The author is a teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco, and is the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s congressional candidate in California’s 12th district running on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Hrizi and her coworkers and students have organized two protests at school demanding, “No more budget cuts! No layoffs!”
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The proposed California state budget is a vicious attack on all services and programs for working and poor people. If approved, the budget will cut a total of $6 billion from education—$4.8 billion from K-12 and $1.3 billion from higher education.
The politicians claim, as always, that the cuts are necessitated by a budget “crisis.” There is no shortage of money for education; however, capitalist interests would rather see the money spend on their own priorities rather than those of working people.
Tens of thousands of teachers, paraprofessionals and other staff have received layoff notices. Services and programs for disabled students, English language learners and “extracurricular” activities like art, science, physical education and libraries in next year’s school budgets are being slashed.
Public education in California is already being dismantled and privatized. According to Education Week, California is among the top five states with the highest student-to-teacher ratios and ranks 47th in per-pupil spending.
The union locals representing education workers have organized minimal resistance to the layoffs. Most union officials and Democratic politicians are using the education cuts as an opportunity to attack Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and plug the Democratic Party. Union initiatives include organizing hearings of fired teachers and negotiating the finer points of seniority and rescission with the various districts.
Many local unions did organize protests the week after the layoffs were announced, such as the rally at the State Building in San Francisco, which was attended by hundreds of teachers.
Half the staff at Cleveland Elementary, the school where I teach, has received layoff notices. Our small school serves the working-class Excelsior District of San Francisco. More than 60 percent of our students receive free or reduced-price lunches—an indicator of their economic standing.
When United Educators of San Francisco organized its March 11 rally, many of us carpooled to the State Building and were happy to see hundreds of other teachers, staff, parents and students rallying. The rally, however, featured one Democratic politician after another: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, most of the Board of Supervisors, and State Assembly and Senate representatives, all promising to fight on our behalf. Only one teacher and two parents spoke.
At that rally, the city officials promised to free $30 million from a San Francisco emergency Rainy Day Fund to patch the budget cuts and ensure that we would have teachers and staff. Since then the city has backtracked and is only offering $18.7 to $19 million from a fund that contains $120 million.
This was not surprising. The promises were meant to undermine the struggle of those affected by the budget cuts. The broken promises of capitalist politicians and the meager efforts of the union bureaucracy have forced teachers and staff, parents, and students to take matters into their own hands.
In San Francisco, schools have organized rallies and walkouts. On April 28, parents, students and teachers grilled the capitalist politicians about their rescinded promise. Throughout California, thousands have protested—from elementary schools to the universities—on their campuses, in their communities and at the Capitol building in Sacramento. More is planned.
What is truly needed is a united movement that will come together and force the state of California—from Gov. Schwarzenegger to the politicians in the legislature—to restore our school’s funding. Such a movement must fight so that our young people can receive a quality education without budget cuts looming large every one or two years.
