Please read this statement released by Black Lives Matter in support of the United Teachers of Los Angeles and their strike for better conditions for teaching and learning.
It reads, in part:
The demands of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) strike are in direct support of students and parents, and are directly aligned with the four demands of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. It is therefore our duty to stand with UTLA in it’s fight for:
More nurses, counselors, school psychologists, librarians
Smaller class sizes
Less standardized testing
Sustainable community schools
End to privatization and charter expansion
End to criminalization of students through unlawful and random police searches
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m glad that BLM understands the evil of the foundations and individuals among the richest 0.1% who promote charter schools. BLM joins the NAACP, SPLC and ACLU in a major pushback to racists and unconscionable greed.
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It’s hard to overestimate the significance of BLM’s statement of support.
This is a salvo to the DEMOCRATS.
To Gavin Newsome.
To Eric Garcetti.
To Austin Beutner.
To Arne Duncan.
To the wealthy LA Democratic power structure.
To Eli Broad.
To the LA philanthropic organizations that feed the minions and faux grass root organizations that are fronts for their pro corporate and charter agenda.
To Corey Booker, To Kirsten Gillibrand. To any other would-be presidential candidate seeking the Democratic nomination.
The fact that BLM has weighed in means that no more do these the “spokespeople” for the interests of working people, of parents, of students in predominantly minority school districts get to call the shots.
Whatever LAUSD superintendent of the day doesn’t get to claim a “progressive” label and support Republican and Right Wing Education policies.
This day has been a long day coming. Years in the making.
The strike is only in its first day.
But after years of fighting the wealthy, titans who have sought to game the system for their own interests, their political landscape is crumbling. It is finally, convincingly, powerfully and righteously, moving in our direction.
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Geronimo- Your statement zeroes in on the watershed moment in this struggle for democracy. Preceding BLM’s support for teachers, there was the ACLU, NAACP and the SPLC’s opposition to the segregation schools relabeled, charter schools.
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So we’ve turned a corner–human rights organizations seeing the light–just like Diane did, & now we’re proud to discuss–on this site–better education for all.
The light is at the end of the tunnel, slowly but surely.
(Can’t be fast enough for everyone reading this!)
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This is good to see, since so-called reform types (notably Brittany Packnett of TFA and the execrable DeRay McKesson) have tried to infiltrate BLM and affect its policies for the worse.
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