SEIU 21LA in New Orleans Leading the Way
by Dana Bennis in Blog
A powerful new report out by the SEIU Local 21LA of New Orleans surveyed school service workers and students, revealing the poor conditions they face every day, and proposes valuable changes that would make schools better and more inspiring places both for learning and working.
The research and report itself is a model of democratic community-led change: led by SEIU Chief of Staff and IDEA Senior Fellow Jayeesha Dutta, a diverse group of students and service workers from age 9 to 74 were brought together to design and carry out this Participatory Action Research project. Showing the potential of schools and communities to act as researchers and organizers, the report, "State of the Schools," is a landmark both for how it was done and what it says.
Jayeesha Dutta provides important context in her introduction to the report:
Many of the array of changes happening in New Orleans schools are nationally known - however there is one issue that has attracted little notice: the impact of decentralization of the New Orleans schools on school service workers job security and standards of living, alongside the erosion in students sense of stability at their schools with a constant influx of new faces instead of trusted individuals they recognize who take care of them. Further, we all know what determines success in school is not limited to what happens in the classroom. Time and time again, studies have demonstrated an indelible connection between the achievement gap and poverty; yet there is pervasive and persistent downward pressure on the wages of working families.
The report shows that students believe the food they are being served is not of high quality, that they want more hot food, and