Education & Social Class: Us and them

Walking around the ULU campus, I see students apparently from many, many countries.  SOAS alone has so many different voices .  I remember in the fall, this was the place to find demonstrations. Students from the Caribe, and from Africa, from Asia, from the Subcontinent gathered every weekend to march, or protest, or head to the Parliament Building  Trafalgar Square was s every weekend with a party, a demonstration, or just a music or dance show from another country.  The new mayor of London is not so receptive to such goingson, I guess.

Everything resonates and repeats.  The Brits have resurrected the call for a return to "British identity" apparently white and right wing.  The good citizens of California no longer want their tax money spent on schools and social services, because in the last twenty years the student body is no longer all white and wholesome.  Brits worry that emigrants enter the UK on student visas, take a class or two and drop out or drop bombs.  Californians worry that children of emigrants are going to school free just like "legal" residents.  

An important note of the lecture: there is a severe shortage of teachers announced, probably in the lower grades, while cuts to higher education means layoffs and class cuts.  I meant to inquire what comprised teacher training in the UK. The pay is not very good either  California keeps adding requirements, mostly irrelevant education courses. the older teachers are counting the days until they can retire, and still schools layoff teachers. And still the citizens worry.  The greatest fear they should have is themselves, saddling debts and a long term period of undereducation on their children and grandchildren.  .