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Steven Singer: Hey, Unions, Watch, Wait, and Listen Before You Endorse a Candidate

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2019 //
20

 

Steven Singer urges the two big teachers’ unions to watch and wait before they make an endorsement in the Presidential race, and be sure to listen to their members.

The good news is that the Network for Public Education Action is creating a report card for all of the candidates and will regularly update the report card. We want education to be an important issue in the 2020 race, as it was not in 2016.

 

Singer begins:

Let’s not mince words.

 

The last Presidential election was a cluster.

 

And we were at least partially to blame for it.

 

The Democratic primary process was a mess, the media gave free airtime to the most regressive candidate, and our national teachers unions – the National 
Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) – endorsed a Democratic challenger too early and without getting membership support first.

 

This time we have a chance to get it right.

 

Edu-blogger Peter Greene spoke my feelings when he took to Twitter:

 

“Just so we’re clear, and so we don’t screw it up again—- NEA and AFT, please wait at least a couple more weeks before endorsing a Democratic Presidential candidate for 2020.”

 

He’s being snarky.

 
No one would endorse two years before people actually enter a voting booth.

 

Singer thinks it was a huge mistake to endorse Hillary Clinton long before the primaries. The result might have been the same, but the membership should have had a chance to weigh in before the decision was made. At the very least, Clinton should have been asked to state in public that she would support public funding for public schools only, with no federal funding for privately owned and privately managed charter schools, even those that call themselves “public charter schools” because they get public money. She should have also been asked to speak out on the subject of testing, its misuse and abuse. She should have been asked if she would change federal law to stop closing schools based on their test scores.

Right now, Congress gives more than $400 million every year to charter schools, even though they don’t need the money. They are flush with money from billionaires, millionaires, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and tech titans. When you are funded by Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, the Walton family, John Arnold, Eli Broad, and Reed Hastings, just to name a few, why does the federal government lavish more funding on charters.

Candidates should be required to seek the support of teachers, not to take it for granted.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers, Testing, Unions, US Education

Eric Blanc: West Virginia Teachers Prove That Strikes Work!

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2019 //
7

 

Eric Blanc has gone to every teacher strike while writing a book about them. From what he saw this week in West Virginia, he concludes that strikes work. The teachers defeated a dangerous privatization bill.

Teachers made clear that they would not compromise, even though union leaders warned them they could not win.

The teachers won. They did not compromise.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Why Don Trump Jr.’s “Loser” Comment Struck Fear in the Hearts of Teachers Around the World

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2019 //
174

Recently at a political rally in Texas, Donald Trump Jr. sneered at teachers and called them “losers” who were indoctrinating their students into socialism.

Three teachers published a response on Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog on the Washington Post website. They wrote that his words has a chilling effect on educators around the world.

Valerie Strauss wrote:

In this post, three teachers explain why Trump Jr.’s comment was more than simply mean.

Jelmer Evers of the Netherlands, Michael Soskil of the United States and Armand Doucet of Canada were featured authors in the 2018 book “Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice.”

I wish it was not behind a paywall, along with the rest of the Washington Post, which is a great newspaper. I love its slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” We are living through one of the very dark moments of our nation’s history.

They wrote:

For teachers around the globe, this was a chilling moment.

In a stadium filled with people chanting “USA, USA,” the son of the president of the United States called for hostility toward teachers because of their so-called political leanings. This is a message you would expect in an authoritarian regime, not at a rally for the U.S. president.

As teachers, we come from varied backgrounds and political leanings, but there is an undeniable core to who we are and what we stand for. Teachers nurture, care and protect students. Teachers champion the pursuit of knowledge.

By working daily with young people, teachers are the stewards of the future. Whether Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative, right, left, center, blue or red — seeing and reinforcing the value of a teacher should be a national pillar that rises high above partisan politics and cheap applause.

Throughout history, schools and teachers have always been among the first to be targeted by authoritarian regimes and extremists. Independent thinking, creativity, compassion and curiosity are threats to dogmatic beliefs and rule.

Many of our colleagues in countries ravaged by war or in shackled societies teach in difficult circumstances. They are often ruthlessly persecuted and even killed for providing a well-balanced education to children, which should be a basic human right.

Echoes of these authoritarian practices are increasingly being heard in democratic countries as well. In Germany, the radical right party Alternative for Germany has launched a website where students and parents can report “left-wing teachers.”

In the Netherlands, right-wing parliamentarians have called on students to out their socialist teachers because they were indoctrinating their students in “climate change propaganda.”

In Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has accused student unions of “crazy Marxist nonsense” and has raised alarms by throwing out one of the most progressive sex education curriculums, which dealt with topics from consent, to gender identity to “sexting” in the age of social media.

In Hungary, textbooks are censored to follow the government’s nationalistic agenda. After years of denouncing teachers and schools, President Jair Bolsonaro’s first education policy in Brazil is to go after the “Marxist” curriculums, which bars teachers talking about feminism and LGBTQ issues.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has fired thousands of teachers. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte is attacking teacher unions.

Research by the United Nations has shown that the globe is spinning toward a dramatic teacher shortage, with analysts predicting a shortage of 69 million teachers by 2030. This is the crisis we should be talking about.

We’ve seen overcrowded classrooms, long working hours, lack of professional development, burn out, low salaries, terrible retention rates and teachers across the United States striking to demand better teaching and learning conditions.

How does Donald Trump Jr.’s description of teachers as “losers” and the encouragement of hostility toward us solve these problems? How does it ignite passion in a new generation to pursue the world’s most important profession?

If we can be accused of anything, it is that we are on the front line of democracy. Education reformer John Dewey famously said, “Democracy has to be born again each generation and education is its midwife.”

As members of a global profession, we reject the narrowing of the mind and we stand by our colleagues defending academic freedom. We call upon parents, teachers and politicians to stand with us. Our academic freedom is what allows our democracies to remain strong.

My words, not theirs:

Without teachers, there is no education. Without teachers, there are no doctors, no scientists, no creators, no inventors, no advancement of humanity.

What has Donald Trump Jr. or his father or his brother or his sister done to advance humanity? What kind of person separates families and puts children into cages?

Who indoctrinated Donald Trump Jr. into his ignorance?

He is a loser.

 

Categories Education Reform, International, Teachers, Trump

“I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School,” Waiting for Someone Like Mike Pence

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2019 //
57

 

I recently received this alarming article, which appeared right before Trump’s inauguration. 

The author describes his indoctrination in what he calls a “Christofascist” world view.

I think you should read it.

He writes:

“I grew up in the far-right evangelical conservative (Christofascist) movement; specifically, I was homeschooled and my parents were part of a subculture called Quiverfull, whose aim is to outbreed everyone for Jesus. I spent my teen years being a political activist. I was taught by every pastor I encountered that it was our job as Christians to outbreed the secularists (anyone not a far-right evangelical Protestant) and take over the government through sheer numbers. I was part of TeenPact, Generation Joshua and my local Teenage Republicans (TARS).

“When the Tea Party rose in 2009, that was my culture. The Tea Party was step one. I was laying the groundwork for those elections in 2006. These people didn’t come out of the blue like it seemed. This plan, this Christofascist takeover of the US government, has been in the works for decades. When evangelical conservatism started becoming popular and more mainstream around the 1970s, the foundation was being laid for the tragedy playing out right now.

“Evangelical conservatives started taking over their local republican parties and founding organizations like Operation Rescue, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, just to name a few.

“Michael Farris founded HSLDA in 1983 as a way to ensure that homeschooling was legal, but what he’s been striving for is the wild west. His organization is trying to keep homeschooling away from any interference so the children he trains through his sister organization, Generation Joshua, would be able to fly under the radar. Generation Joshua started in 2003, primarily catering to children homeschooled by extremely religious rightwing adults. Its purpose was to train us to fight in what the Christofascists have been calling the “Culture Wars.” It’s a loose and ambiguous term that basically means anything or anyone that doesn’t align with this very specific view of Christianity must not be allowed to continue.

“How do you do that? Well, you overturn Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, Brown v. Board of Education and Bob Jones v. The United States. Each of these decisions currently protects reproductive rights or non-discrimination based on race. As retribution, you amend the Constitution to discriminate against queers, trans people, women and people of color. Then, you make laws legislating morality. The only way to do this is to infiltrate the government; so Generation Joshua, TeenPact and other organizations exist to indoctrinate and recruit homeschooled youth who have ample free time to participate in politics. The biggest resources for teaching civil discourse are the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association and Communicators for Christ (since renamed Institute for Cultural Communicators). Through these programs we learned how to argue effectively. As students, we were taught critical thinking skills but given only a narrow view of what was acceptable to argue for. We were, after all, being trained to take over the country for Christ, literally. We knew how to perform logical gymnastics about abortion, Christianity and any evangelical talking point you could throw at us.

“When we showed up to city council, local political party meetings and tours of the Capitol we asked intelligent questions, were respectful and had a vested interest in how our local political machine ran. We impressed every government official and staff member with our questions, earnesty and demeanor. In short, we were sneaky and polite Trojan horses; we had an agenda. Yes, even as 15-year-olds. It was forcefully handed to us by the adults in our lives who had been preparing for this since before we were born.

”I watched the Tea Party takeover and was surprised no one saw it coming. After all, this was part of the plan. Trump being elected is also part of the plan, although not Trump specifically; the true goal is Pence.

“Christofascists have been wanting someone like Pence in the White House and, until now, didn’t have a way to get one in. They know Trump is easily manipulated and will change his mind with the wind if it makes him feel more powerful and famous. Trump couldn’t care less about policy, a fact he’s made quite obvious. The Right has given a tyrant power and fame; he will do whatever they want him to do in order to keep it. This way they can sneak Pence in on a piggyback while filling Congress with even more evangelical conservative Republicans. Compared to Trump’s abrasive and terrifying behavior, Pence seems much less threatening. This is not the case. Pence has a proven track record of legalizing discrimination and acting against women and marginalized people. Those of us who didn’t leave the far Right are being elected to federal positions or are taking over states and cities. With Pence in office, even the reasonable-seeming incumbents – who have been and are still at the mercy of the Tea Party – are growing more bold in their attempts to further the Christofascist agenda: To Take Back The Country For Christ.”

Categories Education Reform

Where Have You Gone, Millard Fillmore? An Anxious Nation Turns Its Eyes to You

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2019 //
28

Max Boot, ex-conservative, says that Trump’s weekend tweets show why he is unfit to be president. These are the ravings of a nut on the street.

 

Opinions

His Presidents’ Day tweets showed why Trump is unfit to be president


President Trump in Miami on Monday. (Alicia Vera/Bloomberg News)
By Max Boot
Columnist

February 19 at 1:51 PM

Presidents’ Day weekend is traditionally a time for relaxation — and perhaps a little contemplation of two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. In President Trump’s case, it was an opportunity to play golf in Florida and to tweet up a storm. He published 40 tweets from Saturday morning to Monday night. Taken together, they tell a story of just how “unpresidented” his behavior remains as he enters his third year in office.

Simply the fact that he sent so many tweets, and they were so personal and vituperative, is an anomaly. Twitter was founded only in 2006 and President George W. Bush never used it while in office. The first presidential tweet was sent by President Barack Obama in 2010 — an innocuous message to promote disaster aid for Haiti. Trump is the first president to unburden his id on Twitter in a way that Richard M. Nixon did only on the White House tapes.

By Trump’s standards, his first tweet of the weekend — at 11:43 a.m. on Saturday — was tame: It was a video clip of his declaration of a state of emergency on Friday. His second one was a little weirder: a clip from his State of the Union address with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” blasting in the background. At 7:10 p.m. on Saturday, Trump for some reason felt compelled to write “BUILDING THE WALL!” — his first lie of the weekend, since the border wall is not being built. Lie No. 2 followed just seven minutes later when he tweeted: “Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by China in the form of Trade Tariffs!” As a first-year economics student would know, tariffs are paid by domestic consumers, not by foreign governments.

Things started to get really weird late on Saturday night. At 10:51 p.m., Trump tweeted a demand that “Britain, France, Germany and other European allies” take back 800 Islamic State fighters captured in Syria. He warned: “The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them…….. The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go.” This is the president as mob enforcer: Nice country you have there; it’d be a shame if we had to release some terrorists there!

Near midnight on Saturday, Trump retweeted a tweet from the president of the far-right legal group Judicial Watch claiming“Strzok/Page Docs Show More Collusion to Protect Hillary Clinton.” This was the first of many weekend tweets in which the president attacked his own Justice Department — unthinkable for any other president, routine for him. He would go on to quoteRush Limbaugh: “These guys, the investigators, ought to be in jail.” Then: “The Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged!” Followed by: “Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a ‘poor little Angel’ when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax – a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey.”

Trump was particularly exercised by McCabe’s confirmation that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had talked of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. “He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught…..,” Trump wrote at 7:15 Sunday morning, adding at 7:29 a.m.: “This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!” An hour later, he quoted a commentator on his favorite show, “Fox and Friends,” accusing Rosenstein of “an illegal coup attempt.” Pay no attention: It’s just the president accusing his own deputy attorney general of treason and coup-plotting. This type of vitriol has become so commonplace that it barely registered as news — yet in any other administration it would have produced front-page headlines for weeks.

The only group that Trump seems to hate as much as his own Justice Department is the news media. At 7:52 a.m. on Sunday, he complained about a “Saturday Night Live” skit poking fun at him: “Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution?” So the president thinks that a satirical sketch calls for “retribution”? What country is this anyway? It’s hard to tell, because four minutes later Trump echoed Josef Stalin’s attacks on the press: “THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Just six days earlier, a BBC cameraman had been violently attacked at a Trump rally. But Trump continues to incite his supporters against the media.

If someone were ranting and raving like this on the street, you would walk quickly away. Yet somehow we have become inured to this ranting and raving from the most powerful man in the world. We shouldn’t be. Over Presidents’ Day weekend, Trump again demonstrated why he remains as unfit as ever to follow in the footsteps of Washington and Lincoln — or even of Millard Fillmore and Warren Harding. The fact that we tolerate his disgraceful conduct makes all of us complicit in this ongoing diminution of our democracy.

Categories Education Reform

Elizabeth Kolbert: The New Age of Philanthropy and the Crisis of Democracy

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2019 //
14

On this site, we have often complained about the philanthropists who impose their bad ideas on schools, which this far have consistently failed.

This article in The New Yorker reviews the new world of philanthropy, where the rich pay as little as possible in taxes and use their foundations to reorder the world as they think it should be. When they give, they end up in control, undermining democratic institutions and as rich as ever.

I strongly recommend a book titled “The Spirit Level,” which demonstrates that the most equal societies are the happiest societies.

On this subject, I recommend a book discussed in this article, Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Hoax, Philanthropy

Denisha Jones: Kindergarten Teachers in Florida Resist Inappropriate Testing

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2019 //
9

 

 

Denisha Jones speaks out here about the outrageous misuse of tests for children in kindergarten in Florida.

Incoming kindergarten students are tested online and their scores are published! This is child abuse.

Jones is an early childhood specialist, lawyer, and a recent addition to the board of the Network for Public Education.

She went to Miami and interviewed leaders of the “I Am Ready” Resistance Group, who described the harm that Florida’s tests do to children.

Julia Musella told Jones:

”’I am ready’ was born in direct response to the inappropriate testing of incoming Kindergarten children by computer and then publishing the scores in 2018. This disgraceful labeling of more than 50% of Florida’s Early Learning centers as failing to prepare children for kindergarten created an outcry from early educators across the state.  We had enough years of being voiceless so we created an online petition through Change.org to then-Governor Rick Scott demanding the scores be taken down and comply with the statute on assessments. At the same time, we launched a public Facebook page, registered “I am Ready” as a nonprofit corporation to serve as an advocacy group, and encouraged local groups of providers to launch private Facebook pages to dialogue with each other.

“Our hope went beyond the short-term goal of having the scores eliminated and the assessment changed to meet the statute, although that was something we used to engage the community statewide. Our long term goal was to organize, galvanize and start a movement that would be the voice of Early Learning and small business owners who are in the business of education throughout the state. We were in it for a long term permanent organization that would use voter registration, voter mobilization (locally and statewide) and education of legislators to give a voice to young children, who are voiceless.”

 

 

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Testing

Florida: DeSantis Wants Another Voucher Program to Steal Money from Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2019 //
89

 

 

New Governor Ron DeSantis wants another voucher program that would take money directly from public school funding.

Current voucher programs drain $1 billion from public schools. Their teachers need not be certified. They are free to discriminate. They teach religious myths. They don’t take state tests.

Florida’s legislaturehatespublic schools. The master puppeteer is Jeb Bush. The state commissioner of education Richard Corcoran said recently that he would like-to voucherize the entire State. His wife runs a charter school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Cashing in on Kids: The School Security Gold Rush

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2019 //
19

In the Public Interest is a nonpartisan organization that tracks the privatization of public services and assets.

Its latest report:

Is school security the next gold rush? A year after the harrowing school shooting in Parkland, Florida, investor cash is pouring into the school security market. But big money was already being spent on unproven technology shielded from public view. “Schools and other education-related buyers are the fifth-biggest market for surveillance systems across the world but the top market in the United States, with $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017.” The Washington Post

A warning to D.C.’s education leaders. A former board member at Indianapolis Public Schools describes her experience working with former superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee, who also happens to the D.C. mayor’s choice for the next D.C. Public Schools chancellor: “Under Dr. Ferebee’s leadership, we created ‘Innovation Network Schools’— partnerships between IPS and charter schools. But it turned out that Innovation Network Schools aren’t really partnerships at all. In fact, they’re an underhanded way of turning over public resources and assets to private hands.” 730DC

Huge salaries for charter school leadership. Journalist Rachel Cohen digs into charter school administrator salaries in Washington, D.C., revealing startling figures: “The head of Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School and the highest-paid charter official in D.C., received a 24 percent salary increase between 2015 and 2016, from $248,000 to $307,000. Then, in 2017, she received another 76 percent increase, bumping her compensation to $541,000.” Washington City Paper

Police in school don’t make students of color feel safer. Rann Miller of the 21st Century Community Learning Center critiques the final report from President Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety: “The recommendations from Trump’s school safety panel benefit school privatizers, and institutions like prisons, at the expense of people of color. It’s the American way.” The Progressive

“Wherever there’s a battle over public education lately, a billionaire is somehow involved.” Jacobin Magazine weighs in on the upcoming Oakland teachers strike: “Although charter schools don’t improve student outcomes, they have all sorts of destructive impacts. As noted above, they massively drain resources from public schools. In the 2016–17 school year alone, Oakland Unifed School District lost over $57 million in revenue to charter schools, according to a report by In the Public Interest.” Jacobin

ICYMI: the U.S. spends more on its prison system than it does on public schools. The country’s incarceration rates have more than tripled over the past three decades, even as crime rates have fallen. During the same period, government spending on K-12 education increased by 107 percent. Daily Mail

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Guns in Schools, Privatization, Safety

Oakland Teachers Will Strike February 21!

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2019 //
5

BREAKING BAY AREA NEWS: In a news conference this afternoon, the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association union set a strike date of Thursday, Feb. 21. Please see OEA news release below…..

 

Mike Myslinski

Headquarters Communications

California Teachers Association

1705 Murchison Drive

Burlingame, CA 94010

650-552-5324

408-921-5769 (cell)

www.cta.org

 

NEWS RELEASE 

February 16, 2019

 

Oakland Education Association

272 East 12th Street

Oakland, CA 94606

510-763-4020

www.oaklandea.org

 

Contacts:

–OEA President Keith Brown on cell at 510-866-8280.

–Mike Myslinski with CTA Communications on cell at 408-921-5769.

On Twitter: @oaklandea, #Unite4OaklandKids, #WeAreOEA, #RedForEd, #WeAreCTA

OEA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oakland Education Association Sets Strike Date

of Thursday, Feb. 21, to Fight for Oakland Schools 

Priorities Remain – Smaller Class Sizes, More Support for Students,

Living Wages and a Halt to Destructive School Closures

 

OAKLAND – To stand and fight for the quality schools that all Oakland students deserve, educators in Oakland Unified School District will go on strike on Thursday, Feb. 21, the president of the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association (OEA) announced at a news conference today where he was flanked by parents, students and teachers standing in solidarity.

 

“Bargaining with the district has not — in two years — produced an agreement that will pay teachers enough to allow them to stay in Oakland, or make class sizes more conducive to teaching and learning, or provide our students with the supports they need to thrive,” OEA President Keith Brown said.  “The only option that Oakland teachers, parents and students have left to win the schools Oakland students truly deserve, and to take control of our school district back from the control of billionaire campaign donors, is for the 3,000 members of the Oakland Education Association to go on strike.”

 

In key areas such as salaries and hiring more counselors to support students, a new report by a neutral state-appointed fact-finder comes somewhat closer to what educators are demanding than what the district is offering, but still does not go far enough, Brown said. The new report is non-binding. It’s release means that educators can legally strike.

 

For example, the report by fact-finder Najeeb Khoury recommends 6 percent in retroactive raises – 3 percent in 2017-18 school year and 3 percent this year – but no guaranteed raise for 2019-2020, while the last final offer by the district was only 5 percent over three years. Oakland educators are seeking 12 percent over three years to help halt the district’s teacher retention crisis. The report also supports hiring more counselors and reducing the student-to-counselor ratio from 600:1 to 500:1. OEA had sought a 250:1 ratio.

 

Years of district neglect, overspending at the top, and the unregulated growth of the charter industry have starved Oakland schools of necessary resources, OEA President Brown said. One in five Oakland educators leaves the district each year due to low pay, leaving nearly 600 classrooms without an experienced teacher last school year. Class sizes are high, and students are without full-time nurses and an adequate number of counselors. Yet, OUSD received $23 million in additional revenue this year, and receives 25 percent more funding per student than the average unified school district statewide, Brown said.

 

“There is only one party in our bargaining with Oakland Unified School District that is pushing to improve our public schools for 36,000 Oakland students, and that is the Oakland Education Association,” said Brown. “It is time for the Oakland school board and our superintendent to make a choice – are they on the side of the billionaires who fund their campaigns and are pushing for more draconian budget cuts and school closures that will further hurt our kids, or are they on the side of teachers, students, and parents fighting for the schools Oakland students deserve?”

 

In an open letter to Oakland teachers, parents and students on Friday, Brown declared, “We are in a struggle for the soul of public education in Oakland, and billionaires can’t teach our kids.” He criticized school board members who were backed by billionaires for pushing a competition-based “portfolio” model for Oakland that “has led to a patchwork of privatization, school closures, and unimproved student outcomes in districts like New Orleans, Newark and Detroit.”

 

Brown said the fact-finder supports OEA’s bargaining goals by finding that the district’s “teacher retention crisis is much worse than the state average and must be addressed, that lower class sizes will help improve educational outcomes for students, and that more supports for students are possible. Further, the report affirms that the unchecked growth of charter schools is creating a systemic inequity that is starving our public schools of the resources they need to thrive.”

 

The entire fact-finder’s report is posted on the union’s website: www.oaklandea.org. The full and comprehensive OEA presentation to the fact-finder – titled “Remedying Educational Malpractice,” with extensive data supporting the union’s positions – is also posted on the website and can be foundhere.

 

Oakland educators plan to strike for smaller class sizes, more school counselors and nurses to adequately support students, and living wages to allow educators to stay in Oakland. Teachers are also calling for a halt to a billionaire-backed plan to close up to 24 neighborhood schools in primarily African American and Latinx Oakland neighborhoods. In addition to being disruptive and destabilizing for students and communities, school closures will also lead to further loss of students to charter schools – privately managed, but publicly funded schools that make up 30 percent of student enrollment in Oakland, and are already costing Oakland schools over $57 million a year, according to a key study.

 

The OEA union announced Feb. 4 that 95 percent of educators who took part in a strike authorization vote cast ballots in favor of allowing their union leaders to call a strike, if necessary, and strike preparations are continuing. The OEA Executive Board backed the strike option.

 

There is a groundswell of community support for Oakland educators. OEA is a co-sponsor of theBread For Ed campaign that has raised more than $46,000 to feed students in a district where an overwhelming number of children are low-income and depend on free or reduced-price meals during school. The OEA Membership Assistance Fund has raised more than $20,000 through a Go Fund Me drive. In addition, over 25 Bay Area CTA teachers’ union chapters have donated more than $20,000 to the Membership Assistance Fund as well.

 

The OEA is affiliated with the California Teachers Association, which coordinated a statewide#RedForEd day of action at public schools on Friday, Feb. 15,  to show support for Oakland educators in their fight for the quality schools all students deserve – see more information here. The Oakland showdown comes after many recent teacher strikes around the nation about protecting public schools and students, including the successful January strike in Los Angeles Unified School District by more than 30,000 members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union.

 

Oakland educators have been working without a contract since July 2017 and are the lowest-paid in Alameda County.

 

The news conference today was broadcast live on the Oakland Education Association Facebook page and is archived there:https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

“We will strike with our parents, whose overwhelming support in the last few weeks has been felt by every single teacher in Oakland,” said OEA President Brown, who is a teacher at Bret Harte Middle School. “We will strike for our students, we will strike for educational justice, we will strike for racial justice, and we will strike for the future of public education in Oakland. Our students, families, and community are the center of everything Oakland educators do, and we are all in the fight for the schools Oakland students deserve together.”

###

The Oakland Education Association represents 3,000 OUSD educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, and early childhood and adult teachers. OEA is affiliated with the 325,000-member California Teachers Association and the 3 million-member National Education Association.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Class size, Education Reform, Oakland, Resistance, Teacher Pay
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