Just in from Detroit. Teachers will protest the ongoing efforts to destroy public education in Detroit.
”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE Contact: (313) 355-3205
DPS TEACHERS FIGHT BACK!
“A Union Within a Union”
“Teachers from more than 40 DPS schools are demanding safe conditions, adequate learning environments, and a level playing field for DPS Students.”
Detroit- DPS Teachers Fight Back (A union Within a Union), is a group of teachers mobilizing to unite, shed light on unsafe and subpar learning conditions, and demand resolution. Just as doctors take the Hippocratic Oath to uphold ethical standards, teachers also take a Loyalty Oath to serve, protect and allow no harm. Unfortunately, we have been unable to live up to that with the constant change of leadership, state control and 4 consecutive Emergency Managers.
On Monday, January 11, 2016, 12 p.m., DPS Teachers will join in solidarity during a rally organized by teachers from Paul Robeson at Malcolm X Academy at the Fisher Building, 3011 W Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202. Despite the increased cost of medical care, and lost wages, teachers are choosing to go without pay or to take a personal day stand in unity.
We are not affiliated with BAMN, its leadership, or any former DFT leadership. We are teachers united as it is time that we stand up and defend our students, our profession, and our rights! Our cornerstone issues are Academics, Fairness & Equity. Our goal is to ensure that Detroit students are no longer pay for the deficit created by state control, and to protect their civil rights and ability to receive an exemplary education.
In an Open Letter to DPS Parents, DPS Teacher Sarah Jardine shared the following:
“Dear Parent, I write this to you on this night because you’re on my mind. You live in Detroit and you send your child to Detroit Public Schools. You trust me everyday with your children. I feel that I owe you an apology. I apologize because I should have stood up. I kept quiet as they dismantled our schools. I was silent when they took your schools from you. I didn’t protest in the streets when they put our schools in State control. I said nothing when they took your democracy. I should be ashamed of myself. I, the teacher you trusted, had power to start a revolution, and fight for you, and I didn’t fight back. Tonight, I am going to make you a promise that I won’t sit quiet any longer.” (Read Here)
Public education is the cornerstone to democracy, and Detroit teachers deserve to be treated the same way teachers are treated in Livonia, Novi, West Bloomfield, Grosse Pointe, Troy, and all other districts throughout the state of Michigan.
In an Open Letter to Darnell Earley, 4th Grade DPS Teacher, Pam Namyslowski said:
“Mr. Earley, I have been a teacher in Detroit Public Schools for 24 years. I feel the need to respond to some of the comments you made during your press conference this week. You described the actions of protesting teachers as “unethical”. I’m curious, then, how you would characterize the learning conditions of the children of Detroit Public Schools that have existed for years. These deplorable learning conditions happen to also be the teachers’ working conditions.” (Read here)
The DPS Teachers Fight Back Rally will include remarks from Dr. James Perkins, Greater Christ Baptist Church, DPS Parents, and DPS Teacher organizers, during which a list of concerns and demands will be shared including: Safe learning conditions for all students, Increasing student academic achievement, and the removal of Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, who was an integral part of the Flint Water Crisis. We hereby stand united to protect the 47 thousand students remaining within Detroit Public Schools and demand immediate corrective action!
###
click here for DPS Fight Back Press Release PDF
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now watch Ms. Weingarten helicopter in and do the school district’s work by threatening these brave teachers.
LikeLike
Should spread through the nation’s 14,000 school districts and leave the smug teacher union leaders behind. Brave teachers, abandoned by their union chiefs, have been driven to this action to save their own profession and to defend their students. If such widlcat strikes spread, the ugly private war on public schools may end in time to save the public sector from total looting by private charters and by standardized testing relentlessly pushed on us by billionaires out of control. This catastrophe is invisible in the Presidential election season, not spotlighted or debated by either major party, both of whom threw k-12 under the bus to make it easier for the billionaire candidates to campaign.
If beleaguered teachers had been organized to fight CCSS and PARCC by their complicit leaders Randi/Lily AFT/NEA, the assault on the public sector would have halted already. But Randi/Lily are not labor leaders–they are agents of the Democratic Party whose singular task is to elect Hillary despite Hillary promising nothing in return to relieve public schools and despite Hillary’s 30-year association with the privatizers-in-chief, Eli Broad and the Waltons from her home state of Arkansas, on whose Board she served when Bill was Governor. Let’s hope that more blocs of teachers bypass their fake union leaders and take similar action to rescue the public sector from bankruptcy. Opt-Out parents have been in the fight for several years, waiting for teachers to join them.
LikeLike
Just saw this on Yahoo!—
Link: http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2016/01/11/dps-schools-closed-sickouts/78618800/
😎
LikeLike
Look for huge celebrations in the ed reform “movement” when unions lose at the Supreme Court.
I don’t mind when politicians lie to union leaders, but I think it’s disgusting they so consistently lie to rank and file union members.
The fact is in every state where public sector unions have been gutted, private sector unions are the next to go. Every time.
If they’re telling you they support private sector unions but oppose public sector unions, they are lying to you.
LikeLike
Chiara, private sector unions are already effectively gone, representing only six percent of the workforce. The only thing that brings overall union density above ten percent nationally is public sector unions.
If/when the Supreme Court rules against the public sector unions, then it’s truly the endgame for organized Labor in the US.
And what will happen to Randi Weingarten’s “seat at the table” when the Overclass no longer needs her to enable the hostile takeover of the public schools?
It won’t be long before Bill Gates and the rest of the so-called reformers will no longer be returning her phone calls.
LikeLike
BEAUTIFUL!!!!
But what has taken so long?
LikeLike
If I remember correctly, there were labor wars over the right to collectively bargain. There was bloodshed and some feared a break out of new civil war over labor relations. Why do we wish to revisit this sad episode in our history?
LikeLike
We need some labor wars and the threat of a more militant union to shake things up. We don’t need a union to be a mediator but an advocate. 95% of the Chicago teachers vote strike. Do you think they will have problems collecting dues?
LikeLike
Those were different times, there was a strong socialist camp, respect for socialist ideas, and much less advertising, no TV, etc.
Men were less effete in those days. There were also less racial divisions, the immigration quota act of 1926 in effect.
LikeLike
if the bloodshed brings back freedom and humanistic value in education system, then i will be all for it WITHOUT FEAR OR HESITANCY. Back2basic
LikeLike
Just wanted to leave a message to express my support of all the efforts of the brave teachers of Detroit making their voices heard. Kudos for taking a stand and fighting for what’s right!
LikeLike