 Teacher protest, Miami Dade School Board, Feb. 11, 2009 |
In 2010, more than 150,000
teachers are expected to lose their jobs, according to school officials and
union leaders. The layoffs include 9,000 in New Jersey, 16,000 in New York and
36,000 in California. Many tens of thousands of paraprofessionals, janitors,
secretaries, nurses, librarians and other school workers are also getting pink
slipped.
According to May 19 New York Times
article, the number of applicants for positions has skyrocketed. Many districts
have instituted hiring freezes and laid off teachers while raising class sizes
to decrease the need for hiring teachers. There is one education sector that is
hiring: charter schools.
Charter schools receive public
funds but do not have to play by the same rules as regular public schools. They
can choose to deny certain students an education—anathema to the principle of
public education, which should serve all students.
Under the guise of school choice
and serving poor communities—charters schools are turning public education
private. Some of the people behind the so-called reform movement pushing
charter schools reveals the character of the movement: billionaire Bill Gates,
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel
Klein.
The owners of the largest
corporations and banks have used the longest and most disastrous crisis since
the Great Depression to their benefit. The capitalist state has transferred
billions of dollars of wealth into their hands. They have made bets on the
failure of their own financial products, profiting from the crisis itself.
While the federal government wages
war and hands money to banks and corporations, it slashes funds to state and local
governments. Those same state and local governments have felt the effects of
the economic crisis that has destroyed previously padded budgets. At every
level of government, the politicians who serve the capitalist class have pushed
the crisis onto the backs of the working class.
Public education, like public
transportation and other social services, are the targets of increasingly
frequent rounds of cuts. The effects of this crisis are coupled with an
expansion of a consistent campaign to privatize and cut back public education.
Just as the capitalist class has
taken advantage of the economic crisis to increase profits and further
impoverish the working class, the Obama administration is using the budget
crisis as the backdrop to an expanded push to gut public education, calling it
the Race to the Top.
Race to the Top increases funding
for charter schools while dangling funds in front of strapped school districts,
promising resources if the districts enact “reform.” The required reform
includes closing schools, converting schools to charter schools and firing
teachers and administrators. Some of those fired will then be rehired to work
under worse conditions.
Target: teachers’ unions
The majority of the 4,600 charter
schools nationwide are not unionized. Teachers work longer hours, are paid
less, compete for merit pay and have less job security. Charter schools are a
giant union-busting effort being funded by corporate and public funds.
The teachers’ unions are a major
target of the push to privatize education. The demonization campaign
accompanies the latest round of cuts, and efforts to force teachers to accept
cuts in their contracts is fierce.
Teachers and students are refusing
to sit by and watch while access to public education is stripped. There have
been protests, rallies and community meetings across the country ranging from
tens to thousands of people.
On the weekend of May 22, 35,000
people—including many students and school workers—gathered in New Jersey to
protest budget cuts. Then educators rallied at the Michigan state capitol on
May 24. Earlier, on March 4, tens of thousands marched in cities across the
country in defense of public education.
District by district, some
concessions are being won but in the midst of much greater losses. Already
overworked, underpaid teachers are being forced to accept furlough days, pay
cuts, benefit cuts, increased class sizes and reduced numbers of support
professionals.
National fight back needed
The battle to protect public
education, and to defend the teachers’ unions, is being fought on a local
level. For any victory to really be won in the face of such an onslaught, the
struggle needs to be expanded. There needs to be a national fight-back campaign
that refuses to bow to the ruling class’s excuse that this is not a national
issue.
Education is a national issue.
Hundreds of thousands of school workers and students across the country are
suffering the effects of the campaign to downsize and privatize education.
Organizations exist that are
capable of mobilizing a national fight-back campaign: the unions. There could
easily be a demonstration of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C.,
demanding an end to the destruction of public education if the teachers unions’
called it.
The national teachers’ unions have
limited themselves to lobbying Democrats, under the false illusion that the
Democrats are not part of the problem. The National Education Association—the
largest teachers’ federation—has started a television ad campaign to convince
House Democrats to vote for a school funding bill that has not yet garnered
much support in the halls of Congress.
The
American Federation of Teachers is having its national convention in July, and
the NEA is holding a summer conference in June. Teacher delegates should push
the two federations to support a real fight-back movement that can defend
teachers’ unions and access to truly public education.
