Ed Week has a good list of school districts that are getting hit by the financial crisis. In New York I have heard of at least two influential education nonprofits whose advisory boards — populated mainly by Wall Street types — had to cancel meetings in the last two weeks, presumably in order to save the economy. Still up in the air is whether their donations will stay apace.
But maybe there is a silver lining! In the UK’s Guardian an opponent of corporate meddling in the schools is cheering the crisis, saying it will end inequality he argues was jiggered by business involvement. Another “on the bright side” argument is suggested by this Daily News story by Meredith Kolodner, who reports that some public schools are bracing for an influx of private school kids whose parents can no longer afford tuition. If all the rich kids stream into NYC public schools, that could mean greater economic diversity for the public schools. Somewhere maybe Richard Kahlenberg is silently smiling.
~ Guest blogger Elizabeth Green
“If all the rich kids stream into NYC public schools, that could mean greater economic diversity for the public schools.”
It would also mean yet more destruction of civil society as public schools swallow up the last remnants. The private schools (who have to answer to the state too, which hardly makes them independent) will also cut scholarships to their poorer kids. This can only mean a boon in the minds of those who are egalitarian statists, whose ideology feeds a class system that necessarily means only the well-off may afford private ed. Taxation compels the less fortunate into government schools. Who can afford the penalty of property tax and still have income left-over for alternative schooling?
ps. Aaron:
Cut with the astrological nonsense- it makes you look stupid and does not help peddle the books you call “must reads”.