Public education used to be, you know, public — an essential societal investment for the betterment of all, paid for by all through school taxes.
In addition to privatization schemes to turn education over to corporate profiteers, public schools themselves have steadily been shifting from free education toward what amounts to fee education. This is a product of the budget slashing frenzy imposed on our schools in the past 15 years or so by the convergence of Koch-headed, anti-public ideologues and unimaginative, acquiescent education officials.
Beset by tight budgets, too many school systems are accommodating the slashers by shifting the cost of educating America’s future from the general society to the parents of students who are presently enrolled.
Does your child want to play a sport, take a class trip to a museum, or participate in a debate tournament? Pay a fee. Do your kids want to take art, music, drama, or other arts classes? Pay a fee. Does your school make kids wear uniforms? Pay a fee.
And now comes a new level of monetizing public education — the ubiquitous yellow school bus. Yes, just getting to and from school is increasingly being treated not as a necessary public service, but as a private luxury to be billed to families with school-age students.
Districts in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, and elsewhere are charging up to $600 a year per child. For the poor and the downwardly-mobile middle class that’s a real hit — yet another barrier to educational access for America’s majority. What’s next — a daily debit-card deduction for kids to enter their classroom at public schools?
If our society won’t even pay for bus rides, how are we going to get to the future we want for our children? It’s time to reject the small-minded budget slashers, reinvest fully in public education, and get America moving again.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
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