Mexican Teachers: "Education is Not a Class Privilige, It is a Social Right"

by Jack Gerson

The previous post on this blog, Ken Hanley's article "Mexico Teachers Strike Closes Classes in Several States", gave a partial picture of the massive and bitter struggle that has been going on across most of southern and central Mexico for nearly a year, including months-long and ongoing mass strikes of teachers in several Mexican states. The root cause of the conflict is the attempt by Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, to impose austerity in the form of a neoliberal education agenda akin to the assault on public education in the U.S. and the UK, including tieing teachers' jobs to student performance on high stakes standardized tests, weakening union rights, and modifying the curriculum to be "business-friendly" -- as dictated by the World Bank and a cabal of multinational banks and corporations.

The best popular background article on the Mexican struggle is David Bacon's "U.S.-Style School Reform Goes South",  published last April in The Nation magazine:

http://www.thenation.com/article/173308/us-style-school-reform-goes-south#

However, since that article was published, the struggle has really heated up. Teachers in Guerrero, Michoacan and other states have walked out, joining the Oaxacan teachers (discussed in Bacon's article), mainly led by the CNTE (a large radical national grouping in the national teachers' union).

I think that the essence of the struggle is contained in the April 22 declaration of the teachers of Michoacan state stating their grievances and their resolve and their intention to strike until their grievances were resolved. I'm including it in the original Spanish, but I'll translate the heading:  "Education is not a Class Privilige, it is a Social Right."

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“LA EDUCACIÓN NO ES UN PRIVILEGIO DE CLASE, ES UN DERECHO SOCIAL”

A LA  OPINIÓN PÚBLICA

A LAS GOBIERNOS FEDERAL Y ESTATAL

A LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN:

Hoy, 22 de abril del año 2013, el magisterio michoacano, nos dirigimos a ustedes para hacer saber la determinación que hemos tomado de asumir nuestros deberes cívicos, frente a las reformas laboral, energética, fiscal y educativa, y lo hacemos una vez que tocamos todas las puertas de gobierno, que buscamos oídos para nuestras peticiones, que solicitamos  la protección de la justicia ante los tribunales, que públicamente hemos solicitado ser incluidos en las discusiones para la construcción del modelo educativo  que requiere este país, y la respuesta ha sido negativa. Pero, al mismo tiempo, el trato que nos dan es de difamación desde los medios de comunicación, para justificar el uso de la represión policiaca. Por todo lo anterior, a partir de esta fecha NOS DECLARAMOS EN PARO DE LABORES POR TIEMPO INDEFINIDO, hasta lograr respuestas satisfactorias en lo referente a:

1. La  abrogación del decreto, emitido por Enrique Peña Nieto, que reforma los artículos 3° y 73 de la Constitución, por lesionar el carácter gratuito de la educación al imponer cuotas a los padres de familia, y permitir que la educación sea un negocio de los empresarios; por lesionar los derechos sociales y laborales, legítimamente legados por los hombres que nos dieron Patria; por pretender instituir el contratismo y buscar el despido de más de un millón de maestros con un examen tramposo, que no es una evaluación; y por buscar un mayor empobrecimiento de los contenidos educativos, en detrimento de la formación integral de los estudiantes.

2. El castigo correspondiente a Elba Esther Gordillo Morales por el despojo de nuestro dinero y otros delitos cometidos contra el magisterio y el pueblo de México. Que se realice un proceso de elección de los representantes en nuestro sindicato,  donde todos los profesores participemos. Desconocemos la imposición, por parte del gobierno federal, de Juan Díaz de la Torre, miembro de la mafia de Elba Esther.

3. El respeto total a las Normales formadoras de docentes, por ser un pilar fundamental de la educación pública y gratuita, y legado de la Revolución Mexicana.

4. Que se ponga un alto a la represión física, administrativa, mediática y laboral que los gobiernos estatal y federal han emprendido contra los maestros que luchamos por nuestros derechos y por la defensa de la educación pública, científica, nacional y gratuita.

 Sabidos de los riesgos que corremos por las amenazas de un gobierno que se niega a respetar el derecho de niños y jóvenes de acceder a la cultura universal, tomamos esta determinación porque estamos seguros de la justeza de las demandas, y tenemos claro  que, si bien el Paro Indefinido reduce el número de días clase en las escuelas, no salir a luchar contra esta mal intencionada reforma, es renunciar a contar con escuelas públicas y con programas de estudio basados en el progreso de las ciencias y la tecnología, orientados al desarrollo de las facultades humanas. No salir a luchar, sería seguir aceptando programas de estudio y textos empobrecidos, que tienen al día de hoy resultados catastróficos en niños y jóvenes, y dejarle paso libre al creciente cobro de cuotas y a la destrucción del sistema educativo. Por el cariño y compromiso hacia nuestros niños y jóvenes, seguiremos luchando con la mayor organización, inteligencia y solidaridad posibles.

Echar abajo la reforma educativa no será cosa sencilla, se requiere  contar con la participación decidida y consciente de toda la sociedad en las acciones de oposición y presión política. Se unifican los ricos empresarios, el gobierno, los diputados, senadores, partidos políticos y medios masivos de comunicación para imponer la reforma educativa en contra de los intereses y aspiraciones del pueblo. Por ello, nuestro llamado a unificar todas las fuerzas del pueblo es urgente, por el presente y futuro de la Patria.

Vamos a una intensa Jornada Nacional de Lucha, al lado de los trabajadores y pueblos de Guerrero, Oaxaca, Morelos, Chiapas, Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo, Puebla, Distrito Federal, Tlaxcala, San Luis Potosí, Coahuila, Veracruz, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Jalisco, entre otros.

Informamos que en el marco del Paro, además de acciones de presión política, realizaremos actividades culturales, pedagógicas, deportivas, sobre el cuidado del medio ambiente, alimentación sana, etc., en los centros escolares y comunidades, como parte del compromiso que hemos asumido en  el Congreso Estatal Popular de Educación y Cultura, realizado los días 17,18 y 19 de abril, en la ruta de implementar un modelo educativo que responda a los intereses de TODOS los michoacanos.

Y, aunque queda claro, es necesario decirlo: es responsabilidad del gobierno federal y estatal el estallamiento del paro de labores, por su intención de acabar con la educación gratuita de los mexicanos, ¡NO LO VAMOS A PERMITIR!

ATENTAMENTE

“POR LA EDUCACIÓN AL SERVICIO DEL PUEBLO”

SECCIÓN XVIII DEL SNTE-CNTE

MICHOACÁN

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Oakland Teacher Speaks Truth to Those Who Won't Assert Power

by Jack Gerson

On Saturday, Oakland public school teacher Craig Gordon  received the 2013 Human Rights Award from the Alameda/Contra Costa Counties Service Center (ALCOSTA) of the California Teachers Association, the statewide affiliate of the 3-million member National Education Association (NEA, the largest union in the U.S.) Here's a video of Craig's acceptance speech, in which he argues that CTA and NEA (and their local affiliates) must abandon their strategy of collaborating with and caving in to the demands of management, politicians, and corporate billionaires and undertake direct action and strikes statewide and nationally to fight privatization and to demand a bailout of schools and services not banks and corporations.

As you'll see on the video,  the audience gave Craig a standing ovation. But many of those standing and applauding are the very local and statewide CTA leaders who have for years blocked our efforts to fight, insisting that collaboration with management and reliance on Democratic politicians at the local and state levels was the most that could be done. Now, after mass teacher / student / community strikes and actions in Chicago last fall, these "leaders" no longer openly bash every mention of the word "strike" and / or the call for mass action at the local, state, and national level. But they still won't act. And it's not the word that matters, but the deed.

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Teachers are not to blame for education crisis; they are victims of it.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

We hear it over and over again; autoworkers are the cause of the problems in the auto industry.  Muni (public transportation in SF) operators are the cause of the problems with San Francisco’s mass transit service, and social workers are to blame when young children are abused.

The war on the public sector is ferocious and the 1% and their representatives in the two Wall Street parties have teachers and their unions on top of their hit list, the main teachers Union, the NEA, is the largest Union in the country.  The capitalist offensive is determined to put the US working class on rations to do that it must wage a war on organized labor.

I just read an article in my local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle.  The article is about a new report being released today which calls for  “..an overhaul..” of  the way Oakland, a major city on the East Shore of the San Francisco Bay, runs its public school system.  I haven’t yet read the report itself which is the product of an evaluation by the National Council on Teacher Quality but it is clear that this is the same old story----blame teachers for the crisis in education. 

The evaluation was sponsored by a group called the Effective Teacher Coalition of Oakland which according to the Chronicle includes, “..local parent and youth groups, one of the school district’s labor unions, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.”  The group commissioned the evaluation in order to get an “outside perspective on improving teaching in Oakland” and “a third party perspective.”, and got their wish.  The project also received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.  That should be a red light right there.

The recommendations from the NCTQ focuses on “..using market-based forces to improve teacher performance…”. But it is market based forces that are the cause of the crisis in education just like they were the cause of the 2007 crash, the cause of the crisis in auto, the cause of homelessness and lack of health care. 

Oakland CA Lakeview School sit in

It is shameful that a trade Union supports the project although it should come as no surprise given the role the leaders of this Union played last August during the occupation of an Oakland school that was scheduled to be closed. Such recommendations like curbing seniority rights; reducing sick leave from ten days annually to five, ending tenure for teachers after two years, and that districts be free to layoff teachers without using seniority which is now required by law are eventually supported in one way or another by trade Union leaders at the highest level throughout organized Labor. These attacks occur throughout all industries.

The response from leaders of the Oakland Education Association,  (OEA) as far as I can see, is the usual astonishment at the ferocity and full frontal attack, The Chronicle quotes Trish Gorham, OEA president,  “It’s an advocacy piece” she says.  Yes it is Trish, yes it is.  She adds, “It’s over the top, it wasn’t even subtle.”  This is the voice of a Labor official that has no answer whatsoever to the austerity agenda, it is a plea for help,  “We accept the changes are necessary but please be a little less aggressive.”  And the bosses have not been subtle for quite sometime, how could anyone not have noticed that.  Teachers have been savaged over the past period with job losses and wage cuts.  In this period concessions just lead to more concessions.

“The teachers’ union criticized the report as divisive and custom made to drive a broader policy agenda” the Chronicle writes. What on earth would make anyone think otherwise?  Have the policies and practices coming out of Washington and the US Congress regarding social services or toward workers and our families been “subtle” of late?  And of course there is a broader policy agenda. The question is, what is the leadership of organized Labor from the top down going to do about it?  So far they have cooperated with the austerity agenda as they whine about the excesses. The Labor hierarchy is wedded to the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses have the same economic interests and this is what drives their class collaboration.  They worship market forces too and look to the market for answers to all things.

I worked as a teacher’s aid in the Oakland public schools many years ago.  It taught me to have nothing but the greatest respect for teachers; it is not easy to give a child the attention they need when you have 30 or 35 of them in a class speaking five different languages. But it is poverty and social disruption that is the main cause of the crisis in education. Children bring all the ills of capitalist society in to the classroom.  Job losses, home eviction, parents working sixty hour weeks, wage cuts, elimination of public services of all kinds, these have an affect on personal relations in the home. When capitalist economic crisis becomes more severe like the period we have come through, this makes matters worse. Social crisis makes it harder for teachers to teach and harder for students to learn.  The report says they want to cut down on absenteeism, but like social workers, these conditions outside of the classroom weigh heavily on teachers, making their jobs very stressful.

What really happens is that students, parents, family life is hit by capitalist crisis and through that, the teachers in our schools.  And like any job or profession, some people have difficulties or when conditions are bad become more disillusioned than others, the task is to help them. The report pays lip service to this but its main focus is on blaming teachers and weakening their Union.

According to the SF Chron. The report recommends giving principals complete control over hiring, a sort of education equivalent to Detroit’s new one-man dictatorship.  The report adds that, “Oakland needs to find ways to consider the best interests of students when deciding where to assign teachers…”

Since when do these people care about the “best interests” of students?  Oakland has been closing schools left right and center, schools that are attended primarily by students of color, an already distressed community in the madness of capitalist society, this will add to problems this community faces.  But all aspects of public education are on the chopping block. We saw the beginnings of what could have been a mass movement to drive the capitalist offensive back in 2010 when college students arose in masses to oppose fee hikes but the heads of organized Labor in California, with 2 million workers affiliated to it refused to bring the power of Labor to the table.

These battles cannot be won by individual cities, individual school districts or individual local Unions.  Beyond the Occupy movement we have also seen numerous pockets of resistance to foreclosures, environmentally destructive projects like the pipeline, the prison industrial complex which houses two million souls, and against cuts in education. We must link these struggles together and we do that by broadening our demands.

We have to build a generalized mass movement against all aspects of the austerity agenda.

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How Wall Street Preys on Teacher Pensions

by Jack Gerson

Ten days ago Danny Weil published, on dailycensored.com, a scathing analysis of how the biggest predators on Wall Street have been invited in to plunder teacher pension funds -- especially in California and Texas, but throughout the country. Teacher pension trustees now say that there are vast "unfunded liabilities", and politicians like California Governor Jerry Brown are sharpening their knives while they provide quotes to the media about how funding for public employee pension obligations create budget deficits and force the state to impose harsh austerity cuts to essential public services. This is the prelude to demands for teachers and other public employees to accept cuts to their retirement income. Indeed, such proposals are already echoing in state houses and legislatures.

Investment from employee pension funds helped finance the boom on Wall Street. But when the crisis hit, Wall Street demanded -- and continues to demand -- multi-trillion dollar bailouts from the public by cuts in jobs and services to working and unemployed people. The big banks pretend to be "risk-takers" who deserve fat returns as compensation for their "risk". But as the story of teacher pension funds illustrates, it's our livelihoods-- our savings, our pensions, our essential services -- that are at risk. Not theirs. They demand and get bailed out over and again. And they admonish us for being so careless with how we let our money be invested (invested by them, of course).

One of the important points to take away from this article is the culpability of the state teacher union leadership in standing idly by while over the past five years Wall Street hedge funds swooped in to prey on the pension funds. The story of such financialization isn't unique to teacher pension funds. Big capital is financializing and privatizing whatever can be privatized and financialilzed, commodifying or recommodifying much of what has long been public, in the process, wresting away gains fought for and won by working people over the past century and a half. These austerity attacks won't go away until we make them go away.

But enough from me. Here's Danny's article, as originally published at dailycensored.com:

http://www.dailycensored.com/financial-capitalism-and-the-us-teachers-pension-fund-fraud/

Financial Capitalism and the US teachers’ pension fund fraud

Danny Weil

An “internal study” of the California Teachers’ Retirement System (Cal STRS) indicates that the public school pension fund faces a $64 billion deficit, according to the Sacramento Bee, dated  February 4, 2013 (http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/02/california-teachers-pension-fund-faces-64-billion-deficit.html#storylink=cpy=).
The California State Teachers Retirement System produced the report in response to a legislative resolution.  The release of the “internal study” followed on the heels of chiding by the Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, who indirectly admonished neo-liberal Gov. Jerry Brown for ignoring “huge” unfunded liabilities associated with the teachers’ retirement system and state retiree health benefits” in his new ‘budget’.
Cal STRS receives money from the state, from local school districts and from teachers themselves, but the source of the funds income is also highly dependent on investment earnings.  Like most pension funds throughout through-out the nation, Cal STRS was decimated during the recent Great Depression that continues unabated. And while the California Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) has the power take money directly from the state treasury as it sees fit, STRS cannot; they must receive specific appropriations from the Legislature in order to fund the state teachers’ pensions.
Fully funding the California teachers’ pension fund, we are told, would require $4.5 billion more a year — excluding projected investment earnings.   The system in its report stated that the shortfall would be ‘eased’ by setting lower funding targets and/or stretching out contributions (ibid). This means less money for current and future retirees.  The most important financial move, Cal STRS fund managers said, is to begin closing the deficit, rather than allowing it to widen further.  Sound like calls for austerity?  Sure does, sure is.  But wait, there’s more, and it is truly nauseating, frightening and painfully keeping with the logic of capitalist economics.
Pension funds are now dressed up hedge funds with current and future disastrous consequences

According to a recent article found at Dollarcollapse.com, pension funds are now morphing into hedge funds, a virtual back alley crap game or what Dollarcollapse calls “rolling the dice in exotic investments”, for Wall Street and their minions (http://dollarcollapse.com/investing/pension-funds-become-hedge-funds-roll-the-dice-on-exotic-investments/).

In the report written by author, John Rubino on January 28^th, 2013, he notes that there was a time when running a pension fund used to be one of the more facile jobs in finance.  Money came in steadily and predictably from member contributions and the funds were then invested in AAA grade bonds and blue chip stocks.  The target was to meet a modest, but assured, annual return of 8% interest (ibid). Not anymore. That was before the financialization of capitalism and the economic collapse.
Now, as the author correctly notes, the pension funds in effect have two criminally incompetent overlords trying to serve two contradictory economic demands.  On the one hand, at the national and state level the US borrows too much and lets its banks go on an unregulated ‘wilding’ with dire consequences for working people.  This causes and has caused severe debt crisis’ to which the overseers of capital respond by lowering interest rates to the point where investment grade bonds, once the heart and soul of pension funds, yield next to nothing.
At the state and local level, the corporate owned governors and mayors refuse to raise taxes on their real constituency, the corporations and the rich, which would have the beneficial effect of balancing the funds; they instead pressure funds to continue to make their ‘vig’ of 8%.  This, even though not only is this stupidly optimistic, but it is wildly impossible.  So, what are the pension fund managers doing now?  They are doing what financial capital requires: they are acting like gambling casinos by increasingly turning the whole pension fund investment strategy into a dangerous explosive landmine, twisting them into hedge funds, all to the detriment of working people and to the advantage of Wall Street.
This is how financialization works.  It is a particular phase of capitalism where everything is monetized and commodified.  Take the Texas Teachers’ Retirement system as just one example.
Texas Teachers’ Retirement system
In his article, Rubino goes on to write about the Texas Teacher Retirement System.  According to Rubino:
“On the 13^th floor of a sleek downtown office building here, the trading desks are manned overnight.  The chief investment officer favors cowboy boots made of elephant skin.  And when a bet pays off, even the secretaries can be entitled to bonuses” (ibid).
We are not talking about a high flying private hedge fund but instead, these desks are manned for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, similar to Cal STRS.  The public pension fund has 1.3 million members that include school teachers, bus drivers and cafeteria workers throughout the state.  They all labor under the assumption they will have retirement benefits they worked their entire lives for.
Yet rather than reduce risk in the wake of declines in interest rates, the pension fund manikins are now getting hostily aggressive, loading up on private equity investments and other non-traditional investments that they say promise to return pension funds to the halcyon days of steady and safe returns.
The Texas Teacher Retirement System fund has $114 billion dollars and now boasts some of the riskiest bets in its history with $30 billion dollars committed to private equity, real estate and other ‘so-called ‘alternative investments’ since early 2008, as the economic crash washed ashore like a Tsunami.  Amongst the ten largest U.S public pensions, this makes it the biggest such investor in Wall Street backed equity investments.  The funds currently have an average alternatives allocation of a whopping 21%!  Don’t let them fool you again.
According to tracker, Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service, the Texas Teacher Retirement System brought in an annual return of 3.1% between December 31, 2007 and December 31, 2012.  This was more than the average media return of 2.6% for similar years (ibid).
The argument made by the pension investment officials for their investment in Wall Street is that investment in private equity is necessary to help offset declines in other investments it is embedded in.  So, we are told that investment in Wall Street is necessary to assure adequate pay-outs to current and future retirees.  Sound familiar?  The Chief Investment Officer for the workers’ pension moneys, Britt Harris, says he can perform miracles in light of the deteriorating state of US financial capitalism and “smash” the reality that government pension funds area on the short end of most investments — another one of those economic genies of trading.
So, with this particular shortsightedness and love for free markets, in November 2011 the Texas fund made one of the largest single commitments in the private equity system’s history: they invested $3 billion dollars in KKR and another Wall Street parasite, the Apollo Global management group (APO).  Three months later, unbeknownst to the vast majority of fund members, they bought $250 million dollars of the world’s largest hedge fund firm with member monies – Bridgewater Associates out of Connecticut.  This marked the first time time in history that a U.S public pension fund has purchased such a large stake in private equities, betting member dollars as if they were players in a casino roulette game.
The result was a return for the fiscal year ending on August 31, 2011 that was 7.6%.  Now pension ‘managers’ say they can help the fund reach its goal of 8% annually over the long haul and they are proceeding full speed ahead.  In a ten year period ending in August of 31, 2012 the Texas Teacher Retirement System had an annual return of 7.4% (ibid).
Of course none of the investments had the approval of working people who fund the retirement system.  This is partly due to the enormous task of investing but mainly due to lack of democratic decision making and oversight which is the nasty business that pension fund managers, in cahoots with Wall Street, loathe.  Nothing could be worse than having the wolves of capital in their elephant skin boots subjected to transparency and member oversight.
And just where were the teacher unions and bus driver unions and cafeteria worker unions when all this was happening?  They were nowhere in sight.  Their ‘bosses’ either didn’t know, care or understand the haughty risk the pension weasels were making on behalf of their members.  The fat cat union bosses have shown a penchant for Wall Street and neo-liberalism in general, favoring begging over bargaining and fancy luncheons with powerful paid for politicians and wealth managers over their fiduciary duty of member oversight.  They prefer to be team members rather than looking out for their real members, working people who are drastically declining in numbers as privatization clouds the horizon and economic decimation provides the meat for the noxious roux.
The average teacher, bus driver and cafeteria worker simply wants to do their job and to make a living, feed their children and provide for retirement, a chore that is not possible under the current regime of capital.  Mis-education and a lack of critical thinking skills have left workers prey for the wolves of high-finance while the pension managers ski in Aspen, buy fancy boots and otherwise screw over workers by investing in a system of mendacity and despair that has proven time and time again to be a time bomb.  All this while Wall Street gets fatter, bonuses are given out with impunity and privatization squeezes the life out of civil society.
Leveraging workers’ pension through debt
This grand charade is all about leveraging debt, which is the specialty of Wall Street and their cronies.  “Leverage’ relies on borrowing more and more sums of cash and then using derivatives (phony insurance) to make large investments in Wall Street.  In this way the funds don’t have to put up as much cash – money they don’t have anyway.  It is like borrowing on credit cards to buy stocks and bonds but it is much worse, for it is not an individual problem, it is a socio-economic one that promises to drive the funds right down the same path as the banking crisis and housing “bubble” that brought down whole countries and economies, like Greece.  All of this is great for Wall Street and death for workers.
But never mind:  for the money changers, such as the world’s largest hedge fund firm, Bridgewater Associates and a numerically growing number of hedge fund bosses state, this type of leveraging is not like that which crashed banks, devasted lives, washed worker bodies onto the shoreline of despair and economic ruin and left them in peonage; it, they say, is “different.  Not to worry this time, these deacons of depravity and greed say they are firmly and safely in control of the financialization scheme which of course is tantamount to saying that an alcoholic is in control of his or her own addiction or the military industrial complex has a firm hand on the tiller of cost control.
They have even bent the language to their own self-serving advantage, a sophist’s tool, and they now call this ‘financial strategy’ “risk parity” (ibid).  There are many such criminal firms such as AQR Capital Management and the Clifton Group out of Minneapolis who are greedily sucking their fingers in anticipation of their own bonuses, capital gains and primitive accumulation strategies which promise to make them even more super-rich than they currently are and allow managers and executives to reap heady bonuses.
When questioned, the minions of Wall Street who serve as the real shadow managers of the funds say that they are using a modest amount of leveraging and assure workers and you, the reader, that this is what makes their strategy brilliant and different from those employed by investment banks.  Do not be beguiled, this is the same strategy that created the largest transfer of wealth into the pockets of the one percent in the history of the world.
Of course it is not only a self-serving lie and unthinkable ruse, but it is unsustainable.  The chickens will come home to roost just as they did in the bankster fraud and housing debacle.  Cannibal financial groups like Bridgewater and their founder Ray Dalio, like the matchstick men they are, have pitched the idea to other pension fund ‘trustees’ and have even made a documentary style online video about the Ponzi scheme.
They all employ the same rapacious rap.  According to an interview with Bridgewater con-man, Ray Dalio:
“Ironically, by increasing your risk in the bonds you are going to lower your risk in the overall portfolio” (ibid).
This is the voice of American greed and it resounds well within the halls of depravity that is Wall Street which profits off of economic demolition and looks to take stumbling pensions down the road of economic purgatory.
The California State Teacher Retirement System
And of course this leads us back to Cal STRS.  With a shortfall such as that borne by the California pension fund, one can imagine this Nigerian web scam to be swallowed by the pension bosses here in California and elsewhere, who manage workers’ money for a profit, but do so with disdain for the workers’ themselves and a penchant for tying themselves to the crap game of casino capitalism.  These con artists avoid having to answer questions about such “innovations” such as day trading during the high tech stock bubble and house flipping during the housing boom, practices that are hardly innovative but more about yawing financial appetites and greed.  Remember these hideous practices were also sold under the auspices of ingenuity at the time they were fathomed but soon became to be known as criminal practices and investment ruses that were devastating for working people.
My wife is currently receiving disability retirement benefits from the California State Teacher Retirement System.  In this year, her check payment for February was lower than that paid in January.  She has written Cal STRS to find out why and is awaiting a reply Cal STRS says they will have put in her “in-box” online at their website in 20 days.  But as the clock runs out on her health and her funds quickly deliquesce, one can only view the financialization con with disgust and wonder how many other retired teachers who have devoted their lives to children will be affected.
This is all part of the privatization plot favored by Jerry Brown, enemy of the working class and cozy operator for the ruling class.  To avoid having to raise taxes on corporations and the rich who invest in him, Brown and the pension fund managers have created low hanging fruit for Bridgewater and other such criminal enterprises.  Remember, we are talking about billions of dollars here, even trillions of dollars in public pension funds.
So now you know the sordid tale of pension funds and pension leveraging, a seat at the black jack table for workers and a prime example of rapture capital accumulation for the rich.  If the practices are allowed to continue should you be a public school teacher, much like a worker who pays into Social Security, you will eventually find there is no security, that the system is rigged and the hefty bubble subject to burst.
Meanwhile, Wall Street fat cats get fatter, receive hefty  bonuses for wrangling the funds into Wall Street, and get larger all while more elephants are slayed and workers’ lives for the bootlicking fund managers drown in unpayable debt as worker retirement becomes merely a sultry dream to be replaced by homelessness, financial ruin, suicide, sorrow and decimation.
If you thought such heady political gimmicks like proposition 30 would help stave off economic devastation for underfunded schools or even staunch the bleeding inherent in the mendacious system of financial capitalism, you were wrong.  The only thing that can bring about security and equality for those who work and the public educational sector is class consciousness, education, organization and mobilization.  Anything less is a fool’s game.  It is time working people in conjunction with the students and communities they serve go on the offensive and not be forced to crouch into the corner of defensiveness.  But this will largely have something to do with how we see the world and how our perceptions are managed by a ruling class that understands very well this moment in history; a ruling class that like other monarchies of old, is more class conscious than its labor counterparts.
Meanwhile, my wife waits for an answer in her on-line ‘inbox’ from the unaccountable Cal STRS fund managers who don’t give a damn about how much she contributed to society, her growing physical disability or her future.  We will let you know if and when we get their reply.  In the meantime, organize, educate and mobilize: this is the only hope we have.

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Support Garfield High (Seattle) Boycott of High Stakes Tests

By Jack Gerson

A boycott of standardized tests -- launched earlier this month when teachers at Seattle's Garfield High voted unanimously to refuse to administer the districtwide Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test -- has attracted national attention as well as support from parent and teacher groups locally and nationally.  Teachers at some other Seattle schools have joined the boycott, while many others have sent letters of support.  The Seattle Parent Teacher Student Association, the Seattle Student Senate, and many leading education activists and researchers have also issued support statements.

Today -- Wednesday, January 30 -- is a national call/phone/fax day to tell Seattle Public Schools that you, your organization and / or your union stand with the Garfield test boycotters. Send your message to Seattle Schools Superintendent José Banda:

Phone: (206) 252-0180
Fax: (206) 252-0209
Email: superintendent@seattleschools.org

 The MAP tests were created by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a non-profit corporation with ties to Bill Gates and Eli Broad, billionaire architects of the corporate assault on education.  They were brought to Seattle by former schools superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, herself a graduation of Eli Broad’s Urban Superintendents Academy, who spent more than $4 million of public school funds for them. This was a blatant conflict of interest: Goodloe-Johnson never even bothered to disclose that she was on the board of NWEA before, during, and after she contracted to buy the MAP tests. 

Far worse, though, are the tests themselves.  Teachers and schools are held accountable for student test scores on MAP – in fact, the district wants to use MAP scores in teacher evaluations – but Garfield teachers say that these tests don’t test what they’re supposed to – they are not aligned to curricula.  They penalize low-income and special education students:  the tests are administered on computers; low-income students in under-resourced schools have far less access to computers than students from affluent families, while MAP testing denies special education students the accommodations they often need to effectively interact with computers.

This is an old story:  deny resources to those who need them the most, increasing inequality. Then use poorly designed and arbitrarily applied tests to “measure” student achievement, and blame students, teachers, and "low-achieving" schools for their “failure”.  Naturally, the students who score lowest are those who suffer most from social inequality – children from low-income families, and especially those from black and Latino families. And, of course, the overtesting mania rewards rote learning and spitting out the “right” answer – blind obedience --over concepts, creativity, and independent thinking.

Rather than provide what’s really needed -- more resources for schools and, most importantly, massive public programs to combat the effects of poverty and reduce social inequality – schools are told to “do more with less” while essential public services are cut or eliminated.  And then schools are closed, experienced teachers are laid off, destabilizing neighborhoods and increasing social inequality.  More schools closed, more neighborhoods destabilized, more young people consigned to the streets, the military, or prison. In this way, high stakes testing reproduces and deepens the class and racial divisions and inequality that are at the heart of the problem.

Teachers, parents, and education activists have come out strongly in support of the Garfield teachers and their test boycott.  What about the leaders of the two huge national teacher unions, the 3 million member National Education Association (NEA) and the 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers (AFT)?  Well, in fact, the presidents of the NEA (Dennis van Roekel) and the AFT (Randi Weingarten) have each said that they support the teachers boycott. But they haven’t lifted a finger to demonstrate real support. Teachers – and parents – across the country are fed up with overtesting. With an investment of some of their massive resources, NEA and AFT could spread the boycott to thousands of schools, organize mass support rallies, and make the simple and direct connections between the fight against high stakes testing and the fight against the cuts to education and other essential public programs. In other words: they could use the fight against high stakes testing as a springboard to kick off a national campaign against austerity. But they’re not about to do that – at least not on their own initiative. They’re not about to break with Barack Obama and the Democrats. They’re not about to clash with “responsible business leaders”. Instead, they’re going to continue to embrace the “team concept” of labor / corporate / government collaboration – the same policy that accelerated the decimation of U.S. private sector unions.

But that doesn’t mean that these fights aren’t coming.  Parents and community can now see the corporate “reform” for what it is: shutting down schools and overall downsizing of public education; charter schools, test prep mills, consultants and contractors and overall privatization; forcing out experienced teachers and overall union-busting.  And in many communities, it’s understood that the corporate assault on education is an integral part of “shared sacrifice” austerity, and that the only ones sacrificing are working and unemployed families.  And we’re fighting back: three years ago, in the California movement against cuts to education; two years ago, in the massive struggle in Wisconsin against cuts and union-busting, kicked off by students and teachers in Madison high schools; last year, in the massive and groundshaking Occupy movement; and just four months ago, in the powerful teacher and  community alliance manifested in the Chicago teacher strike.

So, let’s make those phone calls, send those faxes, post those emails to let Seattle Schools Superintendent José Banda know that there’s massive support out here for the Garfield teachers and their boycott of Seattle’s high stakes MAP tests. Here’s Banda’s contact info:

Phone:  (206) 252-0180

Fax:       (206)  252-0209

Email:   superintendent@seattleschools.org

It’s a start. It can lead to more. 

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AFT, NEA, and the Privatization Drive Against Public Education

By Jack Gerson

Last weekend I spoke in San Francisco on a panel that addressed the topic:  "Public Education, Privatization and The NEA/CTA, SEIU and AFT/CFT-What Can Education Workers, Students & Parents Do To Defend Public Education?"   My presentation was recorded by the Labor Video Project and it's now up on YouTube:

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