Free Republic

UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means. A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him...

Recently, President Obama has been urging Congress to pass legislation that will provide $50 billion in aid to the states to fill budget gaps related to education/teachers, health care, and emergency personnel such as police and firefighters. Specifically, the legislation includes “$23 billion to help prevent teacher layoffs, $25 billion for state health care aid and $2 billion for cops and firefighters.”

Teachers' seniority rights are under fire from public officials and policy experts who say experience and effectiveness don't always go hand in hand. The grip seniority holds on schools has gained attention as money runs short and education leaders, including Cleveland's, slash jobs by the hundreds. Its effects also come into play as urban school districts wrestle with how to place the right teachers in schools serving low-income, or so-called "hard to serve," populations. Cleveland schools Chief Executive Eugene Sanders has acknowledged a desire to dismantle the district's seniority system as part of difficult contract negotiations going on now. Union...

TEANECK, N.J. (CBS) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accuses a local district of sending information back home to ask how parents will vote on school budgets. After months of heated debate and angry protests, New Jersey residents woke up Wednesday morning to see that a majority of the proposed school budgets were defeated Tuesday night. In one of those towns – Teaneck – several hundred students held a protest on the high school track. The New Jersey school budget vote will likely be remembered for Governor Chris Christie's deep involvement in the debate, and...

Ronald Reagan said it best. "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" I was reflecting on this quote in light of Washington's plan, as part of "health-care reform," to nationalize all college loans. This is an aspect of the legislation that hasn't received nearly as much attention as it deserves, because it's one of those seemingly innocuous, do-gooder notions that most people just don't understand. Why would a government deeply, hopelessly in debt seek a monopoly on college loans? Obviously, Washington under the rulership of Barack Obama, Nancy...

Gov. Chris Christie is making good on his promise to get tough with New Jersey's $2.2 billion budget gap -- by taking aim at one of the drivers of the state's out-of-control taxes: school budgets. Under Christie's budget, New Jersey's 605 school districts will see their state aid reduced by 5 percent of their last budget. That trims state spending by $820 million, forcing school districts to make deeper cuts or raise property taxes. If it stopped there, Christie's one-time aid cut would do nothing but aggravate property-tax payers. But he's also seeking a constitutional amendment on the November ballot...

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that not only must the state provide a substantially equal educational opportunity to its youth in its free public elementary and secondary schools, but they must also get an education that will adequately prepare them for college or a job in the real world. ... It's not student to teacher ratios, it's not overall enrollment, it's not computers in the classroom, or dollars spent per student ... it's the median income of residents in the school district. It is the hopes and aspirations of the parents, and the drive to get into a good college...

The Connecticut Supreme Court today at 11:30 a.m. is releasing a long-awaited decision in an education-funding lawsuit brought to establish that children have a right to an "adequate" education, not merely a free and public education. The decision will be accompanied by two dissenting and concurring opinions, indicating a deeply divided court. The justices have been wrestling with this case since 2008. The suit was filed by the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, which maintains a web site with detailed background, arguments and relevant documents. The coalition's amended complaint can be read here. The plaintiffs call the case,...

MONTGOMERY (AP) — Alabama's prepaid college tuition plan appears unable to pay tuition beyond the fall semester of 2011 and still have enough money to provide refunds to the 44,000 participants, administrators said. For leaders of the Save Alabama PACT parents group, that creates the need for the Legislature to find a solution in the current legislative session. Patti Lambert of Decatur, the group's co-founder, said she would prefer a solution in the Statehouse rather than the courthouse, but members may have no choice but to join a handful of parents who have already sued the state to demand the...

While government leaders attempt to tackle budget deficits that are ballooning to historic proportions, 55% of Americans say the government does not spend enough money on public education. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 20% think the government spends too much on public education, while another 21% say the amount it spends is about right. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Democrats and 55% of voters not affiliated with either party say the government does not spend enough, a view shared by just 42% of Republicans. Among all voters, 45% believe it is more important for the government...

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest. This Story 15 states, D.C. make first cut in Race to the Top school reform contest R.I. district may reverse firing of high school teachers See our Higher Ed page for college news & admission advice at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Analysts pointed to some surprises among the finalists, including New York, Ohio and Kentucky. It was also notable that the most populous state, California, missed the cut even though the state's legislature approved a significant school-improvement plan. Federal officials say...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday. "I am very, very concerned about layoffs going into the next school year starting in September. Good superintendents are going to start sending out pink slips in March and April, like a month from now, as they start to plan for their budgets," said Arne Duncan, referring to the slips of paper included in some paychecks to notify a person of being fired....

By TERENCE CHEA SAN FRANCISCO – The nation's public schools are falling under severe financial stress as states slash education spending and drain federal stimulus money that staved off deep classroom cuts and widespread job losses. School districts have already suffered big budget cuts since the recession began two years ago, but experts say the cash crunch will get a lot worse as states run out of stimulus dollars. The result in many hard-hit districts: more teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, smaller paychecks, fewer electives and extracurricular activities, and decimated summer school programs. The situation is particularly ugly in California,...

The state's largest teachers union, which stood against Minnesota's application for millions in federal "Race to the Top" funding, plans a 10-week TV ad campaign to push the Legislature for more funding. Don't cut schools to balance the budget, Education Minnesota will say. But that plea leaves out important context, such as this from our side of the river: 1. During a deep recession, the union drives through $10 million worth of salary and benefit increases. 2. Which amounts to close to half of this year's operating deficit. 3. And then will be followed by TV ads urging the Legislature...

Central Pennsylvania school districts received millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding and were advised to use the money for one-time expenses, since it will last for only two years. But with the tight economy, many districts are using the money to fill gaps that otherwise may have had to be handled by cuts or tax increases. In addition to using the money for operating expenses, Harris said many districts are using the funding for small purchases rather than large-scale projects. Though districts were advised by federal officials on how to use the money, they were not restricted in its...

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds. Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Students aren't the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor. An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.

Title IX Expansions Bethany Stotts, November 20, 2009 During a November 10 press call on “Women Scientists and American Competitiveness,” speakers suggested that Title IX should be used to focus on “educational equity” and not just athletic equity. One speaker stressed, in particular, the importance of reaching out to federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy (DOE) for additional grant money. (Predoctoral women received 63% of the NIH’s awards in 2007, but only 25% of “competitive faculty grants” that same year, reports...