Monday, August 26, 2013
"Kids brave gangland as Chicago budget cuts redraw route to school"
This article discusses Chicago and other large cities...
Neil Munshi has stuff like this in his posting on the Financial Times website:
"Amid lower birth rates and the increased popularity of publicly funded independent schools, numbers at urban public schools across the US have been falling.
This month Philadelphia was forced to borrow $50m just to be able to start school on time. That came after the district closed 24 schools in June and cut nearly 4,000 employees.
Last week Detroit’s school system issued $92m in one-year debt to cover operating expenses for the new school year. It has lost more than 33,000 students, or 40 per cent of those enrolling, since 2010 as Detroit’s population has shrunk and charter schools have grown.
Chicago’s budget problems are driven in part by the teachers’ pension fund, which faces a $404m increase in its required pension contribution during this school year."
