A Great Week of Democracy for Education around the World

From Chicago to New York, to Canada to Australia, last week was a great week of grassroots actions involving parents, teachers, students, and concerned citizens all standing in solidarity to protect education.  It is inspiring to know people around the world are organizing to fight the corporate takeover of public education. 

In Chicago, roughly 90% of the Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU) members voted to authorize a strike next year if agreeable negotiations are not made.  According to a new state law, the CTU must get the approval of at least 75% of its members in order to call a strike.

Considering the relentless attacks on teachers and neighborhood schools in Chicago over the last decade that has been amplified by the Emanuel administration, it is no surprise they were able to reach this number. The CTU recently held a rally that was as big if not bigger in numbers as the NATO rallies that had occurred the previous week.

Hopefully, Rahm Emanuel and his appointed millionaire school board will begin to understand there are consequences if they continue to ignore teachers, parents, and students in favor of privatization.  He already had to make concessions in response to parent outrage over the longer school day and polls are showing the public sides with the CTU.

In New York, hundreds of parents gathered in protest outside the Pearson Testing Company’s headquarters. It was in reaction to the for-profit testing company’s proposal to subject their children to a field test on top of the regular tests. Parents were not only upset about the fact that the additional testing would take even more time away from actual teaching, but that their children are being used as lab rats for the development of future test questions as well. Some of the parents even sent invoices to Pearson for their children’s time.

More and more parents across the country are increasingly growing tired of having to subject their children to psychologically damaging tests that do nothing to improve their education. Just last week, the elected school board in Broward County Florida unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of high-stakes testing (FCAT). They are also opposed the ridiculous notion that a teacher’s pay should be based on test scores.  Mayor Bloomberg and Florida Governor Rick Scott will have to start understanding their pro-privatization, anti-parent, anti-teacher, anti-student, anti-public school reforms are becoming more and more a political liability.

As encouraging as these grassroots action are, we should be looking to Canada and Australia for examples of massive solidarity. In looking at recent pictures from a teacher’s rally in Australia, it looks very similar to the rally that took place in Chicago just a few weeks prior.  Parents and students had joined with their teachers in regards to equal pay issues with other states. They were in opposition to a proposal to replace a 30% pay raise with a system of merit-based pay increases that amount to a 2.5% bonus for “high-performers”. Similarly, the school board in Chicago offered a 2% raise instead of one that is commensurate with inflation and the amount of work teaching involves. The difference being the Australian and Chicago stories is that 25,000 Australian teachers already walked off the job as opposed to the CTU that had only collected the votes it needed to legally authorize a strike next year (an important task).

In Quebec, ongoing protests have been occurring in response to a $1,473 tuition hike that would be implemented over the course of seven years. Over 200,000 people protest against a $1,473 tuition hike and there is no end in site?!?!?!  When you think about what corporate interests are making our government do to our public education system, you’d think we would have the same numbers. Montreal’s Minister of Education has already resigned over the ruckus. If we could get that many people to D.C., maybe we could get rid of Arne Duncan!!!

Clearly, the neo-liberal, free-market agenda of privatizing and deregulating public schools is a global effort. The response must be as well. The opposition to corporate school reform is growing, but hopefully U.S. citizens will be inspired, empowered, and encouraged by what has taken recently place in Canada, Australia, and right here in the U.S.