Holly Jordan, a public school teacher in North Carolina, was recently arrested after participating in a Moral Monday protest contesting draconian cuts in the public school budget, which led to lower teacher salaries, less staff, fewer school supplies, and lower overall morale. After a decade of teaching high school English, a job she adores, Holly is struggling to make her rent payments and has started looking for a roommate. She doesn’t believe she can ever afford to buy a house if she stays in the teaching profession.
Abandoned by her mother at age four and raised by a father who struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, Elizabeth Chasse seemed destined to be trapped in an endless cycle of poverty. Nevertheless, through an enormous amount of self-discipline and perseverance, Elizabeth completed college and medical school. She is currently doing her residency in pediatrics and hopes to give back to other at-risk youth. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt will remain a long-term burden for her.
Caitriona Fitzgerald and Ryan Mingo met in law school and married soon after graduation. Although they are both practicing attorneys, they are struggling to pay for over $300,000 in student loan debt. Caitriona and Ryan have delayed plans to start a family, cannot afford to buy a home, and are considering leaving the field of public interest law in order to pursue more lucrative work.
After Hurricane Katrina, public schools in New Orleans were decimated. In the aftermath of this devastating natural disaster, one of the most ambitious education reform experiments in the country was born. Today, about 90% of New Orleans students are enrolled in charter schools, the highest rate by far in the entire country. We visited the KIPP Renaissance High School, where we profiled Brian Dixon, a senior headed to a four-year college. We also interviewed Sarah Usdin, a school-board member and founder of New Schools for New Orleans. Sarah is a strong advocate for charter schools and believes that New Orleans is on its way to closing the “achievement gap.” Dr. Raynard Sanders, a former high-school principal, challenges this assertion, arguing that the charter schools do not hire experienced public school teachers and enroll only high-achieving students to increase the appearance of high achievement.
Fast Facts about the Need for Education Reform:
- Americans owe over $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, an amount that has quadrupled over the last 12 years. Student loan debt represents the largest source of household debt after mortgages.[i]
- Student loan debt has significantly outpaced wage growth: Over the last 25 years, student loan debt has increased approximately 163.8%, but wages for recent graduates have only increased approximately 1.6%.[ii]
- Between 2008 and 2015, state budget cuts have resulted in 297,000 fewer teaching jobs while enrollment has increased by 800,000 students. In 2014, over two-thirds of states provided less per-student funding for K-12 education than they did before the economic recession of 2008.[iii]
- Seventy-six percent of university professors are “adjuncts,” who are hired as part-time, contingent workers. Although education is negatively correlated with poverty, many adjunct professors are not making ends meet, and some are even homeless.[iv] A quarter of families headed by part-time college faculty members receive public assistance.[v]
- Charter schools are often criticized for their lack of transparency, draining resources from public schools, and hiring non-union teachers who are less experienced and are paid less than unionized public school teachers.[vi]
Discussion Questions about the Need for Education Reform:
- What are the connections between poverty and education, and what are the social consequences?
- Holly Jordan says teachers are no longer respected as professionals in the eyes of society. What changed to cause this perception?
- Some advocates for education reform believe that teachers should be held more accountable for student achievement by eliminating tenure and implementing merit pay. How might these proposed solutions impact education in the U.S.? How can teacher performance be measured and quantified? How might factors outside the classroom impact student achievement?
- Some politicians, notably Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign, have advocated for making tuition free at public colleges and universities. If 70% of loan defaults are coming from students who attended for-profit colleges, how would this proposal help student loan default rates? How can our communities help private school borrowers?
- What are some of the economic and social consequences of generations of students graduating with massive student loan debt, like Caitriona Fitzgerald, Ryan Mingo, and Elizabeth Chasse?
- Sarah Usdin and Raynard Sanders represent two opposing positions on the charter school movement. How has the emergence of charter schools impacted your community? How do charter schools model real educational reform, and how might they be stifling it?
[i] http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/papers/2015/looney-yannelis-student-loan-defaults
[ii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/3-charts-student-debt-crisis_us_56b0e9d0e4b0a1b96203d369
[iii] http://www.cbpp.org/research/most-states-funding-schools-less-than-before-the-recession
[iv] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adjunct-professor-crisis/361336/
[v] http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf
[vi] http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/ttr-charterclaims-mmw-1.pdf