Education

I’m a Black, Queer Woman Working as an Adjunct Professor—And I’m Going on Strike

Education, Income inequality, job satisfaction, LGBT / By max cyril

Last fall, after nearly two years of underemployment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I began teaching at Mercy College in New York as an adjunct professor. I was excited to finally be back in the classroom doing the thing I loved: teaching. I knew the terms of my contract, and while I wished the compensation was better, I accepted the offer in …

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At a Major Education Company, Freelancers Must Now Pay a Fee In Order to Get Paid

1 Comment / Education, Freelance / By max cyril

Freelance workers everywhere are subjected to a wide variety of indignities and ripoffs. They are the workers who are most at the mercy of their employers’ whims, and least able to fight back. Now, into the pantheon of freelancer exploitation comes a truly jaw-dropping policy: Forcing freelancers to pay money in order to get paid. McGraw Hill (MH) is …

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Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Support Staff Keep Our Students Learning

Leave a Comment / Education, unions / By max cyril

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story. Schools are communities that include students, teachers, administrators, families and, of course, support staff who …

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Joe Biden Has a Golden Opportunity to Strengthen Public Education

1 Comment / Education, President Biden / By max cyril

In picking Connecticut Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona to be his nominee for U.S. secretary of education, President-elect Joe Biden appears to have made a Goldilocks choice that pleases just about everyone. People who rarely agree on education policy have praised the decision, including Jeanne Allen, CEO of the Center for Education Reform, a nonprofit …

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Students at the Most Expensive University in America Are Going on Tuition Strike

Leave a Comment / Education, Strike / By max cyril

At the end of November, members of the Columbia University-Barnard College chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) launched a tuition strike campaign against ?“exorbitant tuition rates” which, they say, ?“constitute a significant source of financial hardship” during the pandemic. Student demands are wide-ranging and include a 10% reduction in the cost of attendance, 10% increase in financial aid, and …

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How Were 46 Million People Trapped by Student Debt? The History of an Unfulfilled Promise

Leave a Comment / economy, Education, Federal loans / By max cyril

The democratic principle of tuition-free education in our country pre-dates the founding of the United States. The first public primary education was offered in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, and its legislature created Harvard College the following year to make education available to all qualified students. Even before the Constitution was ratified, the Confederation …

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Time to push back on the unsafe rush to reopen schools

Leave a Comment / Education, Teachers / By max cyril

Reopening schools is a major workers’ issue in multiple ways. There are the workers inside schools: not just teachers but paraprofessionals, librarians, custodial workers, nurses. Their lives are at stake in the push to reopen schools without regard for safety. Then there are the parents whose ability to work rests in part on their kids …

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Trump attacks public education and pushes school privatization in State of the Union

2 Comments / Education / By max cyril

Donald Trump continued the campaign against public education as a public good in his State of the Union address, with a reference to “failing government schools” and a push for a federal education privatization plan in the form of “Education Freedom Scholarships.” That’s a giant voucher program that would give tax credits to people who give money …

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An Upcoming Supreme Court Ruling Could Starve Public Schools—In Favor of Religious Ones

Leave a Comment / Education / By max cyril

On January 22, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case that could result in the massive expansion of public funding for private religious schools. The petitioners in the case—which will be litigated by the conservative law group, Institute for Justice—are asking that the court rule unconstitutional the denial of “public funds’ …

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Charter Schools’ Billion-Dollar Fraud Stinks Worse Than We Thought

Leave a Comment / Education, Uncategorized / By max cyril

Earlier this year, when members of Congress repeatedly confronted U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos about a study finding the federal government’s charter school grant program had wasted an estimated $1 billion on schools that had never opened or opened and quickly closed, she dismissed the findings and accused the report authors of having a “political agenda against charter …

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