With every passing day, I read the news and get angrier and angrier. There is a war on the middle class in America and a lot of people are fighting back.
Today, the war hit too close to home and I'm pissed off.
I'm pissed off because our HEROES, firefighters and police, revered after the 911 attacks, have had to take to street to protest power grabs in Wisconsin and Ohio.
And I'm pissed off because the Republicans have declared war on teachers. This is becoming personal.
Idaho: You no doubt saw the front page article on the attempts to fire teachers, buy laptops, and fill the pockets of Superindent Luna's pals' online businesses. In case you missed it: Wisconsin in Idaho: Fighting for Teachers
Missouri: Legislation to demote 1/3 of teachers in all districts
Under the proposal, all teachers, even those with tenure, would get one-year "probationary contracts" on July 1, 2012. After that, they would be ranked and grouped into four tiers in each district, with the top teachers receiving four-year contracts and the lowest-scoring ones receiving one-year contracts.
Salaries would vary according to tier. Top performers could make more than twice the salary of the lowest-paid teachers, who could be paid the minimum teacher salary, which is as low as $25,000 in some districts.
The bill requires that one-third of a district's teachers fall into the lowest tier.
In Texas: decimate public school funding
But what that change would do to most school districts is striking. Austin, for example, would lose about 20 percent of its per-student funding, amounting to about $131 million in the next school year.
These cuts include a whopping 47% decrease in the funding of my public high school alma mater.
U.S. Teachers Are Failing, So Are The Critics: Chris Farrell
Now teachers find their pay and benefits under assault as a growing number of governors square off against state and local government workers. “The teachers with the strongest credentials find something else to do,” says Richard Murnane, economist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “The people left aren’t the best, on average.”
A examination of 31 initial state budget proposals shows that at least 13 states are eying extremely steep cuts in pre- kindergarten and K-12 spending. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, among the biggest cuts is the proposal in Texas to eliminate funding for pre-K programs that serve almost 100,000 mostly at-risk children, more than 40 percent of its pre-kindergarten students. The Lone Star State could also reduce K-12 funding to 23 percent below the minimum amount required by the state’s education finance law.
...Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s budget fails to meet the state’s statutory obligation to support K-12 schools, for the fourth year in a row. It would underfund school districts by 11 percent, or $231 million. These numbers translate into miserable working conditions.