Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield on Arkansas Decision to Crush Little Rock Teachers’ Union
Yesterday the Arkansas State Board of Education voted to return control of the Little Rock School District to the people of Little Rock. This followed massive demonstrations and demands by the citizenry. At the same meeting, the board voted unanimously to deny recognition to the Little Rock Educators Association, which represents 60% of the teachers in the district.
Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield, an activist in Grassroots Arkansas, was outraged by the latter decision. She is a podiatrist and an ordained minister. For her volunteer fight for public schools and democracy, she is one of the heroes in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH.
She wrote the following response to the board’s stripping of the teachers’ right to join as a union.
October 10, 2019 will be a day marked in Arkansas history as the enslavement of LRSD teachers and educators, a day when democracy and liberation was denied to them.
The Auditorium in the Arkansas Department of Education was overflowing with concerned community members from the LRSD. People who took leave from work to lend their voices for a people’s democracy to a nine member board appointed by a republic/empire run by billionaires and millionaires who maintain their wealth primarily from the economy of persons who earn the lowest compensation. With the help of Gov. Asa Hutchinson, the Walton Family Foundation, Stephen’s, Inc. and Walter Hussman have been siphoning money from the people in our state who are the most CONTINUE READING: Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield on Arkansas Decision to Crush Little Rock Teachers’ Union | Diane Ravitch's blog