“Thousands
of Boston high school students have descended onto the Boston Common and the
Massachusetts State House in an unprecedented citywide walkout [today].
Students are demanding the city rescind a controversial property tax break to
General Electric and cease all budget cuts.
“The
Boston Public School District (BPS) is facing a budget deficit ranging from
anywhere between $10 and $50 million for
2016. BPS students are calling out Mayor Marty Walsh for granting huge
corporate tax giveaways while forcing schools to cut important curriculum and
lay off faculty and staff. BPS Superintendent Tommy Chang estimates the budget
deficit is approximately $50 million, but Mayor Walsh estimates the figure to
be $10 million.
“$18.6 million of the budget
deficit comes from the district being forced to pay for charter schools that
enroll BPS students. While the State of Massachusetts is supposed to reimburse
BPS for the charter school costs, it didn’t even cover half of
the expenses last year.
“A
recent city-approved property tax break for General Electric is to blame for
another $25 million that
could’ve gone toward plugging the BPS budget gap. GE also receives an
additional $151 million in city and state tax incentives. In return for all of
these tax breaks, GE is only directly employing 600 people, which the state
estimates will result in an additional 590 indirect jobs.
“Boston
city councilor Tito Jackson said the entire reason for GE choosing Boston’s
workforce is due to its excellent schools, which are being sacrificed for
corporate handouts. ‘If we don’t invest in our talent and our talent
pipeline, a company like GE will come and go and will not stay here,’ Jackson
told BostInno…” (Thousands of Boston Students Just Walked Out of Class to
Save Their Schools).
When children are wiser than the leaders of their teachers' unions, the stench of corruption and political fear fill the air.
ReplyDeleteThe leadership of both national unions could also learn something from them RE: their political endorsements, i.e., young people favoring Bernie Sanders.
ReplyDelete(& the NEA from the MA Teachers Assn., which publicly criticized the early HRC endorsement).
"Power concedes nothing without demand."-
Frederick Douglass