174 is the number of charter schools in the metropolitan are of Detroit today. We are talking about the epicenter of the economic crisis. Let's remember Detroit had a vision of the future and that vision was called the Ford Company. Today the Ford Company like many other industrial companies is investing in other countries to produce the same product for cheaper labor. What does this mean for the workers of Ford in Detroit? Lay offs of course, therefore, those people have to choose, either leave the city or try to make sense of it all and make a living. This is why having the social forum in Detroit was perfect! Detroit, the Motor City, was the city that grew along companies like Ford, yet it is also the one that has fallen the hardest, because of corporate globalization. continue...

- 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...

On March 4th, thousands upon thousands of Americans gravitated towards each other to defend public education -- and no one group was in charge! Over 700 activist students, unions and individuals had gathered in Berkeley on October 24th to propose a March 4th day of Strike/Action to Defend Public Education. Soon schools and communities across California were joining this effort, or organizing events completely on their own. Sources like Reuters and the New York Times reported that actions took place in about 30 states, at major cities centers, high school walkouts, and campuses of the UC, Cal State and Community College systems. continue...

Parents and students would be well advised to consider some of the dangers and abuses that may come under a privatized school system. Public schools are subject to regulation by federal and state governments. The teachers go through stringent credentialing programs and have their backgrounds vetted by the FBI. You cannot be assured this from a private school. Private schools will make promises about their teachers' backgrounds and their teachers' qualifications, but without strong federal oversight there are no guarantees. The teacher could very well be a child predator being protected by powerful friends within company (think along the lines of the Catholic church child abuse scandals). When a school is a for-profit run business, lies and nepotism will rule when it leads to greater profits. continue...

Obama's Back-to-School speech deserves commentary on many points. Here I am going to simply mention some telling assumptions that are laced through the presentation.

The President, of course, gets some points for talking about how students must accept responsibility for their own achievement. Though fundamental, this is hardly new. The elephant in the room is - achievement... for what? What is the real purpose of an education - a public education - in America 2009? continue...

Arne Duncan announces that Obama will make the first-ever speech of a President to k12 kids on Tuesday, September 8. We should mobilize and exploit every facet of this "teacheable moment" For every public school teacher who is tired of massive California cutbacks, for every education provider who is tired of Privatization, to every classroom teacher who recongnizes that our status, as En Loco Parentis, makes us obligated to speak out in the children's best interest; to all of you who are sick and tired of what passes for public education in Oakland,

This is your chance!

Let's take advantage of this event and let the truth ring out! Let us use this (dare I say?) Teacheable Moment to let parents, students and the whole Oakland community what is REALLY going on: downsizing counselors, eliminating librarians in Flatlands schools, fewer and fewer psychologists, humdrum drill-and-kill teaching to the test for bogus reasons, cutbacks everywhere, Apartheid schools in America.

Oh yes, we classroom teachers are the ones who really know. We must not remain silent!!

The Los Angeles County Office of Education
is proud to announce
President Obama's Back-to-School
Address to Students Across America
LIVE BROADCAST: Tuesday, September 8, 2009
10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time
www.whitehouse.gov

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

On Thursday the 11th of June, 2009; Annandale Elementary was visited by L.A.U.S.D. Board Member, Yolie Flores. As expected Ms. Flores was not very welcomed by the school's staff and students. She was received by angry parents; who not only had signs and banners that showed their concerns, but also were very well prepared as they met with Ms. Flores in a small parent meeting. Some of the questions asked focused on concerns from how the stimulus money is being spent, to why is the District public channel KCLS untouchable.continue...

A strategy is uniting corporate and political elites: using budget shockwaves to bury public education under a landslide of privatization. But unions in K-12 and higher ed have reacted like shovelers standing back-to-back, each one blindly tossing dirt over their shoulder into the other’s hole, sinking ever deeper.

Let’s look at how this hurt them in California’s May 19 special election, and on the issue of charter schools. In the election, educators not only didn’t have a common plan, but actually worked against each other. While California Teachers Association (CTA) spent $9.2 million supporting Propositions 1A and 1B, the California Federation of Teachers CFT) spent $567,000 against 1A, and the California Faculty Association (CFA, the professors in the California State University system) spent $1.2 million against it. continue...

Hola Compañeros y compañeras.

El magisterio democrático de las secciones 23 y 51 del SNTE (Puebla), fue reprimido brutalmente por el gobierno estatal el 10 de junio del año en curso. Fueron desalojados de sus locales sindicales, hay 17 presos, un desaparecido y maestros heridos. Hoy habrá una manifestación en la ciudad de México para protestar por estos hechos.

A los detenidos el gobierno amenaza con acusarlos de despojo y motín por lo cual serían muchos años de cárcel. continue...

They protest with their bodies because they lack the economic power of the corporate elite who bled the economy dry, then demanded cuts to schools and services while grabbing billion dollar bailouts. Nor do they have the political power of elected officials who took millions from public schools, to fund the charter schools and excessive testing demanded by that same elite.

As America applauds the election of a Black president and Latino mayors, L.A.’s poorest communities face more layoffs than schools in wealthy areas. Black and brown children will suffer a worsening of their already unequal education. Teachers of all colors are going hungry to remind us how dangerous L.A. can be when its rulers are allowed to starve the young of equal education, and hope.

www.trinational-usa.org

Messages of support for the teachers can be sent to:
josexlara@yahoo.com

Read in Spanish

Dear Board Members Garcia, Flores-Aguilar, and Vladovic:

We write to you today to ask for your support. We have counted on it before and you have been there for us in the past. You have been there to push for A-G classes, small schools, decentralizing LAUSD, sending QEIA funds to schools with the greatest need. But now when the need is greatest, you have chosen not to fight for our children and instead you have given in to fear and hopelessness. continue...

Dear Friends,

A year has passed since I decided not to give my students the WASL here in Seattle. I was thrilled and heartened by the dialog which ensued and by the outpouring of strength and support I received through hundreds of emails and phone calls. Though my school district suspended me for two weeks without pay I feel the results were well worth the consequences.

Today we have a new SPI in Olympia, Randy Dorn, who unseated the WASL Queen, Terry Bergeson, in November. He ran on a "no confidence in the WASL" platform, but the jury is still out on whether anything significant will actually change.continue...

South Central Los Angeles - Over 60 teachers at Santee Education Complex conducted a one (1) hour strike during the first hour of school on Friday March 27th, 2009. Chants of "Not to my school, not to my students" and "When they say cut back, we say fight back" filled the air. The teachers of Santee were mad but more importantly, the teachers at Santee were organized.

Although faced with the possibility of losing their jobs, the teachers conquered their fears and went on strike to defend the education of their students and to defend their dignity as teachers who deserve to remain in the classroom.

Over 55 teachers, or almost one third, of the teachers at Santee have received termination letters. Teachers participated in the one hour strike to make two important statements. First, to highlight the disproportionate number of teachers that are being cut in inner-city schools like Santee when compared to schools in more affluent parts of Los Angeles. Only 7 teachers at Cleveland High (in the valley) and only 13 West Hollywood High teachers received termination letters. Although we do know that not a single teacher should be fired at those schools, we know that schools like Santee are getting hit much harder. continue...

Jinny Sims is the Director of the Professional and Social Justice Division of the British Columbia Teachers Federation. She was in Los Angeles for the annual conference of the Human Rights Committee of United Teachers of Los Angeles.

She agreed to talk with us about her work in Canada.

Q: What brings you to Los Angeles?

I'm here for the UTLA Human rights conference and to give a workshop on understanding the importance of the privatization agenda on the future of public education both in Canada and the U.S and other nations also.continue...

There have been demonstrations and community forums in a number of schools around LA about layoffs, the attacks on education and the economic crisis, during the last 2 weeks. continue...

Reporter Phyllis Fletcher from KUOW radio called this evening to let me know that her report on our brave Seattle teachers and parents who refused to use an inappropriate assessment for their students with severe disabilities will air Friday morning, sometime between 5:00 and 9:00. The story will play twice and then will be available on their website. continue...

FIFTY TEACHERS along with parent supporters disrupted a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board meeting March 10 and occupied the boardroom in an attempt to stop a vote on sending out "reduction in force" notices to almost 9,000 district employees.

Claiming a $718 million budget shortfall, the district is threatening to lay off teachers--both permanent and non-permanent--as well as counselors, administrators, custodial and support staff, and other district employees. continue...

February 18th was the anniversary of the historic stike of the FMPR(Federation of Puerto Rican Teachers). Rafael Feliciano, President of the FMPR sent us these commerorative videos

Conmemorando el 1er Aniversario de la Huelga Magisterial 2008 les dejo unos videos para recordar. Video de los maestros en pie de lucha!

Defendimos mejores condiciones de trabajo y educativas.continue...

This is document that describes the essense of the Aliance for Quality Education of the teachers of Morelos from Mexico.