The teachers in Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania have voted (a second time) to continue to work though their financially distressed school district can no longer pay them.
At first this is a story of teachers’ dedication and commitment to their students.
Then it becomes clear as a story of how a district serving mostly poor and black children has been sold out to benefit the ‘charter school industry’ with a scheme where the district has been required to pay $64 million dollars in tuition payments for special education students (more than they receive in state aid and more than the Charter School admits they spend on special education students) to schools like Chester Community Charter School (a nonprofit institution managed by a for profit company headed by a friend of the former governor who instituted this policy).
It is worth reading these details of a fairly simple plan to take money out of public community hands for private profit.
In the end, who has stamina to hold on–those in it for profit or the teachers who will depend on friends and moonlighting jobs to survive?