Australian Labor government’s school funding model entrenches underfunding and inequality

Patrick O’Connor

The Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently established a new school funding model that will entrench the systematic underfunding of public schools over the next decade. With private schools continuing to enjoy lavish government funding, the Australian school system remains among the world’s most socially polarised and unequal.

Before the 2022 federal election the Labor Party postured as a supporter of public education, lies that the Australian Education Union promoted while spending $3.5 million on pro-Labor election campaigning. For more than two years after that, the Albanese government maintained without revision the previous Liberal-National government’s funding arrangements. Only on the final day of parliament last year did the government legislate a new funding system—with this essentially amounting to tweaks to a few provisions of the former setup.

Previous governments, both Labor and Liberal, were responsible for engineering an unprecedented crisis in the public education system. While elite private schools provide the best education money can buy for children of the upper middle class, numerous public schools, especially those in working class areas, are increasingly dysfunctional. Excessive workloads and inadequate support for teachers has created a national workforce shortage, hiking class sizes and causing widespread disruption to student learning. Ageing and inadequate infrastructure is rife within public schools, while student support services such as psychologists are grossly inadequate, with mental health episodes and serious behavioural issues emerging in classrooms daily.

This status quo is set to continue under the Albanese government. The so-called Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) will see the government increase federal government funding of public schools from 20 percent of the nominal total to 22.5 percent, reportedly involving a nominal increase in government spending of $16 billion.

Australian federal Minister for Education Jason Clare [Photo: X/@JasonClareMP]

Education minister Jason Clare claims that this as the largest ever increase in school funding. In reality, this funding represents a drop in the bucket. The $16 billion figure is for the next ten years, divided between the states and territories, and is nowhere near what public schools require.

The Albanese government has also maintained mechanisms enacted by the previous Liberal-National government that allow the states and territories to claim as school funding various expenses that are not directly related to public schools’ operations. Trevor Cobbald of the Save Our Schools organisation has characterised this “accounting trick” as a “swindle,” which he estimated “have defrauded public schools of $13.1 billion over the last six years [and] will defraud public schools of at least $13.3 billion over the next five years.” Substantially more, in other words, than Jason Clare’s “record” $16 billion funding allocation.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement also requires state and territory governments to adhere to new obligations that undermine the public education system. Clare has emphasised that “additional funding is not a blank cheque,” with new measures purportedly meant to “help lift student outcomes, sets targets and improves school funding transparency.” This is all centred on the even more extensive extraction of standardised test data, adding to teacher workloads while narrowing the curriculum. Among the new requirements is a Year 1 phonics test, which is part of the push to mandate regressive pedagogical literacy approaches in public schools.

So far governments in Western Australia, Tasmania, and the two territories have signed on to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, with those in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia holding out. These state governments want the federal government to increase its share of public school funding to 25 percent, instead of the offered 22.5 percent. This demand has also been advanced by the Greens and the teacher unions, which are falsely posturing as advocates for public education.

Even if the 25 percent federal spending share was reached, this would remain grossly inadequate.

This is because the percentage is calculated on the basis of the School Resource Standard (SRS). The SRS formula was devised in 2011 by David Gonski, a leading corporate executive who was tasked by then Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard with drafting a new school funding model. Essentially, the SRS establishes a per student annual funding baseline target—currently $13,977 for primary students and $17,565 for secondary students—with additional “loadings” for remote schools and students who are disabled, indigenous, or experiencing “socio-educational disadvantage.”

The establishment of the SRS has done nothing to reduce school inequality. On the contrary, state and federal governments have continued to lavish funds on private schools, including the most exclusive where families pay $50,000 in annual tuition fees. Australia has one of the world’s most privatised school systems, with 42 percent of all secondary students now in the private sector.

The school funding model is designed to funnel ever greater numbers of students into the private sector. Numerous families feel compelled to send their children to private schools due to the disaster within the public education system. 

Whereas only 1.3 percent of public schools are funded to the SRS benchmark, 98 percent of private schools are. Numerous private schools receive government funding significantly in excess of the SRS, including the most exclusive. Lavish facilities have been developed using this surplus government funding. An Age report earlier this year revealed that five private schools in Victoria and New South Wales spent more on capital works than 3,300 public schools did, more than half the country’s total.

The SRS funding benchmark is directly tied to the regressive NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) standardised test. It is based on calculations regarding how much spending is required to have at least 80 percent of students recording above minimum NAPLAN test scores for reading and numeracy. In other words, the demands of the teacher union bureaucracies and the Greens for “fully funded schools,” based on Gonski’s SRS, are for a school funding model that potentially leaves 20 percent of students with sub-par literacy and numeracy skills.

No-one within the political and media establishment ever criticises the SRS or the NAPLAN testing regime that the funding model is tied to. Neither is there any discussion on the level of funding that is required to provide every young person with the quality of education currently reserved for the wealthy minority able to access elite private schools.

New Zealand government’s “foreign interference” bill prepares new attacks on democratic rights

Tom Peters

Composite image of National Party leader Christopher Luxon and Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins. [Photo: Christopher Luxon Facebook September 21/Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins Facebook September 7]

New Zealand’s right-wing National Party-led coalition government, with the support of the opposition Labour Party, is pushing through draconian legislation against so-called “foreign interference,” which will be used to significantly curtail freedom of speech and other basic political and democratic rights.

The Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in parliament on November 19 and was referred to the Justice Select Committee for discussion.

The former Labour Party government, which lost the election in 2023, first proposed the law change, following a campaign by the intelligence agencies and the corporate media, which have repeatedly made lurid and unsubstantiated claims about Chinese and Russian “influence” or “interference.”

The new legislation is part of the drive to integrate New Zealand more closely with US imperialism and its allies—including Australia and Canada, which passed their own “foreign interference” laws in 2018 and 2024—as Washington escalates its far-advanced preparations for war against China.

The ruling elite has been alarmed by the eruption of mass protests over the past year against the US-Israel genocide in Gaza, which New Zealand’s government supports. The Foreign Interference Bill creates a mechanism for the criminalisation of opposition to militarism and war in the working class and among young people.

The Crimes Act already includes laws against espionage and treason. Treasonous actions include overthrowing the government by force, conspiring to do so, and providing assistance to “any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities.”

The Foreign Interference Bill goes much further. Under the draft law, someone who “owes allegiance” to New Zealand (e.g. a citizen) commits an offence if they engage in “improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” in order to “compromise a protected New Zealand interest.” The maximum punishment for someone found guilty is 14 years in prison.

The definition of “improper conduct” is extremely broad and open to interpretation. It includes behaving in a corrupt, “coercive,” “deceptive” or “covert” manner, such as “concealing” one’s identity, “obscuring the existence of an association or relationship,” and “collecting or sharing information about a person without their knowledge or consent.”

Corruption is defined as using a position of authority to exert “undue influence or control” over someone to oppose New Zealand interests.

The bill states that these definitions exclude conduct such as “the protection of trade secrets, commercially sensitive information, journalists’ sources, or legally privileged communications.” But the legislation could clearly be used to criminalise political activists and organisations deemed to be acting in the interests of a foreign power.

It could also be used to accuse teachers and academics of using their position to exert “undue influence” over students, for instance by criticising New Zealand’s military alliances or the government’s support for Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians.

The Security Intelligence Service, the domestic spy agency, asserted in a 2023 report that “New Zealand’s academic sector—encompassing institutions, employees and students” was being targeted by foreign states to exert “influence” using “deceptive, corruptive or coercive means.” No evidence was provided to substantiate this claim.

Acting against a “protected New Zealand interest” is defined in a very broad manner. It includes undermining the country’s “security,” its “economic well-being” and “international relations,” as well as interfering in the conduct of elections and jeopardising the safety and rights of the population.

The law could be used to criminalise strikes and protests, including anti-war rallies, which might be deemed harmful to New Zealand’s international alliances, “national security” and the economy, i.e. corporate profits.

During World War I and II this is precisely what happened. Strikes were outlawed as damaging to the war effort and providing aid to the “enemy.” Sedition laws were used to suppress anti-war and socialist publications and to imprison hundreds of socialists and pacifists.

In prosecuting someone for “foreign interference,” the state would not be required to prove any actual connection to a foreign state. The bill says that a person commits an offence if “the person knows, or ought to know, that they are engaging in the [improper] conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” (emphasis added).

Nor would the state have to prove any intent to harm a “protected New Zealand interest.” A person can commit an offence if they are “reckless as to whether [their conduct] is likely to compromise a protected New Zealand interest.”

The government is also seeking to amend the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to expand warrantless search powers to enable the police and other agencies to spy on people suspected of “foreign interference.” This will mean a further increase in state surveillance of workers, students and young people who become politically active.

Thomas Beagle, chair of the NZ Council for Civil Liberties, told journalist Mick Hall that the Foreign Interference Bill “obviously risks being in breach of the government’s obligations under the NZ Bill of Rights Act to protect freedom of expression and freedom of association. New Zealanders clearly have the right to differ with the government of the day on what New Zealand’s interests are.”

Beagle said the bill could be used against people “working internationally with members of political parties that are aligned on issues of interest to New Zealanders.” He noted that environmental activists, who often work with overseas groups, are already accused of harming New Zealand’s economic interests.

In 2023 Hall was the target of a McCarthyite campaign by politicians and media pundits, who smeared him as a “Russian agent” because of his factual reporting on the origins of the war in Ukraine and the extreme right-wing character of the Zelensky regime. He was forced to leave his job at state-owned broadcaster Radio NZ. In future, such reporting could trigger prosecution for “foreign interference.”

The bipartisan support in parliament for the Foreign Interference Bill is a warning that there is no constituency in the New Zealand ruling class for the maintenance of basic democratic rights. There has been no critical reporting on the bill in the corporate media, which agrees with its contents.

Speaking on November 19, senior Labour MP David Parker suggested that the bill should go further by including provisions to control speech on the internet. Social media, he declared, was being used by foreign powers “to influence people and to influence opinions.”

The Green Party was the only party that voted against the bill. Its MP Teanao Tuiono noted in parliament that New Zealand was already subject to foreign influence by the United States through its membership in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, which also includes the spy agencies of Australia, Canada and the UK. He also criticised the anti-China AUKUS military pact—which the government has indicated it is prepared to join—and said New Zealand should have an “an independent foreign policy” focused on the Pacific region.

All of this is thoroughly hypocritical. The Greens were a coalition partner in the 2017-2023 Labour government, which strengthened ties with US imperialism and called for the military to be equipped and prepared to join a war against China. The Greens explicitly supported a major spending increase on the military to defend New Zealand’s neo-colonial interests in the Pacific region.

Australia: Labor government’s NDIS overhaul excluding thousands of children from disability support

Max Boddy & Martin Scott

The federal Labor government is carrying out a drastic overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aiming to cut $60 billion from projected disability spending over the next decade.

The cost-cutting restructure was made possible by legislation passed in August with the support of the Liberal-National opposition. It will involve removing thousands of people from the NDIS, while dramatically reducing funding for those who remain on the scheme.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten addressing Australian parliament, August 22, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/BillShorten]

While the new cost-cutting planning framework is not set to be fully in place until September, the Labor government has already started kicking thousands of children off the NDIS. According to the Saturday Paper, the Labor government intends to slash spending by $500 million in the next year through the campaign to exclude children.

Last month, the government announced it would spend $280 million in 2025–26 to establish a 1,000 person workforce to re-assess the eligibility of NDIS participants according to stricter new criteria.

Late last year, more than 1,000 automated letters a week were being sent out to families of children with disabilities and adults with permanent and profound impairments, in what one NDIS participant described to the Saturday Paper as a “fishing exercise.”

The letters demand that the recipients produce “evidence” of their continued eligibility within just 28 days—even over the Christmas holiday period—or face being thrown off the scheme. No details of why participants’ eligibility is being questioned, or what additional “evidence” is needed, are contained in the letters.

The use of automated letters, without any follow-up via phone to ensure that participants understood what was being demanded of them, recalls the “Robodebt” scheme implemented by the previous Liberal-National Coalition government. Between 2015 and 2019, the automated system unlawfully extracted almost $2 billion from more than 433,000 welfare recipients, devastating lives and driving some to suicide. Despite the notorious reputation of “Robodebt,” the Labor government continues to employ similar punitive methods to slash welfare costs.

In the six weeks to 9 November, 7,487 of these “reassessments” were performed. 5,872 concerned 7- and 8-year-old children, at least 48 percent of whom were dumped from the NDIS.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the NDIS, claimed in its 2023–24 annual report, published in late December, that “increased numbers of participants [were] leaving the NDIS as their support needs stabilise, including children who leave the NDIS after achieving their goals.” The actual number of children who “no longer need supports” is listed as “not available” in the report, supposedly due to a computer glitch.

The Saturday Paper cites rejection letters from the NDIS admitting that children thrown off the scheme still require “intensive support,” but that this is the responsibility of other departments to provide. This is despite the acknowledgement that areas such as the “Health System may not be equipped with ‘enough’ funding to appropriately support an individual’s needs.”

These cuts have been applied immediately, although state government funded “foundational supports,” which are supposed to replace services no longer funded by the NDIS, are only scheduled to start in July. Moreover, no detail has been made public about what these “foundational supports” actually are or who will be able to access them.

As early as September last year, the AEIOU Foundation for Children with Autism reported a dramatic, unannounced reduction in the annual funding for children with autism, whose NDIS plans were cut by up to 60 percent, throwing families into acute crisis.

The Labor government’s attack on the support provided for children with disabilities is part of a broader drive to slash NDIS spending.

A confidential internal brief from the Department of Social Services, obtained by the Saturday Paper in December last year, revealed the introduction of a rigid “needs assessment” framework, which is designed to slash the already paltry supports people with a disability receive by transforming the way funding is allocated.

Under the existing scheme, participants who qualify receive a set amount of money to pay for various support services. The Labor government’s latest cost-cutting overhaul transforms this voucher-based system into a ration-based one.

The new model introduces a strict “needs assessment” framework, based on detailed reviews of participants’ everyday activities. For instance, the assessment will count how many times each day a person needs assistance to get out of bed, shower, or leave the house. Funding will then be tightly linked to these specific actions.

The model also shifts from annual plan reviews to long-term budgets lasting up to five years, forcing NDIS participants to undergo a reassessment process in which they will be required to estimate precisely what services they will require over potentially a five-year period.

The NDIS was never designed to deliver the high-quality care and support promised to people with disabilities. Instead, the underlying premise was always to eliminate government-funded disability services and funnel vast sums of public money into corporate providers, under the guise of establishing a “market.”

From the outset, access to the scheme was deliberately restricted and the number of support plans capped. Many people were excluded, particularly those with psychosocial disabilities or who were classified as having “low-level” support needs.

Although an estimated 5.5 million Australians have a disability, fewer than 700,000 are covered by the NDIS.

The social consequences have been devastating. Essential services across the country have been dismantled, including long-standing disability support facilities for individuals with complex and multiple disabilities. Residents have been relocated to underfunded, privately operated group homes. Many have died in the process.

The private disability market has proven wholly inadequate to address the complex needs of people with disabilities. Numerous reports reveal participants dying while waiting for essential equipment to be provided.

Labor’s assault on disability supports is an essential element in its broader austerity agenda. Amid rising inflation, homelessness and unemployment, Labor has targeted cuts for welfare recipients, asylum seekers and immigrants, education and health services, while ensuring massive tax breaks for the wealthy and setting aside billions for US-led war preparations against China.

The latest massive cost-cutting exercise is framed as an effort to ensure the NDIS’s “sustainability” under the pretext of soaring costs due to widespread fraud and rorting.

This is a sham, aimed at covering up the fact that cost blowouts are an inevitable consequence of privatisation and the transformation of vital public services into profit-generating endeavours.

The only “solution” to this under capitalism is the one adopted by the Labor government—the broad-scale disqualification of people with disabilities from support measures.

This will result in a massive increase in inequality, with only the wealthy able to afford private disability support services, while working-class families are forced to make do with whatever limited assistance is available from the overcrowded and underfunded public health and education systems, or appeal to charity organisations.

Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine ends

Jason Melanovski

Blue flame coming out of a gas stove burner. [Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis/Flickr / CC BY 4.0]

The transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine has ended following the expiration of a five-year agreement on January 1. This marks the end of Ukraine’s long-standing role as a key energy route to Europe.

Following the outbreak of the ongoing NATO proxy war against Moscow in February 2022, the EU—with the full backing of the United States—worked rapidly to lower its energy use from Russian sources.

According to a recent Energynews report, Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine had already dropped “from 117 billion cubic meters in 2008 to just 14.65 billion in 2023, underscoring the decline of this historical corridor for Russian gas to Europe.” The EU has reported that Russian sources have come to constitute just 10 percent of its gas imports compared to 40 percent in 2021 prior to the war.

While Brussels claims that its member states are prepared for the now total cutoff of Russian gas, Moldova, which is not part of the EU, is experiencing shortages following Gazprom’s refusal to offer the country an alternate delivery route. The Russian energy company claims it did so due to Moldova’s failure to make payments.

As a result of the energy conflict, 51,000 apartments and 1,500 buildings have been left without heat in the Russian-backed breakaway Transnistria region of Moldova. Moscow and Chisinau are trading accusations as the crisis unfolds.

President Maia Sandu, who won a controversial election last November after EU officials publicly intervened against the pro-Russian candidate Alexander Stoianoglo, accused Moscow of “blackmail.”

'To call things by their names, this is an opportunity for them to create an energy crisis in Moldova, she said, adding, “This is another lesson for us—not to have one source of energy supplies that blackmails us every time.”

Just prior to the end of the agreement, speculative reports appeared in both Ukrainian and Western media suggesting that Azerbaijan would attempt to take up Russia’s role as a gas supplier to Europe via Ukraine or that a last-minute extension would be negotiated between the EU and Moscow.

Despite Russia’s assurances that it was more than willing to conclude a deal with the imperialist powers and continue sending gas to Europe, those reports have yet to come to fruition, as NATO moves forward with its long standing plans to decouple Russia from European energy markets.

In October of last year, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal publicly ruled out an extension of the now-expired gas transit agreement, when he met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Western Ukraine. “Ukraine once again says it will not continue the transit agreement with Russia after it expires,” Shmyhal told reporters, adding, “Ukraine's strategic goal is to deprive the Kremlin of profits from the sale of hydrocarbons which the aggressor uses to finance the war.”

Previously, in 2020, Ukraine and Russia were able to reach a last-minute deal after “five days of non-stop bilateral talks in Vienna” led by European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.

At that time, Russia supplied Europe with 40 percent of its natural gas and was nearing completion of the now-destroyed Nord Stream 2 pipeline but had momentarily paused the latter’s construction due to the imposition of US sanctions included in the massive $738 billion 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

Without those sanctions, it is unlikely that the deal that has now ended between Russia and Ukraine would have ever been signed. Moscow was previously only willing to offer one-year agreements, while Ukraine sought one that would last for 10 years.

Under the terms of the old arrangement, Russia sent 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas through Ukraine in 2020 and 40 bcm of gas from 2021 to 2025. In exchange, a cash-strapped Ukraine received around $7 billion in much-needed transit fees.

Prior to that deal, gas supplies to Europe had already been interrupted twice in the previous 13 years, as tensions escalated between Moscow and Western-backed governments in Kiev.

While the majority of EU countries have already significantly cut their use of Russian gas , the Ukrainian transit route still met 65 percent of demand in 2023 in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, according to the European think tank, Bruegel.

In November of last year, Russia cut off its supplies to Austria, a move which the country’s leader claimed would have no impact. “No home will go cold ... gas-storage facilities are sufficiently full,” Karl Nehammer told reporters at the time.

Hungary no longer receives significant natural gas through Ukraine’s pipeline and has shifted its Russian natural gas deliveries to the TurkStream pipeline that runs along the bed of the Black Sea.

Slovakia alone continued up to now to receive Russian gas via Ukraine, but has likewise switched to receiving Russian gas supplies via the TurkSteam pipeline. It has said, however, that it would prefer an alternate route through Germany that has yet to be used.

The fallout from the ending of the gas agreement continues to exacerbate already existing tensions between the Ukrainian government and neighboring Slovakia, which is both a NATO and EU member.

In addition to using Russian gas for its own needs, Slovakia also served as the main gas entry point to the EU from Ukraine and earned transit fees from sending the resource along to Hungary, Austria and Italy.

The Slovakian government, led by Prime Minister Robert Fico, has warned that the end of the agreement between Ukraine and Russia will have “drastic” consequences for EU countries. He has threatened to shut off electricity supplies to Ukraine, which is already suffering from rolling blackouts due to the war.

Earlier in December, Fico, one of the most vocal opponents of the Ukraine war within the EU, pledged that Ukraine would never be welcomed to NATO, a central goal of the Zelensky government. “Ukraine won’t be invited to NATO. It will lose a third of its territory. There will be foreign military forces there,' Fico said while addressing Slovakia's Parliamentary Committee for European Affairs.

He later made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, contradicting the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, by which all member states are expected to abide.

Last year, Fico survived an assassination attempt by 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, who was angered over the leader’s opposition to continued military aid to Ukraine.

In response to Fico’s criticisms of the gas deal’s termination, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Fico of “dragging Slovakia into Russia's attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians.”

On the military front, the situation continues to be going poorly for Ukraine. The one remaining active metering station, located at Sudzha, of Russian gas to Ukrainian pipelines was taken by Ukrainian forces during Zelensky’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk incursion in August. However, Russian forces are continuing to advance in the Donbass, where the Ukrainian military is facing manpower and ammunition shortages.

Russia just claimed the strategically important town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region. While Ukraine has yet to acknowledge the fact, a well-known right-wing Ukrainian military blogger, Yury Butusov, confirmed the town has been “effectively lost.”

Aware of the impending loss in Kurakhove, on Sunday the Ukrainian army launched another offensive in the Kursk region. Russia reports that in response it has destroyed, four tanks, two infantry combat tanks, 16 armored combat vehicles and a mine clearance vehicle.

As is typical of the PR-driven Zelensky government, the attack on Russian territory was timed to coincide with and counter the breaking news of the loss of Kurakhove and demonstrate to incoming US President Donald Trump that Kiev can wage an offensive, no matter how minor to the overall trajectory of the war or how many of its own troops it loses.

Ending of COVID funding prompts mid-year round of mass layoffs and budget cuts in US public schools

Jane Wise

Across the United States, a brutal assault on public education is occurring, with school districts from coast to coast announcing drastic budget cuts and mass layoffs even before the Trump administration comes to power. The attacks on teachers, social workers, and support staff are not isolated incidents but rather a systematic dismantling of public services that will be sharply accelerated after Trump’s inauguration.

Parents, teachers and students protest school closures outside Acero's Idar Elementary in Chicago on December 11, 2024.

The scale of the attack on public education is staggering. In Anchorage, Alaska, a $107 million budget deficit threatens to eliminate 598 jobs. The Anchorage School Board, using an online simulation tool called Balancing Act, is planning cuts to programs and personnel, as “there is no other way to do it,” according to Board Member Margo Bellamy. Even if the state increases per-student funding, the district would still face a $62 million deficit, requiring further cuts.

In East Orange, New Jersey, more than 70 school staffers, including teachers and social workers, were laid off due to an $8 million budget shortfall. These cuts are taking place despite previous tax increases, and parents worry this is only the prelude to a further undermining of their children’s education.

The Santa Ana Unified School District in California is also moving towards massive teacher layoffs. The school board voted 4-1 in favor of proposed cuts that could impact more than 300 educators. The district claims it faces a $180 million deficit, citing the end of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds and declining student enrollment as reasons for the cuts. 

In Springfield, Missouri, the school district plans to eliminate $8.6 million in salaries and benefits, the equivalent of 142 full-time positions, with 68 currently filled positions set to be cut by June 30. This is on top of $15 million in cuts from the current school year. Parents and teachers expressed frustration with the lack of transparency around these cuts and the prioritization of administrative positions over those in the classroom.

The Kingfisher, Oklahoma Public School board accepted the resignations of 18 employees, with over 20 positions impacted, including teachers and administrative roles. These cuts stem from a $2 million budget shortfall, partially caused by a $5 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging abuse within the school’s football program.

The impact of budget cuts on students and educators will be severe. The loss of teachers will lead to increased class sizes. The layoffs of social workers, counselors and other support staff, already in short supply, will leave students without vital supports and resources, particularly vulnerable students and those with special needs. 

Districts are also targeting extracurricular activities, such as sports programs, and specialized programs, such as the International Baccalaureate program in Springfield, Missouri. Even when districts say they are preserving programs, the elimination of program coordinator positions guarantees that these programs will fall by the wayside.

The loss of jobs and the threat of further layoffs will exacerbate the environment of overwork and uncertainty that currently exists in schools. This will further discourage teachers and accelerate the numbers of teachers leaving education, which has remained high since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The overall turnover rate in US public schools during the 2022–2023 school year was 12 percent, slightly down from 14 percent the previous year. School-level turnover averaged 23 percent last year with turnover in high poverty schools reaching nearly 30 percent.

The Biden administration has allowed ESSER funding to expire despite the ongoing pandemic and long-term effects of mass infection and Long COVID. This has led to widespread budget cuts in schools nationwide as cash-strapped school districts had come to depend on this temporary funding. However, the current fiscal crisis facing districts across the country is the result of decades of chronic underfunding in public education. 

An ongoing wave of public school closures is expected across the nation beginning in 2025. In addition to those cited above, some of the latest announcements include: Boston Public Schools, whose board announced plans to close four school and merge three others before the 2026-2027 school year; Fairbanks North Star Borough School District in Alaska plans to close five elementary schools by the end of this school year; Aldine ISD’s school board in Texas will vote in February whether to close seven schools by the 2025-2026 school year; and in California, district administrators in the Santa Rosa City Schools District have recommended the closure of four schools by the end of the present school year, which has also been met by major opposition among teachers, students and parents. 

Announcements of major cuts to schools have already provoked popular resistance, with rallies and packed school board meetings across the country.

Protesting the announcement the closure of all seven ACERO charter schools within Chicago Public Schools, a high school student, Luis Delgado, stated at a December school board meeting, “Why did you see us merely as profit rather than individuals with dreams and aspirations? We are not items to be counted as dollar signs!...We will continue to fight for our schools!” 

School districts, facing major budget deficits, cite various reasons for planned cuts, including the end of federal pandemic aid, declining enrollment, state and federal funding uncertainties, court decisions, and legal settlements. However, these explanations mask the underlying reality that public education is being starved of resources while a small section of the ruling class amasses unprecedented wealth. 

The total expenditure on ESSER funding, which started in March 2020, is $189.5 billion. This is less than the $213 billion Elon Musk added to his personal fortune (now estimated at $442 billion) during 2024. The annual US military budget is 4.5 times larger than the ESSER funding, a one-time measure spread out over seven years.

While school districts have cited the drying up of ESSER funds as the proximate cause of their austerity measures, many of the positions being cut were not added after the pandemic hit. This reveals a deeper trend of disinvestment in public education.

As for declining student enrollment, this is not primarily a question of demographic shifts. It is both the result of the deepening social crisis, including the impact of poverty, homelessness and the pandemic, as well as the deliberate policy of both capitalist parties to starve the public schools of vital resources.

Every educator has seen this movie before: Public money is siphoned off from public schools to fund charter, parochial and other for-profit ventures. Reduced services, understaffing and overcrowded public schools lose enrollment and this is used to justify more cuts.

As the World Socialist Web Site has consistently explained, the world’s capitalist oligarchs are amassing wealth at an unprecedented rate, while the working class faces increasing poverty and hardship. Such levels of gross inequality are incompatible with the democratic and egalitarian principles which lie at the foundation of public education.

Trump has nominated the wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon for education secretary and has called for sweeping cuts and restrictions to public schools including universal school vouchers to promote school privatization and elimination the Department of Education. The latter would significantly impact federal Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding for low income and special education students.

Trump also plans to steamroll any limitations on the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to arrest immigrant children and their families at schools before deporting them.

China’s economic malaise deepens as economic warfare intensifies

Nick Beams

The New Year has opened with deepening concerns that the present malaise in the Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, could be the lead-in to a long-term deflationary spiral which is set to be compounded by the tariff measures threatened by incoming US President Trump.

Display board showing Chinese stock market movements on the US presidential election day in Beijing, November 6, 2024. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The clearest evidence of mounting long-term problems is the situation in the $11 trillion government bond market where yields have fallen sharply. A move by investors into bonds, which sends their price up and their yields down (the two have an inverse relationship), is a sign they expect low growth in the future and deflationary conditions.

The yield on the 10-year government bond, which was just below 5 percent in 2013, fell to below 1.6 percent when trading began this week. There is now a gap of 300 basis points (3 percentage points) between Chinese and US ten-year bonds.

The extent of the deflationary trend was underscored by monthly price data released yesterday. Consumer price growth was up by only 0.1 percent in December as against a year earlier and down from the 0.2 increase recorded in November. Producer prices, taken at the factory gate, were down 2.3 percent with this measure in deflationary territory for the past 28 months.

In a report on the bond market published on Wednesday, Bloomberg commented: “The plunge, which has dragged Chinese yields far below levels reached during the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID pandemic, underscores the concern that policymakers will fail to stop China from sliding into an economic malaise that could last decades.”

Comparisons are being drawn with what took place in Japan at the start of the 1990s when the collapse of a property and real estate bubble led to decades of stagnation from which the country has never really recovered.

The Bloomberg report noted it was significant that China’s ten largest brokerage firms had all produced research on Japan’s “lost decades.”

The situation in China is potentially even more serious. This is because of its greater size and its role in the global economy as the chief engine of growth over the last decade and a half.

Its problems have been exacerbated by the economic warfare which now prevails, sparked by the anti-China measures implemented by the US. These will be intensified by the incoming Trump administration which has threatened to impose a 60 percent tariff hike on all Chinese goods.

The Bloomberg report noted that Chinese markets had entered 2025 “on a knife edge.”

This is expressed not only in the fall in bond yields but also in the continuing decline in the stock market. The CSI 300 index is down by around 4 percent since the start of the year, having lost more than 30 percent from its high in 2021. The offshore value of the renminbi has fallen to a near record low.

The fall in the value of the currency, which the central bank is pushing to halt, is the direct result of the tariff measures foreshadowed by Trump. The view in the markets is that financial authorities will have to lower the official value of the renminbi to counter the effect of the Trump measures by making exports cheaper.

However, the central bank is seeking to hold the line because it fears any devaluation of the currency will spark a capital outflow from China.

In a statement issued on Monday, the central bank, which sets a daily official exchange rate, said it would “resolutely guard against the risk of exchange overshooting and maintain the basic stability” of the renminbi.

It said the experience of “multiple rounds of appreciation and depreciation” showed it had “sufficient” tools to do this.

Apart from concerns about capital outflow, the central bank is fearful that if the value of the renminbi falls, thereby making Chinese goods cheaper in world markets, this will only bring further attacks from the US and also from Europe.

But the pressure from the financial markets for a devaluation is continuing notwithstanding the statements of the central bank.

The Financial Times reported that leading officials at the two main stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen have also intervened. They held meetings last weekend to reassure investors that China’s economy was supported by “solid fundamentals and resilience.”

But such assurances are not likely to cut much ice. The prevailing view in the world of finance capital is that the government must undertake far more radical measures than it has so far to boost the domestic economy via increased consumption spending.

Some measures have been initiated in the past few months including a loosening of monetary policy, limited easing of the debt burden on local governments and some action to lift consumer spending.

The government this week announced the expansion of a subsidy program it introduced last year providing money for customers who traded in old appliances such as air conditioners and washing machines for new ones. The subsidy program has been extended to include such items as microwaves, rice cookers and dishwashers, as well as smartphones and tablets costing less than 6000 renminbi.

According to the finance ministry, the program will cost 81 billion renminbi ($US11 billion) in 2025.

The scheme has already had some impact in boosting consumption. The commerce ministry has said 36 million people used the scheme last year to buy new appliances. But this is a small portion of the market in a country of 1.4 billion and the effects are only short term.

And as the Financial Times (FT) reported “overall sales rose just 3 percent in November, missing expectations and reigniting concerns about the pace of consumption growth, while real estate data showed the largest year-on-year fall in new home prices since 2015 and a deepening decline in property investment.”

Finance capital is looking for what has been termed a “big bazooka” aimed at the domestic economy. “In term of key things to look for in 2025… we think investors need to see more regarding consumption,” Winnie Wu, chief China equity strategist at Bank of America, told the FT.

But while it has been willing to introduce some marginal measures and President Xi Jinjing has pointed to the need to lift consumption in recent speeches and remarks, the government is not prepared to introduce the kind of large-scale stimulus measures it did in the past, fearing this will only compound debt problems.

Moreover, it is operating in a highly uncertain economic environment given the Trump tariff threats and the intensification of economic warfare measures from the US in the dying days of the Biden administration.

In the latest decision from Washington this week, the Pentagon placed more companies on a list deemed to have links to the Chinese military. These included the social media and gaming giant, Tencent, CATL, the world’s largest maker of electric vehicle batteries, and COSCO, China’s largest shipping firm and one of the biggest in the world, among others. There are now 134 companies on the list.

The Pentagon listing does not bring any sanctions with it but is a sure sign that the named firms are being targeted for further action.

All three companies denied connections with the military, with Tencent insisting it was “clearly a mistake” and it would work with the defence department to “address any misunderstanding.” CATL said it had never engaged in military related business. COSCO said none of its companies were involved with the military and it would seek to “clarify this matter” with US authorities.

But the actions of the Pentagon are not the result of mistakes or a misunderstanding. The US miliary apparatus is one of the most vociferous proponents of the position that economic and technological advance by China, irrespective of whether there is a direct connection to the military, is in and of itself a threat to the US.

The listing of CATL indicates some of the contradictions which will arise as the economic war intensifies. As a result of its expanding sales—CATL is a supplier to Tesla—the company was drawing up plans for a secondary stock market listing in Hong Kong, with an initial public offering (IPO) intended to give it access to offshore funds as it expanded its international operations.

The US firms Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have been reported as expressing interest in supporting the IPO. In the past US banks made considerable profits from such deals. But if they were to do so after the Pentagon listing, they could be accused of underwriting shares for a company with ties to the Chinese military that is supposedly thereby a threat to US national security.

Back in 2021, the Chinese consumer electronics firm Xiaomi was able to undertake court action to have itself removed from the Pentagon list. It successfully argued that its investment in 5G and artificial intelligence, the reason for its inclusion, was what every other company was doing.

No doubt the latest named firms will try to take the same path. But four years on, the economic war against China has been qualitatively stepped up and is about to become even more intense under Trump.

As Ankara and Washington disagree over the future of Syrian Kurds, Israel warns of war with Turkey

Barış Demir

On Friday, Hoşyar Sarıyıldız and Nuriye Arslan, Co-Mayors of the Akdeniz Municipality in Mersin, which is governed by the Peoples’ Democracy and Equality Party (DEM Party), were detained along with four municipal council members. A trustee is expected to be appointed to this municipality by the Ministry of Interior in violation of the Constitution.

The removal of elected mayors and the appointment of trustees is a clear attack on basic democratic rights. The Socialist Equality Group condemns this anti-democratic, police-state repression and demands the release and reinstatement of the elected mayors and councillors.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, shakes hands with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara, Turkey, Monday November 6, 2023. [AP Photo/Jonathan Ernst]

On March 31, many mayors of DEM Party elected in local elections were dismissed and replaced by trustees. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) mayors of Esenyurt, a municipality of 1 million people in Istanbul province, as well as the CHP mayors of Ovacik district in Dersim, have been subjected to the same arbitrary measure. The government’s recent escalation of police-state repression has included the arrest of May Day and Gaza genocide protesters, as well as numerous journalists, the linking of a left-wing political party to a fabricated “terrorist organisation”, and the closure of many media websites and X/Twitter accounts.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been using this unlawful practice intensively since 2015, mainly to effectively abolish the Kurdish people’s right to vote and be elected. The latest operations against DEM Party mayors come amid his government’s attempt to force Kurdish forces to lay down their arms through the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan.

On December 28, a delegation of DEM Party deputies met with Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999. The same delegation then held talks with Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and parliamentary political parties, including the CHP, and a “rosy picture” was painted.

The appointment of trustees and other attacks on democratic rights by the government show that the renewed negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, which Ankara has been trying to suppress for 40 years, have nothing to do with the claim of “peace and democracy”. These negotiations are essentially part of the war in the Middle East—which has escalated with the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, the struggle for the division of Syria, and the efforts of US imperialism to reshape the region.

On the one hand, Ankara wants the PKK to lay down its arms on Öcalan’s initiative, and on the other it wants the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria—led by the Kurdish nationalist People’s Protection Units (YPG)—to be liquidated.

Mustafa Karasu, a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), to which the PKK belongs, and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), to which the YPG belongs, said in an interview with Medya Haber TV: “We support the efforts of our leadership [Öcalan],” but he stressed, “Of course, when it comes to the Turkish state, especially when it comes to the Kurdish question, there is nothing wrong with a cautious approach to state policy.”

The Kurdish question, which is inherently an international problem due to the presence of the Kurdish people in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, has become an integral part of the imperialist struggle to divide the Middle East, especially after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the war for regime change in Syria in 2011.

The position of the SDF, which leads a de facto entity in Syria called the “Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria”, is critical because of the region’s oil reserves and its alliance with the United States, which continues to occupy the country with a force of 2,000 troops. Ankara’s initiative therefore requires an agreement not only with the Kurdish leadership, but also with the United States, once again under the presidency of Donald Trump, and with Israel, which is expanding its occupation of southern Syria and has declared the SDF its ally.

Ankara is also trying to use its influence with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has seized power in Damascus, to impose the dissolution of the Kurdish forces without any status and their subordination to the Damascus regime. While the HTS has decided to liquidate the armed groups in Syria and subordinate them to the central army, it remains unclear what will happen to the autonomous administration led by the SDF and its armed forces. However, the HTS, which does not want to confront the US and Israel, is postponing solving this difficult equation through dialogue with the SDF for now.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview on Wednesday that the PKK and the YPG had been given ultimatums through Washington and Damascus and that Ankara or the HTS would take military action if non-Syrian PKK members did not leave the country: “When we say ultimatums or conditions, we are saying that if you don’t want military action in the region, either by us or by the new government in Syria, the conditions are clear.”

In response, Washington had previously threatened Ankara with sanctions and increased its military presence in the region. During a visit to Paris on the same day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled that the US military presence in Syria would continue under the pretext of fighting ISIS, saying: “an even more acute danger would be if the more than 10,000 foreign terrorist fighters who are being detained under the vigilance of our Kurdish friends in Syria were to get out and reconstitute the very potent force that was Daesh in Syria, in Iraq, before it was defeated.”

Blinken stated the following about Ankara’s operation against the SDF: “We’ve been working very closely as well with our ally, our partner, in Türkiye—which has very legitimate concerns of course about the PKK and about terrorism—to navigate this transition, to navigate it in a way that I think leads to a resolution of many of those concerns, including over time with the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into Syrian national forces, including with the departure of foreign members of that force to their own countries, including with a resolution of questions around oil, around borders, et cetera, but that’s a process that’s going to take some time.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also said on Monday that France would not abandon “freedom fighters like the Kurds” who are allies of the West in the “war on terror” in Syria.

Speaking recently to France’s TV5 Monde, SDF foreign affairs officer Ilham Ahmed called on France to send troops to the region, saying, “The US and France can indeed secure the entire border. We are ready for this military coalition to assume such a responsibility.”

In Syria, which has been ravaged by a war for regime change since 2011, Ankara may find itself clashing not only with its NATO ally Washington or the SDF, but also with Israel.

On 6 January, the Nagel Commission’s report, which was presented to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stated that “Turkey has become the most influential power in Damascus and that the Sunni-Turkish axis has replaced Iran’s Shiite axis.”

“Turkey’s interests in turning Syria into a client state and thereby increasing its regional influence are clear. It should be prepared for actions on the ground and potential threats that could escalate rapidly,” the report said, arguing that military capabilities should be strengthened in preparation for a possible conflict with Turkey.

The Trump administration, which will take office on January 20, will play a decisive role in the deepening US-led divide in Syria and the Middle East. In his speech on January 7, Trump avoided answering the question of whether the US would withdraw its troops from Syria, saying, “I won’t tell you that because that’s part of a military strategy. But I will say it was Turkey.”

Trump, who recently announced his own annexation and global hegemony plans for the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada, mentioned Erdoğan with praise and stated the following: “President Erdoğan is a friend of mine. He’s a guy I like, respect. I think he respects me also.... if you look at what happened with Syria, Russia was weakened, Iran was weakened, and he’s a very smart guy. And he sent his people in there through different forms and different names, and they went in and they took over [in Damascus].”

“He [Erdoğan] is the one that didn’t go after certain people after I requested that he not. You know who I’m talking about? The Kurds. I don’t know how long that’s going to be, because they’re natural enemies. They hate each other,” Trump also said, suggesting he could rein in Erdoğan as he has in the past.

While Ankara hopes to advance its plans in the region by reaching an agreement with the new Trump administration, the Kurdish leadership is turning to the imperialist powers with the same bankrupt bourgeois nationalist perspective. In an interview with The Guardian on Friday, SDF leader Mazlum Abdi addressed Trump, saying, “the key factor for stability in the region is the US presence on the ground” and calling for continued cooperation against the “ISIS threat” and the possibility of an attack by Ankara.