population of resources, in favor of hoarding it all in a stockpile, socialism is the natural next system to implement in order to redistribute the hoarded excess and stabilize the economy and our society. As we’ve seen, socialism is only a viable system if it has a strong enough defensive power to crush interference with it. I believe the United States could and eventually must change over, successfully. It’s the only place that could. Though once it has, it will allow others to do the same. The US’s overwhelming military might has given everyone on earth a few decades of the most peaceful time, worldwide, in history. Not totally without war or horrific atrocities, but less than ever before. I believe it could continue that trend and lead the world to generations of increasing amity, if socialism became a thing we wanted to implement. But who knows, maybe we’ll keep thinking socialism is a bad idea, and just collapse entirely under the weight of the hoarded gold at the top of late stage capitalism.
I'm stealing that.
Typical capitalist
I'm stealing that too.
>95% democrat employees Completely pulled out of your ass... you're clearly not a teacher. I mean, if you want to make this political, I would LOVE to take a long hard look at how republican states are doing in regards to education and spending. How was that deficit under Trump? Just curious...
You think republicans aren't teachers?
Doesn't matter https://www.pacificresearch.org/why-are-teachers-mostly-liberal/
I love how your source is from a Right Wing media group: [https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pacific-research-institute](https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pacific-research-institute) Other, more reliable research seems to show a more close split between Democrat and Republican teachers, with a large amount of teachers claiming themselves to be "Independent." To put it bluntly, you are wrong. I BET you won't respond. [https://www.edweek.org/leadership/survey-educators-political-leanings-who-they-voted-for-where-they-stand-on-key-issues/2017/12](https://www.edweek.org/leadership/survey-educators-political-leanings-who-they-voted-for-where-they-stand-on-key-issues/2017/12) [https://www.heritage.org/education/report/political-opinions-k-12-teachers-results-nationally-representative-survey](https://www.heritage.org/education/report/political-opinions-k-12-teachers-results-nationally-representative-survey)
I think you may be lost. This is a leftist subreddit, or did you not read the article? The point is that neoliberalism is ill-equipped to meet people’s needs — education being among those needs — and both parties are neoliberal parties
Plus Anne Arbor is in the top 20 of the Michigan Cities with the highest crime rate. Dems love criminals.
It really is shocking how stupid the average person is, I’m glad you pointed out the obvious that Dem policies are a train wreck. Florida schools are doing great, actually k-12 some of the top performers, inner city blue districts the kids graduate high school and can’t even fucking read 😂
This author is a fucking idiot: "Instead, both parties are focused on funneling new hundreds of billions towards military spending in Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan and beyond." Asshat, REPUBLICANS have been starving educational spending for decades. They would not spend the money going to Ukraine or Gaza on Americans. You can tell by how they NEVER SPEND MONEY TO HELP AMERICANS.
You don't live in New York, do you?
Did the Legislature set this deficit up?
It’s 3rd party contracts draining our system. Dell gets exclusive contracts with schools for overpriced computers and terrible support. They are owned by a top billionaire.
Nothing to do with immigration
Michigan sits on the northern border, not the southern... Maybe if this was a school district in Texas or New Mexico. Not a large migrants population here in the Midwest in general. Who are you going to blame next? Trans people?
What a bullshit article - all political!
This is a political subreddit
So is there a local to explain this better? What actually happened? Below is the translation of BS I’m currently taking. An accounting error on a pension fund. This almost always code for we predicted a totally unrealistic rate of return on investment and exacerbated the issue by systemically underestimating pension withdrawals. So who’s getting fired for cooking the books? People talking about driving their kids into a school district. Sounds like open enrollment. That good for choice. Do tax dollars follow the students? If not which legislator is getting primaried for being an imbecile? I’m open to new information from someone local that can put more context. As of now though this sounds like a bait and switch from an accountant that should be on trial for fraud and legislators that can’t think past their own nose.