Justin Wedes, one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street, reminds us that direct action works:
Friends,
When it rains, it pours!
This week began with the surprising news that U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan is initiating a process to help defrauded college students seek forgiveness on their federal student loans. There is no doubt that this major announcement, which could lead to billions of dollars in savings for cheated student loan debtors, was instigated by the powerful actions of Corinthian College students who refused to pay back loans. Their school administration was caught bribing employers to temporarily hire (and then fire) graduates in order to beef up their success numbers.
The group behind this strike: an Occupy Wall Street offshoot called Debt Collective, who released a statement claiming the USDOE hadn’t gone far enough. And they’re right: millions more students are living with inflated degrees, souring job prospects and boatloads of student loan debt that threaten to derail the economy again. Still, this is a huge step in the right direction and should open the floodgates to student loan forgiveness.
Then Wednesday brought more good news for students: NY’s Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha resigned in shame after instituting the college’s first-ever tuition in 2013. His tenure was mired in controversy, including a famous student occupation of his office by Free Cooper Union, another OWS offshoot. His resignation was one of their three demands. The other two define a pathway back to free education, which should be the goal not just for Cooper Union but for every (public) higher education institution in this country. (Here’s a study showing that the U.S. could provide free education to all for only $15 billion more in spending per year, or 1/26th the cost of the fighter jet program)
What do these victories have in common? They affirm that direct action against the injustice of unaffordable, debt-driven higher education works. They show that millennials aren’t just sitting back and accepting the realities of an educational system that is becoming less and less accessible to them. They are standing up and fighting back, skillfully and with sustained action. And that’s seriously good news.
Keep fighting,
Justin
Dispatches from Detroit
by Justin Wedes
Avalon Village Detroit, MI 48226 USA
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We have attempted to rebut Reformer arguements with research, policy and equity arguements. Nothing moves rReformers from their crusade to kill public education. As we learned from the struggles for civil rights and to end the war in Vietnam and most recently Occupy WallStreet and Opt out, direct action and confrontation is both a viable and necessary course of action to effect change. The only way to fight the powers that would hurt kids, teachers, parents and schools is to force the Reformers to confront large scale protests and civil disobedience.
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AMEN. Right on.
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It is imperative that we forge working alliances with progressive labor unions, parents and community groups, child advocates, in fact any group that shares our values and wants to commit themselves to a common cause- smashing the ‘Reforners’ on all fronts. The stakes are too high, the opposition has demonstrated time and again that it is beyond compromise and care for anything but imposition of its invalid approach to teaching learning, instruction, evaluation and student assessment, not to mention ill gotten profits. Does this sound extreme? Just take an in blinking, eyes open look at what is happening, almost without exception, on local, state and federal levels: it sickens the heart and bodes not well for the long term life of public schools. Nice words and belief in good intentions is delusional, akin to burying one’s head in the sand.
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Worthwhile though this cause is, people should be very skeptical of the Pied Piper who claims to be leading it.
Justin Wedes flits from city to city – first NYC, then Portland, Oregon, now Detroit – presenting himself as a revolutionary tribune, until people tire of his antics and proprietary attitude about the revolution.
He was sued by fellow Occupy activists for taking over its Twitter feed and locking everybody else out (reported on by the NY Times in September of ’14), and leaves behind a trail of mistrust and broken alliances as he migrates from place to place.
A word to the wise: stay away from this character and don’t trust anything he does or says.
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Hi Michael,
Have we arrived at the moment when there should be serious discussions among a coalition of progressives about formally coordinating political and tactical approaches to staying the tide of the ‘Reform’ juggernaut? If this is the case, what might be the shape of an umbrella organization? For example, is it desirable or feasible to coordinate Opt-out activities on a state or national level? Obviously, the ideological, political and organizational issues are complex, but discussions should be initiated.
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Michael you raise an important caveat. The last thing we need now is a Pied Piper, similarly, following parking meters (if you catch my reference) maintains un coordinated local actions. What are the next steps in developing a mature resistance movement? Is a coordinated resistance movement desirable or feasible?
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