There’s been a flurry of school news lately. Layoffs are starting to hit districts across the state, as the state money crunch, and Governor Quinn’s proposal to slash education spending by $1.3 billion is becoming more real by the minute. We just found out from our daughter’s Principal that the States “Pre-School for All” program was among the items cut from the state budget this year, and they have no money for music either. And, apparently CPS is changing its menus.
As noted to be a possibility right here on the Harold awhile back, the four day week has been floated and passed the House. It probably won’t happen in Chicago, though, since neither the Mayor nor the CPS Union wants anything to do with it.
One glimmer of hope amidst the economic carnage is the fact that an increase in Pell Grant spending was attached to the Health Care Reform bill, and the feds will spend an additional $36 billion over the next ten years. There was also quite a bit of money attached for Community Colleges, though not as much as had originally been proposed by the President (or hoped for by the colleges).
Still, we’ll take any good news we can get, right?
The Harold Lounge 
Hi,
Just a little anecdote to accompany this.
Currently, I also teach an ESL methods and materials course elsewhere and have heard a great deal about this upheaval from my Grad students, most of whom are practicing CPS teachers with 1-15 years experience.
There are 15 Grad students in this class currently teaching grades 1-8. In the last two weeks, two of the teachers (really GREAT teachers); a literacy specialist, and a science specialist have been informed that their positions are being eliminated.
When I signed my son up for high school last week, I was informed by the counselor that there will likely be 37 students in each class. We all know this is a management issue that will severely undermine the teacher’s ability to teach.
It’s pretty heated out there. I’m just sayin’…
jmc
Yeah, I forgot about the 37 students to a classroom thing. It’ll be interesting, if it lasts, to see whether our percentages of students who need remediation goes up with the class sizes.
Might make things difficult for those who would evaluate the effectiveness of reforms to developmental math. It certainly suggests that there won’t be any shortage of need over the next ten years or so.