Mapping GOP’s Scheme To Fire 224,000 Public School Teachers
Republicans are kicking more than 224,000 teachers from classrooms
“The Republican cut of $64 billion, portends their intent to end public education in America and eliminate job opportunities for young adults and working families… 161 House Republicans voted earlier this year to eliminate all K-12 funding at the Department of Education” – Democrats Appropriation Committee
How do you explain the GOP scheme so that more people can appreciate how it will impact them? DemLabs partnered with Democracy Partners to create this map in a few hours using data from Democrats Appropriation Committee. the Search for your town on this map. See how much your local school district will lose and how many teachers are expected to lose their jobs from the Republican scheme. Later we’ll cover some of the digital storytelling principles used.
Why it’s important to know about the GOP proposed cuts?
- Reduce services for young children. The bill will eliminate access to early childhood education for 51,000 children through cuts to Head Start.
Kick teachers out of classrooms. Under this bill, during a severe nationwide teacher shortage, 224,000 teachers could be removed from classrooms serving low-income students due to House Republican cuts to Title I.
Eliminate services for English learners. The House Republican bill eliminates federal support for vital academic services for 5,131,000 English learners through the elimination of English Language Acquisition (Title III).
Eliminate Federal Work Study. The bill eliminates Federal Work Studyfor the 659,000 students who need it to help finance a postsecondary education, limiting their potential earnings and future success in the job market.
Eliminate need-based financial aid. The House Republican bill takes away need-based financial aid for 1,666,000 students through the elimination of Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG).
Eliminate youth employment opportunities. The bill eliminates WIOA Youth Job Training, which would deny job training and employment services for 126,000 youth who face barriers to finding a good paying job.
Eliminate adult employment opportunities. The bill eliminates WIOA Adult Job Training, which would deny job training and employment services for 294,000 adults who face barriers to finding a good paying job.
Digital storytelling tips
Start with the assumption that people are not interested in what you have to say. They’re busy. You’re competing with flood of competing more glitzy content. How do you catch their attention even for a few seconds? Use images, cartoons, short interesting titles to draw them into your message.
Assume you only have their attention for a few seconds before they are distracted. So remember to front-end load your message. Put your key points up front and not at the end. Chance are that they may not make it to the end anyhow.
People are interested in how an issue affects their lives. So try to let readers personalize the content to them. A map is ideal for this because then readers can see how they are affected. e.g. how will the GOP cutbacks to education hurt their kids’ school.
Keep it short. Resist the temptation to load your message with too much material. It’s much better to provide links for readers who are interested in digging deeper into the subject.
Make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for. The Democrats Appropriations Committee website has a lot of amazing content, but not all readers have the time and energy to wade through it to see how their district would be impacted. We converted the data from the site into a visual form which makes it easier to navigate and understand.
Give people a call to action. We overlaid the budget cuts with the congressional rep responsible for that district and how readers can contact them.
The ultimate voter suppression scheme
Think about it: by gutting public education, Republicans get to reduce literacy for millions of kids. And if you can’t read a ballot, how can you vote! So gutting public education may be the ultimate form of voter suppression!
TakeAway: Hold MAGA reps who deny your kids a decent education accountable. Vote for Democrats!
Deepak
DemLabs
This infographic can be freely shared with this link https://arcg.is/1uHzGe
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Reposted from Democracy Labs with permission.