California road trip shows widespread resistance organizing, continued
I took a break and came home while Rich and Bob went on up to Arcata [at the top of the state] and met with members of the Veterans for Peace, Humboldt Bay Chapter 56. They’ve published a wonderful brochure: Advice from Veterans on Military Service and Recruiting Practices: A Resource Guide for Young People Considering Enlistment. It’s online at www.vfp56.org.
Key comments from this meeting:
“Our job is to connect the big issues with the small. As long as this system continues, so will the wars.”
“We are trying to help people and communities keep their heads, without being overwhelmed, perhaps by anger.”
“This is always interpersonal, building trust.”
Rich, Bob, and I hooked up again in Visalia [mid-state, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada], where we met with the leaders of the Kings/Tulare UniServ (CA Teachers’ Association local). They have a 14-member NCLB Task Force that has been working since March 2006, has produced excellent informational flyers, and ran a huge (25,000) post card campaign. CTA initially indicated they would support the campaign, and its president, Barbara Kerr, signed on, then turned on the group and sought to sabotage the effort, so the group worked against CTA orders. They are very brave.
They took 15,000 cards addressed to Reg Weaver (NEA President) to the national Rep Assembly in July ’06. They said getting the signatures had been the easiest campaign they’d ever done. They tried to spread the post card campaign there, but NEA locked them out of the state caucuses. They got themselves on the agenda at #4 and the NEA leadership shoved them down to #44, by which time everyone had left. Leadership locked them out of the agenda again at the 2007 Assembly. They also pointed out that NEA has recently gone from the slogan “Fix and Fund” to “Erase, Rewrite, Reauthorize”. Or maybe that’s just CTA? They reminded us that the leadership of CTA and most of NEA has never ever taught under the restrictions of NCLB.
In January ’07 they started working with the Educator Roundtable (http: //www. educator round table. org/), and set up a website (www .eliminate NCLB.org). Along with EPATA in Fresno, they handed out literature at the National Association of School Boards meeting last spring in San Francisco.
They reminded us that we need to include classified staff in our organizing, since they are often a bridge between schools and communities, since they tend to be parents and grandparents of our students. They may also speak languages that teachers don’t.
They also reminded us of some history: Marc Tucker’s “Dear Hillary” letter back in 1992 which presaged much of NCLB. And that military recruiters must have access to personal information was also in Clinton’s Goals 2000.
Again, we talked about the fear in the workforce. Rich will work with Phil on outlining the stages of discipline in just-cause cases.
Phil noted the link-up among the economy, the war, immigration issues, and NCLB. “No tests, no wars, hell no we won’t go.”
They are sponsoring a talk by Susan Ohanian, in Visalia, February 28. We can organize something with that as our focus.
We also noted the upcoming spring Representative Assembly of CTA, and the summer ’08 national NEA-RA in DC.
Finally, they volunteered to host a meeting and pay for some of it. We’re proposing Veteran’s Day weekend, Nov. 10 and 11, for a leadership planning meeting.
Our last stop on this trip was Fresno [Central Valley, where all your veggies come from]. It’s a little hard to make a good list of districts by size, because some cities (e.g., Sacramento and San Jose) contain several districts, and some southern districts contain several cities. But as far as I can tell, Fresno is the 4th biggest district in CA (after LA, San Diego, and Long Beach); the Fresno Teachers Assoc has 4,500 members.
Fresno has had a very active CalCARE affiliate, called EPATA, for several years. It participates in the annual Cesar Chavez conference at Fresno State. It works closely with the local branch of Californians for Justice (CFJ), a youth organization. (CFJ also has branches in Long Beach, San Jose, and Oakland. Although it ran a strong campaign v. the CAHSEE, it is no longer working on testing issues. Nevertheless, we should try to work with them locally.) It has cultivated good relations with the local paper and radio stations. And (most impressive to me), some of its members are no longer teachers, but continue to be active.
In fact, about a quarter of the group had quit teaching in protest. If a quarter of the doctors were quitting in protest, it would be front page news.
It was here that a teacher said, “I feel like a guard in a concentration camp.”
Another said, “They tried to put me in a Reading First class and I said I would rather put pencils in my eyes.”
They reported that kids are acting out at younger ages, from the pressure of the tests. They said it was harder for kids to think and take responsibility for their actions. One of the attendees is a professor of biology at Fresno State. When I asked why he’d come, he said, “Eventually these kids get to college, and they’re a mess.” Someone else said that “NCLB isn’t about schooling; it’s about ruling.”
Other comments:
“We aren’t actually teaching anyone where I work.”
“My students in the university say ‘you are just making us miserable showing us how we could teach when we are not going to be allowed to do it,’ while others say,’ it is your job to show us how to teach to the tests.”
“Teachers should be able to speak out without fearing to lose their jobs or assignments, but the union does nothing to protect us so people just quit, often the best people.”
“My students are thinking less and less each year and they are also being emotionally held back, they are being infantilized. They resist thinking for themselves more than ever. They want me to think for them. The children have no chance to play cooperatively in kindergarten, all the blocks and constructive play is gone, so they act out on the playground, don’t know even how to play together.”
Elaine Garan shamelessly promoted her newest book, called Smart Answers to Tough Questions: What to Say When You’re Asked About Fluency, Phonics, Grammar, Vocabulary, SSR, Tests, Support for ELLs, and More. Debbie Manning, an ex-teacher, now owner of Petunia’s Books, said she follows customers out the door if they haven’t bought it. Everyone should buy it!
Although parents can’t be fired, in this farm town full of migrants, many are undocumented and justifiably afraid.
Organizing ideas: Write a booklet called “how to defend yourself on the job.”
Advertise opting out in bookstores, on the radio, take out an ad in the papers. Walk door to door to talk to parents. Text the kids.
We need money to wage this struggle (printing, travel). How to raise it? Tithes from everybody involved? Elaine is speaking at the Wisconsin State Reading Assoc, and said shed donate her honorarium. Perhaps others would.
Conclusions. Our strongest impression is that teachers are very upset by the changes in their classrooms, by the lack of autonomy, creativity, spontaneity, curiosity, and joy. And they are afraid of taking action. People cited a lack of plans and leadership for taking back our schools.
We agree that high schoolers are less frightened than teachers, and we will rely on them to take a big role.
We think an organized resistance can re-instill true hope in schools, and overcome the pervasive and debilitating fear. We need to help people make the connection between what goes on in schools (high-stakes exams, a regulated curriculum, and militarization) and what goes on in the society that creates the schools (war, rising inequality and segregation, hopelessness, apathy, etc.). We also need to help people realize that there is an Us and a Them, Poor and Rich, and that we face a battle. It will not always be easy to make that connection (although I recently brought it up at a Code Pink meeting, and everybody just nodded!).
Get-togethers: We project one in November to plan the year, and three in February, by region (North, South, and Central), to get more specific. The Big Push should come after Presidents Day, when people start to think about the tests.
We’d like to be a presence at next July’s NEA national convention. There are 12-14,000 delegates, and it would be a good place to organize.
Questions: When is the CTA representative meeting? Lets invite CFT reps to it.
Those of us in peace groups should raise the issue of how schools fit into the corporate plans, make the connection, and get them to support a boycott.
I’m attaching the flyers we’ve done since the trip: one for teachers, with the opt out law on the back; and one for parents, with the opt out forms on the back. The parent version is available in Spanish. Comments welcome!
