Thousands gather in Michigan to oppose education cuts
Steve, a social studies teacher at a small Michigan school district, which is laying off 48 teachers, told the WSWS, “That we spend more on prisons than education speaks to where the priorities lie. Now they have reduced the cuts to $200 per pupil—but when you’re operating on nothing, how can we take any cuts?
“It’s frustrating. There is an alternate goal with these politics. They created the Emergency Financial Manager, and it seems like they are only good at creating financial emergencies.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/mich-m23.shtml
Teachers, parents and students protest school cuts in Yonkers
The CSEA is the other major school union in Yonkers, and 238 of its members have received pink slips. The CSEA has said it wants to wait until the city budget is finalized to make its decision about concessions, as they are doing on the state level with Governor Cuomo’s demands.
Last Tuesday evening, hundreds of protestors gathered outside city hall to demonstrate against these cuts, and about 800 people came to the school board meeting the following night at Saunders Trades and Technical High School. However, before those who had turned out could begin to voice opposition to the planned destruction of education in the city, they were forced to sit through more than an hour of a new charter school’s pitch for guaranteed school funding.
Karly Quintero, a parent and a PTA vice-president, reacted angrily to this provocation. “I think the charter schools are an abomination with these budget cuts in place,” she said. “The charter school funds will be preserved regardless of how deep the layoffs and cutbacks are for the rest of us. Our public schools are taking huge cuts, but the charters ask for and get the same amounts to pay for their needs.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/yonk-m23.shtml
