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Can Schools Sustain the Rising Cost of Retiree Health Care?
No full textMany New York State school districts spend significant amounts each year for retiree health care benefits, and these payments are expected to grow over the coming decades. This brief summarizes findings from a study examining approximately 300 New York State school districts. Unlike retiree pension plans, which are typically prefunded, retiree health care benefits are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning that benefits for past employees who are currently retired are paid using current district revenues. In the average school district, pay-as-you-go spending currently amounts to 4.5 percent of district revenues. Assuming current benefit and funding policies remain, spending is projected to reach 9 percent of total revenue by 2055 and exceed 13 percent by 2075. The authors discuss three policy changes which together offer one possible approach to slowing the growth of future costs: partial pre-funding, increasing the years of experience required for eligibility, and gradually increasing the share of insurance premiums paid by retirees
Rethinking Education: A Lesson on Critical Thinking from a Non-Western Perspective
No full textDrawing on the author’s experience and research in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, this paper explores study abroad in a non-western country as a means to seek opportunities to examine one’s biases and beliefs (think critically) and learn about perspectives different from their own lived experi-ences by asking questions. The experience allowed the author to reflect on the importance of com-munity in Bishkek as opposed to American hyper-independence, as well as the widening political rift in the United States, instigated by a decline in face-to-face communication and empathy, and a lack of diverse opinions and disagreement in American society. Through limited survey and qual-itative data, this paper explores women’s freedom of career choice in Bishkek and challenges the American culture of consumerism by way of critical thinking. These concepts complicate Western ideals for feminism and market values, which may not be addressed typically due to the aforemen-tioned lack of dialog and healthy disagreement in American culture. The study provides ideas for reflection on the differences and similarities of gender roles and consumption under capitalism in Kyrgyzstan and the United States. In order to reflect on differences exemplified in this paper, critical thinking and curiosity must be revitalized in American society and education systems
Livingness as a Liberatory Framework for Decolonizing LIS Praxis
No full textThe fields of library and information science (LIS) are in a pivotal moment. While the stakes may seem higher than ever, Indigenous, Black, and queer communities have long anticipated this moment, demonstrating how libraries and archives are not yet equipped to meaningfully participate in the project of decolonization. I build on existing calls for decolonization in our discourse and practices by drawing attention to the living/non-living dualism in our ontologies and the ways it constrains our ability to reconcile with our fields’ colonizing origins. I contemplate what it would mean to treat all information as endowed with a sense of livingness, which exposes the ethical downfalls of trying to neatly group objects as living or non-living, document or body. Livingness as a liberatory framework moves our discourse beyond who or what should be given ethical regard and centers a relational, more-than-human ethics of care
Carroll Beauvais, Raymond Carver Reading Series, October 22, 2025
No full textA video recording of Carroll Beauvais reading on October 22, 2025, as part of the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program\u27s Raymond Carver Reading Series. Running time: 32:33
Imagined Communities of English Language Learners: Pedagogical Considerations
Get PDFAligning with ongoing efforts to provide additional support to international students in English programs, this paper highlights the need to consider English learners’ developing identities by focusing specifically on the construct of imagined communities. The authors offer pedagogical recommendations for practitioners to help these learners establish connections with their desired communities by focusing on learners, teachers, and context
