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Arthur Camins: Isolation and Segregation Make Us Stupid

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2017 //
5

Arthur Camins, scientist and educator, describes how his schooling shaped his understanding of Justice and social responsibility. His article was originally published at the Huffington Post, but he also placed it in the Louisville Courier-Journal because of his professional experience in Louisville and the fact that the legislature is about to roll back Louisville’s successful desegregation program.

Camins writes:


Mr. Casey, my high school English teacher, was fond of proclaiming, “From suffering alone comes wisdom.” There seems to be plenty of suffering around, but wisdom seems insufficiently distributed to protect our nation from the alarming triple threats to our democracy from escalating authoritarianism, inequality and divisiveness. I wonder: What is it that turns the banality of suffering, into wisdom?

Why do some people turn against one another in tough times, while others toward one another? Moreover, what can be done to transform the wisdom of observers into mass engaged action?

As a teenager with a typical level of angst, I thought Mr. Casey was especially insightful. After all, maybe I too could be wise. He was one of my favorite teachers. His gift was to help to nudge natural self-centeredness toward empathy. With a little research, I discovered that his suffering quote was hardly original, but rather a tweak on a line from the writings of the ancient Greek playwright, Aeschylus. Mr. Casey helped me identify with novel’s characters and see myself their struggles. That helped me understand that I was not alone. But it was the movements of the 1960s that connected my self-absorbed worries with deeper struggles in the world around me and gave me a lifelong sense of belonging and purpose. I thought about him and the movements today as I wrestled with conflicting emotions of despair and commitment to act.

Personal suffering may sensitize people to the plight of others, but that is insufficient to move them to action. That requires empathy and a sense of belonging, shared experiences with common goals across typical divisions, and development of agency. These frame the requirements for a successful organized resistance.
I have little hope that elected officials will substantively address current threats to democracy and equity on their own. They never have. In the short-term, that responsibility rests on the shoulders of community activists. It always has. For the future, that obligation falls to educators. They have always been the hope.

Globalization, pervasive information technology, and escalating automation provide new contexts, but today’s threats are not unique. U.S. History is replete with examples of how the empowered have fostered divisiveness to protect their privileges: Poor whites against freed slaves and their descendants; Men against women; Old immigrants against recent arrivals; Previously persecuted religious sects against new religious minorities; Just-getting-by employed workers against the unemployed and underemployed; underpaid American workers against more exploited foreign workers in developing countries. The list is endless, as is its diversionary potential to protect the wealthy. Alternatively, the potential for unity across these groups to challenge power and insist on a more equitable future is monumental.

Historically, authoritarianism, lies, and repression have been the turn-to solutions when elites perceived a challenge. Today, empowerment of women, voter participation of non-whites and newer immigrants, and organized workers pose such threats. Even the potential for a widespread, unifying shift toward identification with the brighter values of collaboration, equity, and social responsibility challenge those who rely on traditional dark American myths of a dog-eat-dog competitive meritocracy and self-reliance to justify their position.

Trump and his Republican enablers depend on cynicism about the power of collective action, racial and socio-economic isolation, and a lack of empathy for others’ suffering.

Isolation breeds ignorance of the unknown other. Isolation makes us stupid. I use the term stupid purposefully. I do not mean intellectually limited. Rather, I mean committedly ignorant about matters of personal and social consequence. Such ignorance and stupidity are enabled when selfishness is exalted over empathy in the context of competition for structurally limited resources. Such ignorance and stupidity are promoted when the empowered encourage the disempowered to distrust each other and reject reason and evidence….

Shared experience across perceived differences combats the stupidity that isolation fosters. Community activists and educators can lead front-line push back, engaging citizens and students across traditionally divisive lines in explicitly designed shared experiences.

A disciplined resistance movement can provide an alternative sense of belonging by organizing around shared unifying concerns, such as health care, fair wages, equitable local, states and federal taxes, high-quality public education, protecting and expanding Medicare, Medicare and Social Security, climate change, protecting the environment, and sustainable development. Purposefully, doing so across neighborhood boundaries and workplaces enables empathy and identification with the suffering of others and structures for action.

Similarly, integrated schools that emphasize academic, as well as social and emotional learning can build trust and a common sense of belonging. Curricula that infuse personal and social meaning into daily instruction offers the possibility for young people to see past selfish concerns.

I imbibed the lessons of Mr. Casey’s English class in 1967. It was a moment framed by the civil rights and antiwar movements. Those were times of suffering but also an era of hope. The wisdom that carries forth and provides a guide to action is that isolation and segregation make us stupid. Belonging and integration make us smart. Common struggle makes a difference.

Categories Ignorance, Resistance, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Trump

The Nation: Teachers Are on the Front Lines to Protect Vulnerable Students

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2017 //
8

Teachers are on the front lines to protect students targeted by the Trump administration: immigrant students, Muslim students, transgender students. Never in our national history has the federal government threatened the safety and security of students. It is a new and terrible day in America.

Teachers are first responders in protecting their students.

The article reports on a march sponsored by New York’s Alliance for Quality Education.

“Those civil rights are extremely important…. People want to be protected from ICE agents and they want to be protected from homophobic bullying,” says Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance. “But they also want to be provided the quality education that’s going to open up the opportunities in life that they deserve.”

The social principle of education as a public trust resonates beyond school grounds. The March also demanded reforms to state criminal statutes that enable youth as young as 16 to be tried as adults for certain felonies. And in resistance to standardized testing and rigid math and reading standards, activists seek holistic, multicultural curricula that speaks to students struggling with structural oppression and poverty.

Allie, a young high-school teacher, attended the rally on behalf of her Brooklyn school, which serves as a last resort for “at risk” youth who have gotten caught up with jails and police. There, she says, “the kids who are having the hardest life outside of school and would need more social workers, two teachers in a room, extra help—[they] go to the schools that don’t have the resources to provide that…. They get blamed for not getting through because we’re still under this idea of the American dream where it’s their fault; they just didn’t work hard enough. And they work their asses off.”

But she learns every day from her students’ determination: They brave the unimaginable just to get to class, for a chance to get the equal education they deserve.

“I’ve seen my students over the summer begging for money to eat in the subway…. They’ll take the free lunch that they get and they’ll give it to their kid…. They are so strong. And the fact that they’re still trying to get themselves educated is amazing.”

Categories Resistance, Students, Teachers, Trump

Helen Gym: How Philadelphia Beat Back the DeVos Privatization Agenda

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2017 //
2

Helen Gym is a parent activist in Philadelphia who recently won a seat on the City Council, where she advocates on behalf of the city’s beleaguered and underfunded public schools.

In this article in The Nation, Gym explains that Philadelphia parents and activists have developed a successful way to fight back against the DeVos agenda.

DeVos, she notes, was confirmed in a Senate vote that was humiliating; the resistance to the billionaire voucher advocate was so intense that it required the vice-president to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Philadelphia was stripped bare by greedy reformers. But the public organized.

In 2002, the state of Pennsylvania took over Philadelphia’s public schools, stripping away local control, massively expanding charters, and starving existing public schools of funding and resources. Then, in 2013, thanks to a GOP-led state austerity budget that cut almost a billion dollars from public education, Philadelphia’s state-controlled school system closed down 24 public schools and lost thousands of school staff in the name of cost savings, then expanded thousands of new charter spots at nearly the same cost.

In response, Philadelphians took to the streets and organized. Parents, educators, students, and community members built coalitions among labor, clergy, business, and civic organizations. We fought against an agenda of disinvestment, consolidation, and neglect, and instead pressed forward with a commitment to establishing a baseline level of staffing and resources for every school.

Parents forged a legal strategy for ensuring adequate programs and a quality curriculum. After the massive budget cuts hit, parents filed more than 800 complaints with the state’s Department of Education about overcrowding and curriculum deficiencies and then won a court order, effectively forcing the state to investigate the problems and fix any violations of state code.

Meanwhile, years of organizing efforts by high-school students made strides towards ending zero-tolerance policies and improving school climate. A long-sought change in the student code of conduct in 2012 limited the use of suspensions and was accompanied by new, district-wide efforts to implement restorative practices. More recently, new district policies further restricted the use of suspensions with young children in response to dress-code violations.

Faced with continued austerity, we marched, took over school-board meetings, and lobbied City Council offices. And we started to win more victories: City officials began to acknowledge they could do more and boosted their financial support for the struggling school system. We drew on our networks to find allies in other communities across the state suffering from similar circumstances.

This is the coalition that helped throw out a one-term GOP governor in 2014 and installed Tom Wolf, a governor who centered his campaign on fair and equitable education funding. And this is the coalition that the following year elected Jim Kenney, a pro–public education mayor, and boosted me, a mother of three kids and longtime education activist, into a seat on Philadelphia’s City Council.

We’ve already shifted the narrative in our city away from austerity and back to real investments that restore essential services to our schools. With a more unified political leadership, and with the help of boosts in state and local funding, we’re putting hundreds of nurses and counselors back into school buildings that had been stripped of these vital personnel. We’re also protecting immigrant students, ensuring water access and safety, expanding the teaching force, and re-embracing in-district models of improving schools rather than outsourcing interventions to unreliable education-management organizations.

Gym writes that Philadelphians are developing a new agenda, one that rebuffs the entrepreneurs and DeVos followers, one that invests in the city’s children rather than profit centers. It CAN be done, she writes, and Philadelphia is doing it.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Philadelphia, Resistance

Disney Corporation Cozies Up to Trump: Not Family-Friendly

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2017 //
11

If you are a Disney shareholder, let the company know that you do not like its CEO teaming up with Trump for tax cuts for the rich while attacking the rights of blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and immigrants. They too have families.

Consumer protests work. Do not go to see Disney’s latest movie. Do not buy its products. Use your buying power to say no to Hate.

Iger seems to think he can cozy up to Trump and reap the benefits of tax cuts while distancing himself from divisive issues like the Muslim ban, the Republican gutting of health care and ICE’s expedited deportation of immigrants. Even as Iger seeks exclusive access to the President, he expects the public to believe Disney is above the political fray.

Under a normal administration, it might be possible for a company to pick and choose what elements of a president’s policy agenda to support, and how to collaborate around a fixed set of issues. But this isn’t a normal administration. Right now, there are no sidelines. President Trump poses an unprecedented threat to our democracy and to the American people, and even corporations have to decide whose side they are on.

What Iger and his business analysts don’t seem to have factored in yet is that Disney’s customers, workers, and shareholders have the power to stop the company’s wagons and hold Disney to account.

People’s Action is leading a coalition that has already collected more than 511,000 signatures on a petition calling on Iger to resign from Trump’s board. People’s Action alone collected 76,922 signatures. Those signatures will be presented at a rally outside of the shareholder meeting to highlight the public outcry over Disney’s collaboration with President Trump. You can follow the rally on social media using the hashtags #BadMickey and #LetHimGo.

Categories Resistance, Trump

Mike Klonsky: While Trump Tweets, the GOP is Dismantling Our Social Safety Net

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2017 //
16

Mike Klonsky wants us to stop talking about the Russians and pay attention to what the Republicans are doing while we are not looking.

While we’re consumed 24/7 with the Trump/Russia psychodrama, Republicans are quietly, under the cover of darkness and diversion, introducing these new bills in the House:

HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education — (The bill also repeals basic nutrition standards for the national school lunch and breakfast programs)
HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
HR 785 National Right to Work (aimed at ending unions, including teacher unions)

And there’s more. Much more, including:

–HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
–HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
–HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
–HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
–HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
–HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”)
–HR 808 Sanctions against Iran

Vote. Organize. Protest. Demonstrate. Join the Indivisibles.

Categories Republicans, Resistance

URGENT MESSAGE TO PARENTS IN CONNECTICUT: Your Child’s Privacy at Risk!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2017 //
6

Parents in Connecticut, pay attention and take action!

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy has sent out an urgent message to parents in Connecticut.

The legislature is holding hearings on Monday (tomorrow) on a bill that would strip privacy protections from your children.

In January, a legislator proposed to remove all privacy protections from student data. Because of outrage expressed by parents, he withdrew his bill.

But now another bill has emerged. The hearings were hurriedly scheduled. Are they trying to put something over before parents know about it?

This past week a new bill, 7207 to “revise” the student data privacy law, was introduced, and will be heard by the CT Joint Education Committee this Monday, March 6. This kind of a rush job could imply that they are hoping to pass this bill without giving parents time to react. This new bill, 7207, wants to repeal the data privacy law and delay further implementation until July 1, 2018. This would remove existing protection of school children for over a year. WHY?

The Student Data Privacy Law has been in effect since Oct. 1, 2016; it only applies to NEW contracts, only asks for transparency, the CT Edtech Commission has already done the work to implement it. WHY, would Connecticut want to now repeal protection and transparency?

Please email your comment or testimony in Word or PDF format to EDtestimony@cga.ct.gov . Testimony should clearly state your name and the bill you are commenting on: Bill 7207- AN ACT MAKING REVISIONS TO THE STUDENT DATA PRIVACY ACT OF 2016.

Connecticut citizens please contact your legislators directly. If you are not sure who they are or how to contact them you can look that up here: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/cgafindleg.asp

Is it asking too much that when a company contracts with a school and collects and uses and shares children’s data, that the data be kept safe and parents be able to see how that data is used, breached, and not sold?

By repealing or delaying this law, who are they protecting?

Categories Connecticut, Data and Data Mining, Parents, Privacy, Resistance, Students

ALERT: Save Kentucky’s Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2017 //
16

NPE Action urges you to write a letter to state senators in Kentucky. Please read about the harm that this bill will do to the public schools.

The bill now moves to the Kentucky state senate. Many, perhaps most, of the senators represent rural districts, where the public school is the heart of the community. They should oppose this law, as charters will take resources out of their public schools and harm the children of their community. Urban public schools will have larger classes and will have larger proportions of the students rejected by the charters, those whose needs are greatest.

As the bill is now written, it has many terrible features. Charter schools will not be required to have certified teachers. There is no limit on the number of charters that may open. The bill allows for-profit EMOs. There is no mention of how charters will be funded or how much funding they will receive. In other words, the bill will open the door to charter entrepreneurs to open shop in Kentucky and drain public funds to pay their investors.

The children of Kentucky will lose if this bill passes.

Citizens of Kentucky, I urge you to contact your state senator and urge him or her to save Kentucky’s community public schools.

Insist that every school be staffed with certified teachers. Keep out the profiteers.

Support the public schools that accept all children, not the schools that accept only the ones they want. Support the public schools that are legally required to enroll and provide services to children with disabilities. Do not authorize schools that choose their students and kick out the ones with low test scores.

A few years ago, I spoke to the Kentucky School Boards Association, and the walls were festooned with children’s artwork celebrating the public schools in every district.

Don’t betray the children or their public schools.

Stop privatization before it is too late. If this bill passes, the legislature will focus entirely on charter schools; legislative hearings will be packed with cute children wearing matching tee-shirts, pleading for more money for their sponsor. Public schools will be forgotten.

Don’t let it happen!

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Kentucky, Privatization, Resistance

Kentucky: We Don’t Want Charter Vultures in Our State!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2017 //
1

Gay Adelman of Save Our Schools Kentucky published the following letter to the editor in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

“Kentucky is one of only seven states that has managed to avoid jumping off the charter school cliff, so far. However, our state legislature is poised to pass a charter school bill this month. As a parent volunteer and staunch advocate for public schools, everyone keeps telling me I should “just deal with it.”

“If you knew what I knew about the real challenges our public schools face, some of the 100-plus other solutions we should try before opening our pocketbooks to outside interests, and the corruption and self-dealing going on behind this movement, you would not “just deal with it” either. You would fight until there was not an ounce of fight left, and then you would fight some more.

“Research shows that if Kentucky passes harmful charter school legislation this month, our already struggling schools and our most vulnerable students will suffer. Our democracy will suffer. All of the gains and momentum currently underway in our public schools will fall right off that cliff, as well.

“Charters are funded by our tax dollars meant for our public schools, but they are run by outside corporate interests and authorized by entities outside the purview of our democratically elected school board. By opening the door to charters, our already underfunded public schools will become destitute. They will end up serving the neediest of our population, begging for scraps, and exacerbating the extreme poverty, segregation and discrimination we already have in this city.

“Shameful agendas

“For some, charters are a dog whistle for those looking to resegregate schools, to discriminate against LGBTQ policies, to strip rights and services away from special needs students, and to bring religion into schools. Others see them as a way to isolate their children from students dealing with poverty, trauma and behavior issues.

“Paid pro-charter policymakers have been coming after our volunteers, attempting to convolute or discredit our concerns. Lawmakers, pushing out-of-touch education bills, have blocked their own constituents from commenting on their social media posts. Soccer moms, teachers and students are routinely ignored or bullied by grown men who often don’t even have experience (or kids) in the public school system.

“In actuality, Kentucky public schools are improving. But the oft-hailed idea that charters are a “lifeboat” implies that the system is sinking. Charter advocates would rather jump ship and save a few than plug the hole and save all. The charter lifeboats will only save those students whose parents know how to navigate the system (which are not the kids that charters purport to help) leaving the existing schools more broken than before.

“Charter schools are a slippery slope.

“Look at what’s happened in the 43 states, plus DC, where charter school operators have run amok. Like locusts, they ravage communities, taking their inexpensive-to-educate, high-performing students. Once they’ve locked their jaws onto our succulent recurring, AAA-rated tax dollars, they move on to their next most lucrative, vulnerable target. In a recent interview with Insider Louisville, House Bill 103’s sponsor Phil Moffett said,“The most likely areas that will see charter schools first are Owensboro, Bowling Green, as well as counties near Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville.” They’re not even trying to hide it!

“Charter operators will find other ways to suck funds from our public schools, such as vouchers and online schools and multi-county “academies.” This leaves us, the taxpayers, to make up the funding difference and clean up the mess they leave behind.

“Charters don’t work, not even for “urban kids”

“Despite relentless propaganda and cherry-picked “research” financed by wealthy special interests, charter schools don’t produce better students. There is no statistically significant evidence that shows that charters improve outcomes for minority students. In fact, they have been known to hurt urban public schools, often preying on vulnerable, at-risk, low-advocacy students who are desperate for change. The NAACP, Black Lives Matter, and ACLU have recently spoken out against charter schools.

“Charters magnify the divide between the have’s and the have-not’s because students with involved parents – the ones who jump through hoops so their kid can attend a charter school – often outperform those who don’t, leaving the public schools in those communities worse off than before.

“Just look at Detroit. With the recent confirmation of the wholly unqualified, public education enemy, Betsy DeVos, to U.S. Secretary of Education, opposing charter school legislation in Kentucky has become more critical than ever. It may, in fact, be the only hope we still have and protecting our public schools from the devastation that has happened in districts like Detroit, where her failed policies have run rampant.

“Kentucky has been fortunate to be one of the few states to keep vulture charter operators at bay. Let’s not jump off the cliff just because everyone else did. Call your legislators at 800-372-7181 and tell them to #StopChartersInKY.”

Gay Adelmann is co-founder of a grassroots public education advocacy group called Save Our Schools Kentucky. She can be reached at moderator@saveourschoolsky.org.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Kentucky, Privatization, Resistance

Are Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos Civil Rights Leaders of Our Time?

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
30

The title of this post may strike you as a strange question, in light of the well-known history of the Trump Organization in discriminating against blacks who sought to rent their properties and the DeVos’s longstanding role as the antagonist of government programs of all kinds, especially in education. History in this country shows that government, not the private sector, is the most faithful guarantor of rights and equity.

Yet in his speech last night, Trump picked up on the deceptive line that we have heard from free-market ideologues for the past 15 years:

Education is the civil rights issue of our time.

I am calling upon Members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.

Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather. As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, with the help of a tax credit scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year she will get her masters degree in social work.

We want all children to be able to break the cycle of poverty just like Denisha.

In reality, the true civil rights issue of our time is the fight to save public education as a public responsibility, responsible for all, doors open to all, staffed by well-prepared teachers.

Trump may have given a big boost to the school choice movement–vouchers, charters, cybercharters, homeschooling–but his embrace should be the kiss of death for those who know that his bona fides as a leader of the civil rights movement are non-existent, and that our public schools are vital to our democracy.

It is not difficult to open the public coffers and have a free-for-all for anyone who wants part of the public treasury. The for-profit fly-by-night charter schools that populate Michigan’s education landscape must have been heartened by Trump’s declaration. The basement voucher schools no doubt have dreams of public dollars coming their way. The fraudulent cybercharter operators who rake in millions in profit must be rubbing their hands with glee.

It is hard, by contrast, to build and sustain high-quality public schools in every community.

Clearly this administration has neither the will nor the heart to do what society needs. They do not intend to increase federal funding; they intend to divide it up among all who want a share. That will cripple community public schools, and they know it. The victims will be the great majority of children who are still enrolled in public schools.

The New York Times this morning blasted Betsy DeVos’ “fake history” of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, recognizing that they began not as “school choice,” but as a response to racism and exclusion.

The same editorial board has faithfully parroted the virtues of charters and school choice, and one day may have to deal with its contradictory stance.

Privately owned and managed charters do not improve public schools; they take funding away from public schools, thus disadvantaging them even further. In the name of “choice” for the few, they weaken the schools that serve whoever arrives at the schoolhouse doors.

Let’s be clear about “school choice,” at least in this country. It was born of racism in the mid-1950s as a way to evade the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. Southern governors and senators took up “choice” as their rallying cry. For many years the term itself was stigmatized because of its history.

The fact that it has been revived by entrepreneurs, well-meaning advocates, and closet racists doesn’t change its history or its purpose: It will undermine public education. It may “save” a child here or there, while most children will be lost in a free-market system of competition in which the public abandons its responsibility to provide the best possible education for all children.

We cannot let that happen. If choice were the answer, we would all look to Milwaukee as a national model, which has had vouchers, charters, and public schools since 1990. Twenty-six years is time enough for an experiment to demonstrate its worth. Milwaukee today has a public system that disproportionately enrolls the high-needs children that the other schools don’t want. It is also one of the lowest performing urban districts in the nation on the federal tests. Not even Trump or DeVos would have the nerve to call it a national model.

Our public schools need our support. Trump and DeVos are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their sheep’s clothing is transparent. No one should be fooled by their phony advocacy for poor kids or education. They advocate for an unregulated free-market in education that will leave most children behind, especially those who are the most disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances.

They must not be permitted to destroy public education. They must be stopped: by parents, teachers, students, and everyone of us who attended public schools. In every community, we must fight for our democracy and stop the raid on our public treasury.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Resistance, School Choice, Trump

How to End Trump’s Reign of Malevolent Ignorance

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
13

Everywhere I turn, people are citing the Indivisible Guide.

These are the former Congressional staff members who wrote a guide to making change.

The Indivisibles are connecting people with their neighbors.

Their guide encourages people to attend Town Halls and to speak directly with their elected representatives. It shows what members of Congress care about.

The Trump apologists call them “paid protesters,” but at each Town Hall, individuals get up and say where they live and announce that no one is paying them.

They are worried about their health care, their Social Security, their public schools.

They are worried about Trump’s ties to Russia.

They want to know why their Senator or Congress member is not doing their job. They want answers. They are informed.

This is your democracy. Fight for it!

 

The introduction:

“A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR RESISTING THE TRUMP AGENDA

“Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.

“NOTE FROM THE INDIVISIBLE TEAM

“Since this guide went live as a Google Doc, we’ve received an overwhelming flood of messages from people all over the country working to resist the Trump agenda. We’re thrilled and humbled by the energy and passion of this growing movement. We’ll be updating the guide based on your feedback and making it interactive ASAP. You can sign up for updates at http://www.IndivisibleGuide.com.

“Every single person who worked on this guide and website is a volunteer. We’re doing this in our free time without coordination or support from our employers. Our only goal is to help the real leaders on the ground who are resisting Trump’s agenda on their home turf. We hope you will take this document and use it however you see fit.

“We want to hear your stories, questions, comments, edits, etc., so please feel free to ping some of us on Twitter: @IndivisibleTeam,

“And please please please spread the word! Only folks who know this exists will use it.

“Good luck — we will win.

“INTRODUCTION

“Donald Trump is the biggest popular-vote loser in history to ever call himself President. In spite of the fact that he has no mandate, he will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image. If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the Members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist — and we have the power to win.

“We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism— and they won.

“We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda — but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.

“To this end, the following chapters offer a step-by-step guide for individuals, groups, and organizations looking to replicate the Tea Party’s success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents. The guide is intended to be equally useful for stiffening Democratic spines and weakening pro-Trump Republican resolve.

“We believe that the next four years depend on Americans across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda. We believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize us and our neighbors. We hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief with useful tools to make Congress listen.

“WHO IS THIS DOCUMENT BY AND FOR?

“We: Are former progressive congressional staffers who saw the Tea Party beat back President Obama’s agenda.

“We: See the enthusiasm to fight the Trump agenda, and want to share insider info on how best to influence Congress to do that.

“You: Want to do your part to beat back the Trump agenda and understand that will require more than calls and petitions.

“You: Should use this guide, share it, amend it, make it your own, and get to work.

“NOTE TO IMMIGRANTS AND NONCITIZENS

“The U.S. Constitution ensures equal representation for all individuals living in the United States, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or immigration status. Noncitizens, though they may lack the right to vote in federal elections, have the right to have their voices heard by their representatives in Congress.

“This guide is intended to serve as a resource to all individuals who would like to more effectively participate in the democratic process. While we encourage noncitizens to participate to the extent that they are able, individuals should only take actions that they are comfortable taking, and they should consider their particular set of circumstances before engaging in any of these activities.

“Individuals are under no obligation to provide any personally identifiable information to a member of Congress or their staff. Individuals may be asked for their name and zip code, but this is only to confirm that the person is a constituent, and providing this information is strictly voluntary. NO ONE is required to provide any additional information, such as address, social security number, or immigration status.

“SUMMARY

“Here’s the quick-and-dirty summary of this document. While this page summarizes top-level takeaways, the full document describes how to actually carry out these activities.

“CHAPTER 1

“How grassroots advocacy worked to stop President Obama. We examine lessons from the Tea Party’s rise and recommend two key strategic components:

“A local strategy targeting individual Members of Congress (MoCs).

“A defensive approach purely focused on stopping Trump from implementing an agenda built on racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“CHAPTER 2

“How your MoC thinks — reelection, reelection, reelection — and how to use that to save democracy. MoCs want their constituents to think well of them, and they want good, local press. They hate surprises, wasted time, and most of all, bad press that makes them look weak, unlikable, and vulnerable. You will use these interests to make them listen and act.

“CHAPTER 3

“Identify or organize your local group. Is there an existing local group or network you can join? Or do you need to start your own? We suggest steps to help mobilize your fellow constituents locally and start organizing for action.

“CHAPTER 4

“Four local advocacy tactics that actually work. Most of you have three MoCs — two Senators and one Representative. Whether you like it or not, they are your voices in Washington. Your job is to make sure they are, in fact, speaking for you. We’ve identified four key opportunity areas that just a handful of local constituents can use to great effect. Always record encounters on video, prepare questions ahead of time, coordinate with your group, and report back to local media:

“Town halls. MoCs regularly hold public in-district events to show that they are listening to constituents. Make them listen to you, and report out when they don’t.

“Other local public events. MoCs love cutting ribbons and kissing babies back home. Don’t let them get photo-ops without questions about racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“District office visits. Every MoC has one or several district offices. Go there. Demand a meeting with the MoC. Report to the world if they refuse to listen.

“Coordinated calls. Calls are a light lift, but can have an impact. Organize your local group to barrage your MoCs with calls at an opportune moment about and on a specific issue.

“CHAPTER ONE

“HOW GRASSROOTS ADVOCACY WORKED TO STOP PRESIDENT OBAMA

“If they succeed, or even half succeed, the Tea Party’s most important legacy may be organizational, not political.”
— JONATHAN RAUCH

“Like us, you probably deeply disagree with the principles and positions of the Tea Party. But we can all learn from their success in influencing the national debate and the behavior of national policymakers. To their credit, they thought thoroughly about advocacy tactics, as the leaked “Town Hall Action Memo” demonstrates.

“This chapter draws on both research and our own experiences as former congressional staffers to illustrate the strengths of the Tea Party movement and to provide lessons to leverage in the fight against Trump’s racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“THE TEA PARTY’S TWO KEY STRATEGIC CHOICES

“The Tea Party’s success came down to two critical strategic elements:

“WHAT THE TEA PARTY ACCOMPLISHED THE TEA PARTY’S IDEAS WERE WRONG

“The Tea Party organized to end hope for progressive reform under President Obama. Their members: The Tea Party’s ideas were wrong, and their behavior was often horrible.

“Their members:

• Changed votes and defeated legislation • Ignored reality and made up their own facts
• Radically slowed federal policymaking • Threatened anyone they considered an enemy
• Forced Republicans to reject compromise • Physically assaulted and spat on staff
• Shaped national debate over President Obama’s agenda • Shouted obscenities and burned people in effigy
• Paved the way for the Republican takeover in 2010 and Donald Trump today
• Targeted their hate not just at Congress, but also at fellow citizens (especially people of color)

“These were real, tangible results by a group that represented only a small portion of Americans We are better than this. We are the majority, and we don’t need petty scare tactics to win.

“1. They were locally focused. The Tea Party started as an organic movement built on small local groups of dedicated conservatives. Yes, they received some support/coordination from above, but fundamentally all the hubbub was caused by a relatively small number of conservatives working together.

“Groups started as disaffected conservatives talking to each other online. In response to the 2008 bank bailouts and President Obama’s election, groups began forming to discuss their anger and what could be done. They eventually realized that the locally based discussion groups themselves could be a powerful tool.

“Groups were small, local, and dedicated. Tea Party groups could be fewer than 10 people, but they were highly localized, and they dedicated significant personal time and resources. Members communicated with each other regularly, tracked developments in Washington, and coordinated advocacy efforts together.

“Groups were relatively few in number. The Tea Party was not hundreds of thousands of people spending every waking hour focused on advocacy. Rather, the efforts were somewhat modest. Only 1 in 5 self-identified Tea Partiers contributed money or attended events. On any given day in 2009 or 2010, only twenty local events — meetings, trainings, town halls, etc. — were scheduled nationwide. In short, a relatively small number of groups were having a big impact on the national debate.

“2. They were almost purely defensive. The Tea Party focused on saying NO to Members of Congress (MoCs) on their home turf. While the Tea Party activists were united by a core set of shared beliefs, they actively avoided developing their own policy agenda. Instead, they had an extraordinary clarity of purpose, united in opposition to President Obama. They didn’t accept concessions and treated weak Republicans as traitors.

“Groups focused on defense, not policy development. The Tea Party took root in 2009, focused on fighting against every proposal coming out of the new Democratic Administration and Congress. This focus on defense rather than policy development allowed the movement to avoid fracturing. Tea Party members may not have agreed on the policy reforms, but they could agree that Obama, Democrats, and moderate Republicans had to be stopped.

“Groups rejected concessions to Democrats and targeted weak Republicans. Tea Partiers viewed concessions to Democrats as betrayal. This limited their ability to negotiate, but they didn’t care. Instead they focused on scaring congressional Democrats and keeping Republicans honest. As a result, few Republicans spoke against the Tea Party for fear of attracting blowback.

“Groups focused on local congressional representation. Tea Partiers primarily applied this defensive strategy by pressuring their own local MoCs. This meant demanding that their Representatives and Senators be their voice of opposition on Capitol Hill. At a tactical level, the Tea Party had several replicable practices, including:

“Showing up to the MoC’s town hall meetings and demanding answers

“Showing up to the MoC’s office and demanding a meeting

“Coordinating blanket calling of congressional offices at key moments

“USING THESE LESSONS TO FIGHT THE TRUMP AGENDA

“For the next two years, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will control the federal government. But they will depend on just about every MoC to actually get laws passed. And those MoCs care much more about getting reelected than they care about any specific issue. By adopting a defensive strategy that pressures MoCs, we can achieve the following goals:

“Stall the Trump agenda by forcing them to redirect energy away from their priorities. Congressional offices have limited time and limited people. A day that they spend worrying about you is a day that they’re not ending Medicare, privatizing public schools, or preparing a Muslim registry.

“Sap Representatives’ will to support or drive reactionary change. If you do this right, you will have an outsized impact. Every time your MoC signs on to a bill, takes a position, or makes a statement, a little part of his or her mind will be thinking: “How am I going to explain this to the angry constituents who keep showing up at my events and demanding answers?”

“Reaffirm the illegitimacy of the Trump agenda. The hard truth is that Trump, McConnell, and Ryan will have the votes to cause some damage. But by objecting as loudly and powerfully as possible, and by centering the voices of those who are most affected by their agenda, you can ensure that people understand exactly how bad these laws are from the very start—priming the ground for the 2018 midterms and their repeal when Democrats retake power.
SHOULDN’T WE PUT FORWARD AN ALTERNATE, POSITIVE AGENDA?

“A defensive strategy does not mean dropping your own policy priorities or staying silent on an alternate vision for our country over the next four years. What it means is that, when you’re trying to influence your MoC, you will have the most leverage when you are focused on the current legislative priority.

“You may not like the idea of being purely defensive; we certainly don’t. As progressives, our natural inclination is to talk about the things we’re for—a clean climate, economic justice, health care for all, racial equality, gender and sexual equality, and peace and human rights. These are the things that move us. But the hard truth of the next four years is that we’re not going to set the agenda; Trump and congressional Republicans will, and we’ll have to respond. The best way to stand up for the progressive values and policies we cherish is to stand together, indivisible—to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.”

Please read the rest of the guide. It is written in accessible language and offers sound advice.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Trump
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