- Report to the Trinational, in Montreal, May 6, 2010

Six days after he took office, 17 months ago in January, 2009, President Obama made his first public appearance as president when he visited the Capital City Charter School in Washington, DC. This was a deliberate and symbolic act. It launched an ever-escalating wild-ride towards the corporatizing and privatizing the system of public education in the United States.

The United States was the first country to guarantee free, universal public education. It is now moving rapidly to becoming the first country to end it. The well-orchestrated effort to turn over public schools to private corporations is a part of a much larger joint corporate-government campaign to privatize everything that is public in the United States. This process has escalated drastically since the US bank collapse in September of 2009, and the bank Bailout with $13 trillion of taxpayer money. continue...

Last week a humvee pulled into Santee's campus with pull up bars and free "gifts" in exchange for student's personal information. "Is this legal?" I was asked. According to LAUSD Policy Bulletin 2067.1, All military vehicles must receive clearance from the LAUSD Office of Risk Management. So, yes, unfortunately, it is legal. CAMS has reported military vehicles on campuses several times, with most not having received clearance from LAUSD. continue...

Felipe Calderón
June 13, 2009
President of the Republic of Mexico
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

President Calderón:

We, the members of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education – Los Angeles Section, are writing this letter in support of the teachers of Puebla, Mexico. We are making an urgent call to the governments of Mexico and of the state of Puebla to stop the brutal repression of the teachers immediately and to release all those people who have been disappeared or who have been jailed. We fully support the demands of the teachers of Puebla, specifically their demand to cancel the Alianza Por Calidad de la Educacion, and we demand that the state and federal governments recognize the democratic sections of 23 and 51 of the teachers’ union.

We urge you to put a stop to the corporate takeover of public education in Mexico. The right to a free quality education for all our children is under attack throughout the hemisphere. As with No Child Left Behind in the United States, the brunt of these programs comes down the hardest on the poorest and most discriminated against children. Teachers in the United States see the struggle against privatization of education in Mexico and here as one. Mexico being a sovereign and democratic country should be governed by its people and not by international corporations.

Sincerely,

For the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education, Los Angeles Section
Los Angeles, California