Public schools

New Massachusetts Law Paves Way For Police-Free Schools

February 17, 2021 Rachel M. Cohen, The Appeal. Create! Massachusetts, Police, Police in Schools, Public schools

In Massachusetts, those who want police out of public schools are one step closer to making it happen. Lawmakers recently struck down a requirement that all school districts in the state have at least one “school resource officer”—a moniker for school cops. Now just two states—Florida and Maryland—have laws requiring police in schools, and advocates are pushing them to follow suit. Massachusetts adopted the school police requirement in 2014 in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut where 26 people were killed at school, including 20 young children. Since then, the number of cops assigned to work in Massachusetts schools has steadily grown, as school shootings nationwide have continued.

California Must Lead The Way In Abolishing School And University Campus Police

February 2, 2021 Angela Davis, Melina Abdullah and Robin D. G. Kelley, Sacramento Bee. Resist! California, Campus Police, Police, Public schools

The first days of 2021 — which will surely be remembered for police officers in Washington, D.C. removing barricades in order for white supremacists to storm the United States Capitol, confederate flag in hand — ask us to continue learning from the unprecedented uprisings of 2020, in which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest anti-Black police violence. The 2020 uprisings articulated transformative visions of a world without anti-Black violence, a world without hyper-funded police forces and thus a world with deep community safety and care. In response to this sweeping vision, some of our employers within California’s public university systems have deemed calls for the removal of police from campuses a “non-starter.”

Defying CPS, Some Chicago Teachers Union Members Won’t Return To Schools

January 5, 2021 Diana Wallace and Morgan Greene, Chicago Tribune. Resist! Chicago, COVID-19, Public schools, School reopening

The Chicago Teachers Union says some of its members are choosing not to return to school buildings on Monday, in defiance of Chicago Public Schools’ reopening plans. The union said Sunday it is “rejecting CPS’ effort to force thousands more back into unsafe buildings beginning this Monday” and that teachers intend to continue providing their lessons remotely “until buildings are safe” for them and for students. Additionally, more than 30 aldermen signed on to a letter sent Sunday to Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, saying they were “deeply concerned” that the reopening plan does not meet the district’s equity objectives and fails to address some safety concerns.

Betsy DeVos’s ‘Voucherland’ Spells Disaster For Public Schools

November 17, 2020 Peter Greene, The Progressive. Educate! Education, Privatization, Public schools, Vouchers

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, sensing perhaps the need to reaffirm her stamp on education policy, recently gave a speech at an education roundtable at Hillsdale College, a private Christian college in Michigan. The Washington Post called her remarks an “anti-government polemic” that reasserted one of her long-held beliefs: that families, rather than the federal government, should be the “sovereign sphere” for deciding how to spend public money for education. DeVos also made a plug for her Education Freedom Scholarship Initiative, which would provide $5 billion in federal tax credits that states could use to create school voucher programs.

Voters Pass A Tax On The Rich To Pay Teachers More

November 9, 2020 Austin Walker, KVOA. Create! Public schools, Taxes, Teachers, Wealth Tax

Marana, AZ - Prop 208, Invest in Ed, passed. A 3.5 percent tax increase will be applied to any individual making more than $250,000 a year or if a household makes more than $500,000 a year. That money will go towards public education. Meagan Brown, a special education teacher at Twin Peaks School in Marana said this additional funding is needed for the state. "Long story short, I just don't want teachers leaving," Brown said. It takes a special person to be a teacher. Brown said she's been doing it for a while.

Baltimore Teachers Demand ‘Masks, Tests And Plexiglass!’

October 4, 2020 Struggle La Lucha. Resist! Baltimore, COVID-19, PPE, Public schools

On Sept. 30, the Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU) held a protest and die-in in front of the Baltimore City Public Schools headquarters in Baltimore City. Diana Desierto, BTU member and speech language pathologist, explained: “I am out here for the National Day of Resistance to make sure that our students, families and staff in Baltimore City are prepared and will be accommodated with all the things they need to return to school safely. “I’m here to support my students and their families. It’s been a struggle for them and for all of us. Of course we want to go back to school, we just want to go back safely.”

California Schools Launch Anti-Racism Plan

September 25, 2020 MacKenzie Maya, Portside. Create! California, Education, Public schools, Racism

Sacramento, CA - The California Department of Education announced new anti-racism lessons and teacher training for school districts on Monday, days after President Donald Trump decried the notion of teaching slavery as a founding tenet of the U.S. and called for a more “patriotic education." Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond pointed to the police killing of George Floyd in May, bullying of Asian American students amid the coronavirus and a spike in anti-immigrant rhetoric and antisemitism since the 2016 election as reasons for the project.

Staff Refuse To Enter Unsafe School Building

September 10, 2020 District 75 P352X Special Education Staff, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, New York City (NYC), PPE, Public schools

Bronx, NY - The special education staff of P352X, composed of five different sites (buildings), will be coordinating a refusal to enter unsafe buildings. We have not received inspection reports from the UFT or the DOE for all five sites. When staff arrived on the first day, the promised PPE was not available and due to no fault of our administration, we still did not have enough information to have a plan for the first day back. Guidances from the department of education change and are updated daily.

‘Broken Windows’ Approach To Teaching Is Breaking Our Schools

August 27, 2020 Victoria Theisen-Homer, Independent Media Institute. Educate! Education, Public schools, Teachers, White Supremacy

In the fight for racial justice, teachers have a heavy job, for schools are both microcosms of, and preparation for, society. Because teachers serve as significant adult figures in children’s lives, their interactions with students can shape students’ sense of self and the world around them, as well as their engagement in school, personal efficacy, and academic achievement. Complex and difficult racial dynamics impact these relationships, and as calls for justice grow, it’s time to recognize this. Systemic racism is sometimes blatant in our schools.

Setting America’s Schools Up To Fail

August 20, 2020 Belle Chesler, Tom Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Education, Public schools, School funding cuts

Seventeen years ago, against the advice of my parents, I decided to become a public school teacher. Once I did, both my mother and father, educators themselves, warned me that choosing to teach was to invite attacks from those who viewed the profession with derision and contempt. They advised me to stay strong and push through when budgets were cut, my intellect questioned, or my dedication to my students exploited. Nobody, however, warned me that someday I might have to defend myself against those who asked me to step back into my classroom and risk my own life, the lives of my students and their families, of my friends, my husband, and my child in the middle of a global pandemic.

The Struggle For No Police In Los Angeles Schools: Victory In Sight

July 12, 2020 Eric Mann, Counterpunch. Create! Los Angeles, Police, Public schools, Rebellion2020

On Tuesday, June 23, in Los Angeles, the decade’s long struggle for No Police in the Schools had a major breakthrough. Los Angeles School Board member Monica Garcia introduced the most structural and hopeful motion to make “defund the police” a reality. Her motion, expressing gratitude to the national Black uprising, called for cutting the $70 million budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department—with 350 armed officers—by 50% in 2021, 75% in 2022, and 90% in 2023—essentially phasing out the entire department. We think “50%, 75%, 90%” is a model for the “Defund the Police” movement nationally. Any movement that gets to 100% first wins. Her Civil Rights motion did not pass but neither did any of the toxic compromises.

Schools Are Feeding Millions Of Children

May 27, 2020 By Chuck Abbott, The Fern. Educate! Austerity, COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Public schools

Public schools served tens of millions of emergency meals in April to low-income children after coronavirus closures ended cafeteria service, said a survey released on Monday. But with roughly half of the 1,894 districts taking part in the School Nutrition Association survey reporting a drop-off of at least 50 percent in meals served, losses are expected to balloon this year. School food directors put the median loss at $200,000, meaning half of all schools will lose more money, and half less. Among large districts, the median loss could be $2.5 million. SNA president Gay Anderson said schools would be hobbled in feeding students in the new school year if they lose large amounts of money during this school year, which ends in a few weeks.

Number Of Homeless Students In The US Surges 15%, Now Topping 1.5 Million

March 8, 2020 the National Center for Homeless Education. Educate! Children, Homelessness, Public schools, Students

The number of homeless students enrolled in public school districts and reported by state educational agencies (SEAs) during school year (SY) 2017-18 was 1,508,265. This number does not reflect the totality of children and youth experiencing homelessness, as it only includes those students who are enrolled in public school districts or local educational agencies (LEAs.) It does not capture school-aged children and youth who experience homelessness during the summer only, those who dropped out of school, or young children who are not enrolled in preschool programs administered by LEAs. Key findings of this report include the following: • The number of identified, enrolled students reported as experiencing homelessness at some point during the last three school years increased 15 percent, from 1,307,656 students in SY 2015-16 to 1,508,265 students in SY 2017-18.

The Other Side Of School Safety

September 9, 2018 Rebecca Klein, HuffPost. Educate! health, Police abuse, Public schools, Violence

Jalijah Jones, then a freshman at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, remembers the punch of thousands of volts hitting his slight frame. At 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing 120 pounds, he was small for his age. He remembers four school security guards officers pushing him up against a hallway wall before a school police officer arrived and Tasered him. He remembers a feeling of intense cold as if his high school hallway had just turned into a walk-in freezer. He remembers falling to the ground, his muscles betraying his mind’s desire to stand.

Striking Teachers Beat Back Neoliberalism’s War On Public Schools

May 25, 2018 By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout.org Educate! Class Struggle, Education, Public schools, Strikes, Teachers

Thousands of teachers and students are walking out of schools, marching in the streets, and raising their hands and signs in protest against the war on education. Most recently, South Carolina has joined the wave of teachers' protests and strikes taking place across the nation. In the age of illiberal democracy and the growing fascism of the Trump administration, the unimaginable has once again become imaginable as teachers inspired and energized by a dynamic willingness to fight for their rights and the rights of their students are exercising bold expressions of political power.

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