Seattle students against cuts

Dan Trocolli reports on a spirited demonstration against education cuts in Seattle.
December 16, 2011
socialistworker.org

CHANTING "WE'RE the future of our nation, no more cuts to education!" high school students from all over Seattle walked out of class December 14 to protest proposed cuts in education funding. Nearly 700 students converged on the University of Washington's Red Square for a rally that challenged state lawmakers' plans for more budget cuts.

Washington faces a $2 billion shortfall this year, and Gov. Christine Gregoire called a special session of the state legislature starting November 28 to balance the budget before the regular session starts in January. After nearly $10 billion in cuts over the last three year, Gregoire is proposing over $250 million more in reductions from K-12 education and another $160 million from higher education.
The student walkout was sparked after protests against the special session in the state capital of Olympia. Unions representing state and municipal employees mobilized rallies during the first week of the session. Teachers in the Social Equality Educators (SEE), a rank-and-file group of activist teachers from the Seattle area, helped lead attempts by union and community activists to Occupy the Capitol building and disrupt the legislature.

A judge has declared that Washington's legislature is out of compliance with the state constitution mandating education funding to be the state's "paramount duty." Therefore, SEE sent a team of teachers to Olympia to make a citizen's arrest of the legislature for breaking the law. As the House session began, SEE members unfurled a giant banner reading, "Citizen's Arrest: Lawbreakers need to fully fund education" from the balcony of the House chambers at the beginning of the session.

Back in Seattle, when students at Garfield High School learned that a teacher, Jesse Hagopian, was arrested for "mic-checking" the Senate Ways and Means committee, they moved into action. Students created a Facebook page titled "Free Mr. Hagopian." Within hours, they had hundreds of students following it. When Hagopian was released later that day, students changed the group's name to "Seattle Student Walkout for Education."

On December 7, over 500 Garfield students walked out of class and marched to City Hall. Students made flyers to hand out detailing the cuts and the impact on education. Once at City Hall, they organized a speakout using the people's mic, having filled up the front steps of the building. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn came out and praised students for their efforts.
Garfield senior and Black Student Union President Obadiah Terry remarked on the support for the walkout:

You can look around your class and see you've got 34 students in a 28-student room, or your teacher has to move around the school and share rooms, or your science teacher has to buy materials for hands-on labs. You can see it all around you, and when everyone realizes it at once, we all know we need to do something about it together.

10/29 Teach CHASE a Lesson!

*UPDATED*

"Teach CHASE a Lesson"Occupy Seattle day of action!



Saturday, October 29th
12 PM
Westlake Plaza (on 4th Ave. between Pine and Pike)

UPDATE: Facebook event now up: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=268835849822528

"There is a lot of money washing around the world, and obviously we are the beneficiary of that,"
CHASE CEO Jamie Dimon this April

CHASE Bank has profited through the recession that it had a big part in causing and was able to compensate Mr. Dimon, to the tune of $20.8 million dollars last year.

CHASE pays no state taxes on its in-state mortgage interest income. This loophole was created for Washington State based WAMU, but since the “housing bubble” lending binge that crashed our economy and bankrupted WAMU, it now benefits Chase and other banks. Their fair share would add nearly $100 million per year to our State’s sorely strapped budget.

CHASE acquired billions of dollars during the bailout at a near-zero % interest rate, money that they are now loaning back to the U.S. Treasury at a rate 12 times higher. They are taking more money from taxpayers, rather than investing to create jobs.

Teachers in Seattle are facing layoffs as the legislature struggles to cover its $5 billion + budget shortfall. In addition, Seattle teachers have seen their pay cut by 1.9%.

Cuts to bus routs, healthcare, homeless shelters, and other social services have made the lives of 99% of the population more difficult.

This is not a spending crisis. It’s a revenue crisis that is caused when entities like CHASE pay little to no taxes on their vast fortunes. The money to pay for social services is there. Teachers, other public employees, and the 99% are not the cause of the crisis, and should not pay for it!

Sponsored by Occupy Seattle, the Social Equality Educators (SEE) and the Seattle International Socialist Organization.

PTA needs to do their homework on Democracy, Go to an Occupation

Seattle Teachers at Occupy Seattle, Photo by Rachel Wilsey

Dan Trocolli
Seattle Teacher and member of Social Equality Educators and the Seattle International Socialist Organization

I started my Saturday morning going to the Washington State Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Legislative Assembly to assist parents in Parents Across America-Seattle, an activist group of parents, in opposing charter school legislation in Washington. It wasn’t easy waking up at 6am on a Saturday, but I knew it was important that people know the negative effect that charter schools can have on our public schools.

As a teacher, one would think that parents in the PTA, would be very interested in hearing from teachers about significant changes to Washington laws on delivering a public education to their children, particularly given the well known fact that teachers are underrepresented in PTA’s all over. Imagine my shock when approaching a group of parents in the hotel lobby with flyers only to have one woman tear the stack of flyers out of my hand in a completely hysterical rage as well as another teacher.

I wanted to let delegates in the PTA know how charters have a higher teacher turnover, unfairly exclude underperforming students and siphon money from other public schools. However, we were unable to continue handing out flyers and talking to parents about a teachers’ perspective on charter schools. The president, vice president and executive director of the state PTA all tried to assure us that they would consider approving the flyer for distribution. Never mind that the debate and vote was set to occur in mere minutes.

Turns out the vote to support legislation in Washington for the creation of charter schools passed by a mere 9 votes, despite the PTA’s own survey of members that found a majority opposed to bringing charters to Washington. In fact the influence of corporate, pro-charter forces, such as Stand with Children, at the top of the PTA have such a hold that the organization did not give delegates any information critical of charters at all.

The outcome was a difficult to face given the attacks on public education these days. However, my disappointment was short lived as I made my way to Occupy Seattle. There was an immediate contrast of the undemocratic repression I experienced at the PTA convention with the people’s democracy of the occupation’s rally and march.
The rally at Westlake Park, part of an international day of action in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, was already in the thousands when I got there. Teachers in the Social Equality Educators (SEE), a rank and file group of educators in Seattle, gathered in a contingent. We had a table with a sign-up for union members and labor supporters of the occupation. We displayed our banner, “Bail out Schools, Not the Banks!” and answered questions of protestors visiting our table.

There were people discussing all sorts of political questions all over the square, including, among other things, charter schools. Various groups had tables where they distributed all sorts of propaganda on issues like corporate greed, the war in Afghanistan and socialism. And individual protestors had many myriad homemade signs raising many social issues as well.
But this was just the beginning. On the march protestors stopped and occupied for some moments the Pike Place Market intersection. When an ambulance neared unable to get through, protestors needed no instructions and immediately parted to let them through chanting, “This is what Democracy looks like.”

When the march neared the plaza, SEE members organized an impromptu sit-in in front of the CHASE bank across the street. Thousands sat in the street, the sidewalks and the plaza listening as teachers and community members sounded off on corporate greed and what it will take to curtail it.

Later protestors re-occupied Westlake Park with over a hundred tents. The sense that it is possible to make the change we want to see in the world was palpable and that solidarity with one another is key in making that change happen. Most people coming to the occupations have a healthy rejection of free market, corporate driven solutions to public ills such as charter schools.
Like the Occupiers, most teachers recognize the undue influence of the uber-wealthy 1% on school reforms such as charter schools and merit pay. It’s these changing winds that might be frustrating the angry woman from the PTA.

The PTA should take a lesson and hold their Legislative Assembly down at Westlake Park. They may learn a thing or two from the other 99% about democracy and what’s needed to improve public education.

First published at Seattle Education