Mass school closures approved in Kansas City,

Mass school closures approved in Kansas City,

news.yahoo.com

Administrators say the closures are necessary to keep the district from plowing through what little is left of the $2 billion it received as part of a groundbreaking desegregation case. The Kansas City school board narrowly approved the plan to close 29 out of 61 schools Wednesday night at a meeting packed with angry parents.

(visit the link for the full news article)

many may wonder why school closures in Kansas City Mo are relevant?

Well it clearly shows that the economic problems that have almost shuttered Detroit are spreading....

Although other districts nationwide are considering closures as the recession ravages their budgets, Kansas City's plan is striking. In rapidly shrinking Detroit, 29 schools closed before classes began this fall, but that still left the district with 172 schools. Most other districts are closing just one or two schools.

KC is shuttering 1/3 of its schools, something most of us would place in that critical services category. Why? same as everywhere else housing bust jobs going elsewhere people moving on to greener pastures, or being forced to flee...

Stories like this are not only sad because its the kids who suffer but a warning, things are getting worse and this cancer is spreading

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 11-3-2010 by DaddyBare]

Very sad indeed, thank you for posting.

I'm not sure what i'd do if our area decided they were shutting the schools, homeschooling would obviously be the way to go, but not everyone is read or able to do that.

They should sit down around the table and say, "Right, school is top priority, so they HAVE to stay open and well funded....where else can we close down or cut back on?"

I'd bet money that a lot of money that could be well used in the schools is going into some of those officals pockets one way or another.

CX.

reply to post by CX


to be fair in many cases home schooling might be the better education...

but what about all the single working parents... do we force them to quit their jobs and go on welfare so they can teach their kids?

If a quality education is the key to better future then it seems to me KC just doomed many of these kids...

How incredibly sad and terrible for everyone involved.

I recently heard on the news that some schools were looking into a four day school week as a way to reduce money. American children already spend less time in the classroom than several other countries, now some schools are actually considering cutting back more. The plan is to have the students go an extra hour for the four days. That won't make up the time lost, but I suppose the reasoning is they won't have to provide transportation for that final day and can save money on bus costs.

Disgusting.

That is appaling, 1/3 of schools.. honestly how do they expect children to get a decent education, without which they can not create the wealth in the world of tomorrow that is needed to repay the bailouts and money printing scams of today..

I call this short sighted and narrow minded, racehorses with blinkers see more clearly than these people *shakes head in despair at the world we live in*

Not to nitpick but the closures are closer to 50% which only strengthens the impact of the story. It's these types of collateral damage that do not make it to the MSM headlines. There is a plethora of these travesties indicating the demise of our country. Meanwhile some jack@$$ politician somewhere is wasting taxpayer dollars by introducing some ridiculous bill. Like this one.

Chef calls proposed New York salt ban 'absurd'

Perhaps the time and money that will be wasted on this would be better spent elsewhere.

The sad thing is there is PLENTY of wealth/money whatever in the USA to solve all these problems overnight. The wealth disparity between the rich and the poor is disgusting. Maybe the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets of the world should start poneying up the funds to keep this country alive if our government is too inpet and incompetent to do it. Let's see what the private sector and private wealth can do for a change.

I think, before any of you make judgments, you should know more about the story.

1. According to local word, enrollment is down by half. Enrollment went from 35k to 17k. That's in line with half enrollment. According to the article, those students moved further out of the city. It could be related to white flight. Kansas City, in some areas, is becoming uninhabitable. This happened BEFORE the economy collapse.
www.cnn.com...

2. the inner city KC Education system is broken and has been for a long time. KC schools are an example of what NOT to do to solve integration problems.
www.cato.org...
I can't find the articles, but growing up in the area, residents know why the schools failed. Teachers, and administrators, and everyone involved with the system robbed it blind. Throwing all that money at the schools was just too much of a temptation for thieves. They built so many schools, and made no improvements for the students involved. It is common knowledge, and not at all unexpected, that eventually something would have to happen to balance out those years of colossal years of theft from the students. Most everyone I know, that does not live in my area, now send their children to private schools to keep them safe.

3. I personally wonder if this will be a good thing for those students to get out of failing schools. I worry for those who have to integrate thugs.

4. Of course, there's this part: Here where I live (North KC), the education system said FU to the federal government and takes no federal bailouts. They are one of the best education systems in the state. Their money was taken, even while performing as a beacon school for the state, because the education system thought they didn't do enough to educate minorities.

5. There's plenty of schools to go around. The problem is what will happen to those local communities, value wise. I certainly wouldn't want to buy a house there, but to be honest, most of those places were undesirable for such things anyway.

I'm not even going into what will happen to neighborhoods economically after this. I cannot say one way or another, if it will make a difference. The system, in that part of KC, is so corrupt I don't think it really matters. They did it to themselves.

Originally posted by ratcals
Not to nitpick but the closures are closer to 50% which only strengthens the impact of the story. It's these types of collateral damage that do not make it to the MSM headlines. There is a plethora of these travesties indicating the demise of our country. Meanwhile some jack@$$ politician somewhere is wasting taxpayer dollars by introducing some ridiculous bill. Like this one.

Chef calls proposed New York salt ban 'absurd'

Perhaps the time and money that will be wasted on this would be better spent elsewhere.

Indeed, just looking around you would begin to question the sanity or their sense of necessities of these politicions with their priorities with money.

Education is a must and probably comes before 9/10 of their budget proposals. And we wonder why we're in an economic mess with people like this running the place.

If this were happening in just one place, it could be down to falling enrolments, but school funding is being cut across many states to cover tax revenue shortfalls.
From what I have been seeing over the last couple of weeks, many states badly overestimated tax revenues and are now struggling with huge funding problems as tax collected has dropped off. One theory is that they based their budgets on government employment figues, and it was the fudging of those figures that has led to the current situation. Possible? Anything is possible, as we are seeing every day as local and national government struggle to keep afloat and cut services / layoff government employees because they are broke (having given $/£Billions to the bankers who used it to pay themselves even bigger salaries and huge bonuses).

More trouble ahead for us all I think.

GA is also doing the same, but they are to pass a bill to no only cut on the public school funding that will close many schools but also into the higher education and community colleges also.

The bill is been debated and taken by the people very seriously, as we know the state government is doing no a darn thing to cut into their expenditures, government size, lavish retirement accounts and pay.

The irony, suffer the littler children and the future of the nation.

reply to post by marg6043


well just to play devil's advocate for just a moment

Why do American kids need a good education anyway?
we don't make anything in this country so we don't need skilled craftsmen engineers, all that is outsource to India right? all we need is people to assemble other peoples products and stock store shelves...

think I'm kidding... next time you walk into a McDonald's look at the register... no numbers on it just pictures... kids today had to much trouble remembering prices and working a number pad so they moved to a GUI system... they don't have to remember the price for a .99 cent burger, they just look for the picture

Little wonder this country is going down the tubes fast

[edit on 11-3-2010 by DaddyBare]

reply to post by DaddyBare


Well is not only that, my friend, I thing is a conspiracy been played at the expenses of the future of this nation to produce dumb and stupid people, I guess what is been planned for the nation doesn't required any intelligence, any skills or any smarty pants questioning all.

This has been happening in the UK for a little while now but the Brits in general are so dumbed down that they don't notice or understand.

They government claims, and parties that are in line to take over after the next election, that education will be safe guarded 'whatever happens', and yet schools are being closed down at a rate of about 80 + secondary schools a year INCLUDING very successful ones such as the King Edward Vii school in Melton Mowbray.

But the government, in a brainwashing fashion continues to reassure the sheeple that they will not touch education while closing school after school.

British schools are also failing students at an alarming rate.

I really dread to think what they will do after the election when the gloves come off and they start to dismantle the country with a true vengeance and give everything we have left to the Elites!

I have already begun home educating our youngest but am in a fortunate position where only one of us needs to work and our older children are very, very clever and could help me if i get stuck teaching calculus!!!

However, I feel very concerned for all the children in our country and their future!

I'd teach them all if I could,but hey,that's not my job and we PAY the government to do that for us and NOT to give all our money away!

They seem to have forgotten whose money it is they are handling and iit is certainly not their own!