The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted March 2 to send layoff notices to more than 5,200 workers. These included 2,000 elementary school teachers, 2,370 certified management employees, 321 secondary teachers and teachers in the arts, and 574 support personnel, including counselors, psychologists, nurses and librarians. The district is facing a $640 million budget gap.

The LAUSD is required by law to notify teachers at least six months in advance of the next school year of any possibility they will lose their jobs, even if not all employees are ultimately fired. Just under a year ago the school board approved 5,400 layoff notices for teachers, janitors, counselors and administrators. While federal stimulus monies were able to minimize losses to a certain extent, in the end 2,000 educators and staff lost their jobs.

Less than one month after the Rudd government’s My School web site was launched, ushering in school league tables and a punitive regime of high-stakes testing, Education Minister Julia Gillard unveiled a further raft of pro-market education reforms. Gillard’s address to the National Press Club on February 24 pledged a new wave of attacks by Labor on public education.

The measures outlined in Gillard’s speech, including a uniform national curriculum, teacher performance guidelines, student ID numbers, the return of school inspectors, and the “reform” of teacher training, constitute a declaration of war on the teaching profession.

On March 4, tens of thousands of students and workers demonstrated in opposition to education cuts throughout the United States.

The largest marches were held in California, where state and local governments have pushed through a 32 percent increase in fees for many college students, along with deep cuts in K-12, community college and university education funding. This month, tens of thousands of teachers in the state will receive notices that they could be laid off by the fall.

The demonstrations are an initial manifestation of growing anger and resistance to the policies of the corporate and financial elite. Their significance extends far beyond California. The same agenda of cost cutting is being imposed throughout the country, spearheaded by the Obama administration. Obama has publicly supported the mass firing of teachers and is blackmailing states into expanding charter schools and into carrying out other attacks on public education.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced on Thursday a list of 35 so-called underperforming schools, where the jobs and contracts of teachers are directly threatened.

That same day in Boston, the state capital, Mayor Thomas Mennino and Superintendent Carol R. Johnson announced that teachers at six “underperforming” city schools would be forced to reapply for their jobs, and that five school principals would be reassigned to different positions.

The moves follow the February 23 firing of all 74 teachers and 19 other staff members at a public high school just over the Massachusetts border in Central Falls, Rhode Island. School Superintendent Frances Gallo carried out the wholesale firings at Central Falls High School after teachers rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

Tens of thousands of students, teachers and workers participated in protests Thursday against cuts in education across the US. Many of the largest protests were in California, where the state government has pushed through massive cuts in K-12 education funding, as well as sharp increases in university fees.

Students at many colleges and schools walked out for at least part of the day, with the main state universities in California and several other states staging rallies. Students in the University of California system were recently hit by a 32 percent increase in fees. Large evening demonstrations were called in the major cities as well.

President Obama’s public support for the mass firing of teachers at a Rhode Island high school is a declaration of war on all teachers and on the working class as a whole.

No US president has so openly supported the mass victimization of workers since Ronald Reagan fired the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981. Obama’s intervention against the teachers at Central Falls High School is motivated by similarly reactionary aims.

Speaking before an audience of business executives at the US Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Obama hailed the decision to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High after they rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

This statement is being distributed at rallies on March 4th throughout the US in opposition to attacks on public education. Click here for a pdf version to download and distribute in your area

The International Students for Social Equality supports the demonstrations today in California and throughout the US against education cuts. These events must be made the starting point for a nationwide campaign against tuition increases, school shutdowns, the attack on teacher pay and benefits, and the destruction of public education as a whole.

Education is a vital necessity for all workers and young people. It is not a luxury that should be slashed to the bone to meet the budget-cutting demands of Sacramento or Washington. The ISSE insists: it is not a matter of what must be cut. Instead, it is a question of the necessary political strategy to oppose all cuts.

This statement is being distributed at rallies on March 4th throughout the US in opposition to attacks on public education. Click here for a pdf version to download and distribute in your area

The International Students for Social Equality supports the demonstrations today in California and throughout the US against education cuts. These events must be made the starting point for a nationwide campaign against tuition increases, school shutdowns, the attack on teacher pay and benefits, and the destruction of public education as a whole.

Education is a vital necessity for all workers and young people. It is not a luxury that should be slashed to the bone to meet the budget-cutting demands of Sacramento or Washington. The ISSE insists: it is not a matter of what must be cut. Instead, it is a question of the necessary political strategy to oppose all cuts.

In a speech before the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC on Monday President Obama hailed the decision by school authorities in Rhode Island to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High School.

The mass firings ordered by state school officials were part of a national plan developed by the Obama administration to deal with so-called “failing schools.” Seventy-four teachers and 19 other school employees were dismissed after they rejected a “turnaround” plan—authored by Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan—which would have torn up their contract and forced them to work longer hours without additional pay.

The mass firing of teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island on Tuesday, February 23, was greeted with predictable enthusiasm by the Obama administration. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, declared, “I applaud Commissioner Gist and Superintendent Gallo for showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.”

Duncan was referring to events at the school committee meeting at which the names of all 74 teachers and a further 19 staff members were read aloud in an announcement of their impending dismissal in the fall.

On February 23, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Education voted to notify more than 900 school employees that they could be laid off this year. This is almost double the 500 workers that were notified about layoffs last year.

The 900 employees include 318 full-time teachers, 139 teacher aides, 109 instructional support staff, 98 principals and assistant principals, 22 counselors, and 10 librarians. The teacher layoffs amount to about 10 percent of the entire staff.

A town hall meeting in San Francisco organized by parents on Thursday drew more than a thousand parents, teachers and residents, overwhelmingly opposed to school cuts. In addition to laying off teachers, the district has also proposed increasing class sizes, reducing bus services and cutting summer school programs.

The government’s attempt to push ahead with its state-funded but privately run school academies programme continues despite growing evidence of their lack of educational value, and in the face of popular opposition.

On February 5, the Kilburn Times reported that school staff had voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if a planned enforcement of nine teaching redundancies took place at the Crest Boys’ Academy in Neasden, London, an effort by the school to plug a £1.2 million funding gap resulting from a drop in pupil numbers.

The Edutrust Academies Charitable Trust (EACT), which is in charge of Crest Boys’ Academy, blamed the academy’s predecessor, John Kelly Boys, for the financial crisis. But Brent Council insists that both Crest Boys and Girls Academies were launched without inheriting any debts.

In response to California’s ongoing multi-billion-dollar reductions in spending for public and higher education, the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) recently authorized the sending out of 755 layoff notices, or “pink slips,” to teachers, counselors, and administrative staff. The school board’s move is part of the implementation of $32.6 million in cuts slated for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The LBUSD is preparing to make these cuts, and an additional $50 million worth the following fiscal year, because Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal calls for an $2 billion reduction in funding for K-12 education statewide. Over the past five years, Long Beach has gutted more than $100 million from education.

The global recession unleashed by the financial crisis of September-October 2008 has drastically impacted on Canadian society. This is particularly evident in the situation facing Canadian students and youth.

Currently, the official unemployment rate for persons aged 15 to 24 is 15.1 percent, nearly twice the figure for the labour force in general.

This figure only begins to describe the social crisis which confronts the newest generation of Canadian workers.

In July 2009, when youth participation in the labour market peaked at 75.3 percent, youth unemployment hit 17.0 percent, an increase of 6.7 percentage points from July 2008. For students in secondary and post-secondary institutions, the unemployment rate was even higher—19.2 percent. Joblessness among youth has risen faster than any other segment of the Canadian population.