THE TEACHERS’ REVOLT AND THE FIGHT FOR SOCIAL EQUALITY
Like teachers across the US, educators in Detroit are angered over stagnant real income and the indifference of corporate-controlled politicians who will not provide adequate resources to address the needs of our students. Three years ago, Detroit teachers were the first to organize sickouts and protests that exposed the crisis of public education to a national and international audience. Since then, hundreds of thousands of educators, from West Virginia to Oregon and Los Angeles to Denver, have walked out of their classrooms to fight over the same issues.
This battle for our children is, in fact, an international one. Last month, 300,000 Polish teachers conducted a 17-day national strike. Over the last 16 months, educators launched strikes in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mexico, Argentina, France, the Netherlands and many other countries.
Despite the sugary pronouncements by school superintendent Nikolai Vitti, the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) remains chronically underfunded and understaffed three years after the district’s reorganization by an emergency manager.
- Teachers continue to be paid less than they were a decade ago.
- Hundreds of teaching positions remain unfilled and only 44 of 106 district schools are considered fully staffed, according to the district’s own figures.
- DPSCD needs at least $500 million to carry out critical building repairs, like fixing leaky roofs and heating and cooling systems, but state officials refuse to provide the money.
- The lead-in-the-water crisis has still not been solved.
- Teachers spend their own money on supplies and are not given the necessary resources and support to address chronic absenteeism, behavioral problems and other issues stemming from poverty and barely surviving neighborhoods.
- The district has adopted a new test-based curriculum that runs contrary to learning needs of students and will accelerate the push for merit pay and punitive “accountability” schemes.
- Privately run but publicly funded charter schools continue to rob resources and students from the public schools.
While the city’s schools are in dire straits, limitless resources have been handed to billionaires like Dan Gilbert and the llitch family for their sports stadiums, CONTINUE READING: The Teachers' Revolt And The Fight For Social Equality | PopularResistance.Org
