June 16, 2010
Chicago School Board members Tuesday tackled their worst fiscal crisis since Mayor Daley’s 1995 school takeover by granting school officials the power to raise class sizes to up to 35 students for the next two years. If Schools CEO Ron Huberman acts on that new power, he’s sure to anger hundreds of teachers laid off […]
June 16, 2010
Two school district employees resigned recently, both saying that recent actions by the Board of Education factored significantly in their decisions. Alfred Pullo, the district’s business manager, submitted a letter of resignation on June 3. His resignation is effective on June 30. Rose Forzano, administrative assistant to Superintendent Dr. Judith Palmer, resigned Monday, June 7. […]
June 15, 2010
Property owners in more than two-thirds of the school districts surveyed in the Cambria-Somerset region will be seeing their real estate taxes increase this year to cover 2010-2011 budgets. Of the 16 districts interviewed by The Tribune-Democrat 10 have already passed or are looking at tax increases ranging from a low of just more than […]
June 15, 2010
Four months after Governor Christie cut $5.2 million from an after-school enrichment program for low-income children, most of the non-profits running sites at 16 North Jersey schools have managed to keep them open for the remainder of the school year. But more than 500 of the approximately 1,200 kids attending New Jersey After 3 programs […]
June 15, 2010
State governments generally try to spare schools from budget cuts. But the recession hit tax revenue so hard that K-12 education is seeing sharp cutbacks in state funding. All major sources of state and local-government revenue—sales taxes, income taxes and prope rty taxes—have fallen. Property taxes are the primary source of school funding, and home […]
June 15, 2010
The Kansas City, Kan., school board agreed on Monday to join a coalition of school districts frustrated with the state’s funding practices. The high-poverty district agreed to recommit to Schools for Fair Funding. Although the organization’s attorneys could not be reached for comment on Monday, they have publicly said that they expected to file a […]
June 15, 2010
The president-elect of the Chicago Teachers Union planned an "emergency picket” today protesting a special Chicago School Board vote to raise class sizes and lay off up to 2,700 teachers. "It’s an emergency board meeting, so we’re having an emergency picket,” explained King College Prep teacher Karen Lewis, who takes over as head of the […]
June 15, 2010
Gov. Christie acted within his authority when he froze $475 million in state aid to schools to close a $2.2 billion budget deficit, a state appellate court ruled Monday.& lt;br /> The Perth Amboy Board of Education lost more than $15 million as a result of Christie’s order to withhold state funding for the remainder […]
June 15, 2010
Volunteers and businesses are reaching out to south Mississippi schools that are struggling through this budget crisis. On Monday, the non-profit group Hands-On Mississippi hosted a School Funding Forum in Gulfport. Educators learned where to find free programs and grants to help their schools. They heard about programs that allow teachers to earn credits without […]
June 15, 2010
Although Oregon’s 198 school districts have been told exactly how much state aid they stand to lose as a result of a pending $243 million cut, most haven’t decided yet on specific cuts for the next school year. Many of them — such as Salem-Keizer, the second-largest in terms of student enrollment — are awaiting […]