"The war to keep education public"

30,000 teachers in Los Angeles are trying to draw a line.

But here in the nation’s second-largest school district, where an incredible 98 percent of UTLA voting members voted to authorize a strike last August, the issues are not limited to wages and benefits, as they were in West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma. “I feel like this is part of the war to keep public education public,” said Mize, a UTLA chapter chair at the NOW Academy, which is built on the former site of the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.

Many of the striking teachers see the battle in Los Angeles as a front-line action to put an end to starvation of public school funding on one end, and corporate-fueled privatization on the other. And while that debate has been playing out in Los Angeles and across the country for years, union leaders and teachers believe this could be a last stand. “If this doesn’t work there may not be a union left,” said Mize.

In New Orleans, we've already lost this war. But Mitch Landrieu and Walter Isaacson can take all the victory laps around the country they want to. It's not going to slow the resistance steadily building among teachers, parents and community activists as the devastating effects of the mass privatization become more and more apparent.

Karen Marshall, the Executive Director with Rethink New Orleans, a group that organizes black youth, says, “I think there is an entire system of privatization to undercut specifically poor black youth in our communities. It’s the practice of giving public spaces to private organizations…it’s how you undercut the power in the community. It’s specific and it’s targeted.”

Belden “Noonie Man” Batiste, who recently ran for Congress under the banner of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Poor People’s” campaign was blunter. “There’s a money thing, and I want to say the prisoner pipeline because if they don’t educate our children, our children can go into the world, and nine out of ten go to prison.” Adding that by sending them to prison, it’s, “…inexpensive labor, and they’re sending them to jail. To me, the charter system and the jail work together…” He added, “If you listen, the children are crying out, the community’s crying out, telling these school board members what they want. The school board is elected by them…they’re not concerned with what the kids want. They’re concerned with the contracts.”

A representative of the local branch of the New Orleans Chapter of the NAACP stated, “We’re asking the present school board to feel the pulse of the people. Just feel the pulse to understand, we’re just not happy with them at all in terms of the charter schools…first we allowed you guys to take our schools during Katrina to help out for a minute and then afterward, this was a failed education system, so now…it’s just a money grab…this money grab has got to stop.” Later adding, “We’re asking that the state put a moratorium on charter schools.”

This week the League of Women Voters added their voice to these criticisms saying they will call on the State Legislature to reevaluate the proliferation of charters this year.  There is also talk about the best way to bring about change at the Orleans Parish School Board. The old "Erase the Board" refrain has been making the rounds more frequently. But I don't think there's a formal effort to recall members afoot at the moment. 

Meanwhile the board is set to name a new President... that is if they can ever stop trying to decide if some of them are more homophobic than others are racist. So stay tuned for that.