The story of a teachers’ victory in Oregon

First published at SocialistWorker.org

March 11, 2014

For the last several months, teachers across the country were focusing their attention on Portland, Ore., where members of the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) were preparing for what would have been the union’s first-ever strike in February. Less than 48 hours before their planned walkout set for February 20, the union reached a tentative agreement, winning many of their demands.

Meanwhile, in the city of Medford, Ore., 270 miles south of Portland on Interstate 5, teachers were traveling a nearly parallel course against a school district determined to bust their union and impose the corporate school deform agenda. Only in Medford, the district imposed its miserable contract offer–and a united teachers’ union went on strike in a struggle for a fair contract and education justice for their students.

Days after the PAT reached their tentative agreement, Sarah Levy and Grant Booth from the Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign visited Medford teachers on the picket line during what turned out to be the final day of their strike. In this special feature, Sarah Levy reports on what teachers in Medford were up against, how they organized a strike that won them a fair contract–and how they’ve been transformed by the struggle.

Medford teachers join with parents on the picket lines (Medford Education Association)

AFTER 16 days on strike, the Medford Education Association (MEA) reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract Medford School District 549C. On March 7, the nearly 600 members of the MEA ratified the contract by a wide margin–a welcome culmination of an almost year-long battle with school officials determined to make the teachers surrender.

The walkout was the first time in the MEA’s history. It began on February 6, following an overwhelming vote to strike on January 23 in response to the district unilaterally imposing its concessions-filled contract on teachers in late December.

While all the details of the contract aren’t yet available, the agreement includes wins for the union on many of the major issues for teachers. There are modest wage increases of 1.9 percent, 2.5 percent and 3 percent in the first, second and third years of the contract; protected preparation time for teachers, instead of of the district’s attempt to divide teachers’ prep time into small chunks; some caseload relief for secondary and special education teachers; and additional help for special education teachers in the form of two extra contract days to complete case management duties.

The MEA did make concessions on a few significant fronts. One notable take-back was the phasing out of early retirement benefits for teachers–something the PAT accepted in its new contract, too. Both districts would have actually saved money from this contract provision, but they forced the elimination of the program on unions anyway.

Other concessions accepted by Medford teachers include an increase in the percentage of health insurance premiums paid by for teachers, rising from 5 percent now to 10 percent in the final year of the contract, which will continue in the next contract–which the District intends to maintain as the status quo going into future contract negotiations–and a three-year agreement demanded by the district, instead of the two-year deal the union wanted.

Today, the teachers in Medford are glad to have returned to their students, and to have won a mostly favorable deal after years of takebacks by the district. But they overwhelmingly agree that their weeks on strike were priceless for the lessons they learned on the picket line. The teachers of Medford have been transformed–as individuals and as a union.

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Medford Schools as a Model in “Lean Education”

“The goal of lean education isn’t teaching or learning. It’s creating lean workplaces where teachers are stretched to their limits.”
— from “The Industrial Classroom” in Jacobin magazine’s book Class Action: An Activist Teacher’s Handbook

“They’ve been trying to balance their budgets on the people who do the work…But if you work a machine to death, and you don’t care for it, you don’t oil it, you don’t do the maintenance on it, all because you want to produce more, you push it and push it and push it, and the machine eventually breaks down…We’re the machine. We’re the ones who make this whole thing work. And when they keep stripping us of teachers, adding classes, not allowing prep time, stripping aids from classrooms, stripping other forms of support, then they’ve stripped the machine down to where it’s going to fall apart. The end result is that kids aren’t getting a quality education.”
— A Medford teacher on the picket line

In the past decade, Medford teachers have taken cuts in every contract. As a result, most teachers make less now than they did five years ago, while they also pay more for health insurance benefits, work longer hours and teach more students.

District-wide teacher positions have also been cut over the past decade, causing class sizes to increase in a state that already has the third largest in the nation. In Medford, typical classes–at both the primary and secondary level–have 35 to 40 students.

Throughout the recession years, when the district claimed it couldn’t afford to give its teachers cost-of-living increases and keep all the staff, teachers accepted pay freezes in order to avoid layoffs under a district-signed memorandum of understanding–which stated that once the district had the money, it would pay teachers appropriately.

As a result, many teachers felt betrayed when, despite an ample surplus in its financial reserves this year, on top of another $1.3 million it was handed by the state, the district still refused to follow through on its promise to fairly compensate teachers or put money toward improving classroom conditions, such as workload relief.

Teachers and community members were further angered when details emerged surrounding expenses the district was willing to pay–such as hiring Kelly Noor, a lawyer from the Salem law firm Garrett Hemann Robertson (GHR) to help the district in bargaining with the MEA. GHR has been known to use a similar union-busting playbook as the Hungerford Law Firm, which represented the district when Eagle Point teachers went on strike two years ago, and Reynolds School District shortly after.

Under Noor’s advice, the school district came to the negotiating table with an initial 118 take-backs, many of them concerning teachers’ working conditions. By way of comparison, the Portland School District “only” put forward 75 concessions in its initial offer.

Thus, even as the district and media tried to portray “greedy” teachers as only caring about salary and benefits, teachers made it clear throughout the entire contract campaign that, besides staving off further salary cuts, they believed it was necessary to strike to defend their working conditions–conditions they say directly affect their ability to teach their students.

Two of the major concessions demanded by the district that the union decided to push back against were teacher preparation time and total student workload. Whereas the previous contract included protected prep time that administrators couldn’t break up, this time, the district attempted to remove this protection, instead only guaranteeing teachers a lump sum of minutes for the week.

This would have allowed administrators to count even five minutes between classes toward the prep time total. So if a teacher had five minutes between classes, four times a day, five days a week, this would count as 100 minutes of “prep” time.

“And so the district is saying, ‘You’ve got 100 minutes of prep time!’ said David Brown, an English teacher at McLoughlin Middle School. “I just hope you don’t have to eat, or go to the bathroom, or greet your students at the door or anything like that, because that’s your prep time.”

Medford teachers say that in order to do everything that’s needed to do their job well, they already typically work 60 to 80 hours a week, with newer teachers typically working the most.

Many of those additional hours get packed into long late afternoon and evenings spent in the classroom, or late nights at home after their own children are in bed, or over the weekends. For most teachers, this “off-the-clock” time is necessary to meet their students’ needs–preparing lessons, grading papers, giving students individual feedback and providing additional assistance, and contacting parents.

With administrators constantly trying to get them to attend additional meetings during school hours, contract-protected prep time is a necessary way to ensure that teachers can actually do their work during the school day, while they’re on the clock.

Compounding the threat of the removal of protected prep was the district’s attempt to add more students to teachers’ total workload–something that would effectively force them to do more work, with less time to do it.

For example, one provision of the district’s contract offer tried to force secondary teachers to teach an additional “advisory” class. According to the district, this wouldn’t technically count as a class, and therefore school officials could refuse to acknowledge the additional load this would entail.

For teachers already working with 170 to 180 students and typical class sizes at 35 to 40, this would have put their total workload above 200. As it is, for many teachers it’s nearly impossible to get to know their students on a personal level or provide them with the emotional support and interaction that helps them succeed.

“We’re not just responsible for being educators, but for being mentors and counsellors and role models…you could probably make a huge list of all the things we have to be–sometimes all at once,” said Josiah Mankofsky, an English teacher at McLoughlin. “And so when the District tries to squeeze more out of us, [in the form of less prep time, or increased workloads] the less we are able to be there for each of our students.”

Besides secondary teachers, the issue of caseload equity is of critical importance to special education educators–who already have what union members call a “five-year lifespan” due to the rate of burnout that results from all the additional paperwork required of them. This has only gotten worse over the last decade, as more students have been forced onto a smaller number of teachers, and those who remain are left with even less “clock time” to do their job.

Against this backdrop, what the union achieved in the current contract should be seen as a significant achievement.

The union forced the district to maintain the contract language that protects teacher prep time–the district will only have the flexibility to adjust this during certain times of the year, such as student orientations or final exams.

The district also promised to provide additional support for teachers when class sizes exceed 35 at the elementary level or 40 at the secondary level.

The union knows that class sizes of 34 or 39 is unsatisfactory–in fact, the MEA is already gearing up for future initiatives at the state level for reductions in class size. But the fact that the union was able to prevent the district from forcing further rollbacks on teachers–and even begin to make up some of the lost ground after decades of cuts–should be seen as an important win.

On top of this, the contract’s modest raises for teachers–who should see a slight increase in income even after inflation is taken into account, after a decade of real wages declining–is a victory, coming off the district’s previous refusal to budget on either issue.

But the importance of the strike for Medford teachers goes beyond just throwing a wrench in the district’s drive to ram through the corporate reform agenda. As teachers continue to fight for the working and learning conditions that they and their students deserve, they will carry with them the experiences and lessons learned from their two weeks on the picket line. As they attempt to maintain the momentum from this contract campaign, they will move forward with new strength and as a union transformed.

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In It to Win It

“Be strong, and show that strength early on.”
— Cat Brasseur, communications chair on the MEA organizing team, in response to the question: “What advice would you offer other unions based on what you learned throughout the process of what you went through in Medford?”

In Portland, after months of pushing the union toward a strike, school officials hestitated to impose a contract on teachers, as they could have, by law, after declaring an impasse in negotiations. Instead, the district shifted its strategy toward drawing out the bargaining process as long as possible. The hope was that the teachers would lose their strong public support if they held a strike vote without having a contract imposed on them.

In Medford, on the other hand, the school district, under the guidance of Noor, kept up its strategy of trying to force a strike. It declared an impasse at the first possible opportunity, and as soon as the legally required 30-day cooling-off period was up, the district imposed its contract on Medford teachers.

MEA members were forced to either continue working under conditions they hadn’t agreed to, or go on strike. Teachers chose a strike–they voted authorization for a walkout by an overwhelming margin in late January.

Knowing that the success of a strike would pivot on not only on their own unity, but on building up support throughout a small city, the MEA set out to organize solidarity from the community. In the week before Christmas, the union held informational pickets and rallies, where they stood along busy streets and overpasses, holding signs, chanting, singing and dancing to raise awareness about their fight.

Once the strike was underway in early February, teachers continued to build community awareness with roving pickets–what some teachers referred to as “flash-mob cruises”–in which they painted their cars and then drove in caravans through the district, blasting music and generally taking their message to the streets.

The union also held community rallies leading up to and throughout the strike. Each one was larger than the one before. Strikers made sure that flyers and newsletters were translated into Spanish, so that Latino families, community members and seasonal workers could learn about the walkout and what they could do to help out. As one union organizer said, the more the MEA showed their respect for Latinos by putting out their message in both English and Spanish, the more quickly support grew.

At a February 19 “Stop Hiding and Get This Done” rally outside school district headquarters, a married couple, both leaders in Medford’s Latino community, spoke to the crowd. They took turns, alternating between Spanish and English.

After each phrase the husband spoke in Spanish, there would be an eruption from the several hundred seasonal workers and Latino community members waving their signs and chanting their support. Then as his spouse translated into English, a second wave of applause would erupt from hundreds of people who hadn’t understood the Spanish. All together, it was a bilingual rolling wave of cheers throughout the rally.

“A bilingual approach like that not only showed respect to Spanish speakers,” said Oregon Education Association Bruce Scherer, “but it made it so that teachers and the district could see and hear just how broad and strong MEA’s community support was.”

The teachers could also rely on solidarity from other unions in Medford–in response to the school district’s attempt to injure one union, the labor movement of the whole city responded as if it was also under attack.

Among the unions who turned out support at rallies and other events were the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers–both Local 659 in Medford, and Local 1245, whose members traveled north from Sacramento, Calif., to help out for a week–the Oregon Nurses Association, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, Service Employees International Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

When teachers were out on the picket line in the cold and the rain, firefighters brought propane heaters that they set up on the sidewalk. When the school board when into hiding, refusing to answer phone calls or set up appointments to meet with parents or members of the community, migrant workers with the Northwest Seasonal Workers Association stood outside and pounded on the windows and doors of the school district offices, chanting, “You will listen to us!”

Aside from the district’s avoidance strategy, another factor that angered parents and led some initially hostile to the strike to sympathize with teachers was how they and their children were treated in the district-sanctioned scab schools.

The district went all-out, opening up its pocketbook to fly in scabs from as far away as New York–paying them $340 a day, plus food, travel and lodging stipends, just to keep half the schools open during the strike. But school officials’ generosity didn’t trickle down to the students who actually showed up to class. Reports emerged of classes with 56 or more kids crammed into a single room–and scabs playing around on their phones as unmonitored students were free to leave as they pleased.

Unfortunately, however, negligence was only part of the problem. There were additional reports of scabs calling students by offensive racial slurs, as well as spanking students and shoving them around. Meanwhile, other parents were told by the district that they would not be allowed inside to check on their children, even in the case of special needs students.

“Parents and students were, by instinct, ready to support MEA,” said the OEA’s Bruce Scherer. “But as incidents like that accrued at such a high rate, the district itself became one of the best organizers against the district.”

Thus, as the strike went on, instead of parents turning against teachers as the district had intended, increasing numbers of parents and students were dropping by strike headquarters to ask what they could do to help out. Students at the two main high schools in the district walked out in support of their teachers on the last Thursday of the strike–the action was organized in large part by the varsity boys’ basketball team.

In addition to the display of local solidarity, teachers said the outpouring of support from around Oregon, as well as nationally and even internationally, was “overwhelming.” Messages of solidarity came in from as far away as China and Germany, along with statements from teachers and unions across the U.S. Plus, there were almost-daily messages of encouragement going back and forth between Portland and Medford, as teachers and their supporters in both cities compared notes of what they were facing, and shared advice and inspiration over Facebook.

Scherer said that all of these factors together–from the outpouring of support for teachers to the school district digging itself into a public relations hole–helped to strengthen the union and boost teachers’ confidence and morale, both on the picket line and at the bargaining table leading up to the settlement.

“The district’s strategy was built on MEA members having low morale,” he said. “But as the strike went on, the MEA got stronger and the district’s strategy of demoralization disintegrated.”

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A Union Transformed

“People understand now what unity means in a union. They get that it’s not a hidden agenda. We are the union.”
— South Medford High School teacher Jaci Bridge

On the last day of the strike, Jaci Bridge, an algebra teacher at South Medford High School with 13 years of experience teaching, summed up the importance of the preceding weeks. Even if she could rewind time, Bridge said, she “wouldn’t take back this whole process”–because of how it transformed individual teachers and the union as a whole.

Bridge said she witnessed some fellow teachers go from being skeptical of the union in the weeks leading up to the strike to having pride in the MEA and their part in it by the end of the strike. “People understand now what unity means in a union,” she said. “They get that it’s not a hidden agenda. We are the union. WE are the union.”

Cat Brasseur echoed this lesson, explaining what she and her colleagues came to understand through the course of the strike:

It’s our union. It’s not the organization “out there” that’s going to tell us what to do. We are the union. We are the strength, and together, we decide the change and the progress we want to create in our world. We all know now that we’re stronger together than we ever could have been individually. That’s what it’s done for me and for many of us. And that, I think, is the most valuable thing.

On the last day on the picket line, several teachers said the strike provided a “team-building experience” that they wouldn’t have gotten if the district hadn’t combined schools during the strike. This effectively gave teachers a chance to bond with entire staffs from other schools–not to mention teachers from their own buildings who they might not have known going into the walkout.

Stephen Hackett, a special education educator, said that as a school psychologist, he’s familiar with the concept that “when you go through crisis with somebody, it often forms bonds that can last a lifetime.” As he put it:

I consider this to be a crisis for most of us. You know, we’re putting our butts on the line and standing up for what we believe… When you’re standing outside with someone for seven to eight hours a day for two straight weeks in the rain, in the cold…Our comradery has never been higher. There’s no question we’ve formed tighter bonds because of it.

Many teachers said that the Medford School District’s blatant anti-union tactics–ranging from Superintendent Phil Long’s overt lies in the media to the district’s employment of a union-busting lawyer–opened their eyes to how their own struggle and the MEA fit into a larger picture. “Do I think there’s some sort of a conspiracy going on to break unions?” Bridge asked rhetorically. “I wouldn’t have thought so a month ago, but I really do now.”

For many teachers, the fact that Noor, the union-busting lawyer, was just hired in by the school district in Eugene paints an even more acute picture of the wave of anti-teacher attacks rolling across the state of Oregon. “This is a strategy that the Oregon School Boards Association has committed to in order to break their teachers unions–so that what is a meager 1.2 percent raise for us ends up being millions of dollars for them,” said Bridge.

It’s no wonder that many teachers in Medford are turning their attention to nearby Eugene as a likely next battleground in the struggle to defend public education and teachers’ unions. Plus, as they began to shift their energies post-strike, Medford teachers were also gearing up to oppose “right-to-work” legislation being proposed for the state.

But if the prospect of Eugene teachers entering the battle illustrated the magnitude of the anti-union attack, in Medford, this knowledge served to bolster teachers’ resolve. Even as the strike dragged on into a second week, members of the MEA understood that what happened in their city would have an effect beyond just their local union.

“We’re all very aware of how much what happens here will impact the rest of our state,” said Brasseur just hours before the settlement was reached. “For me, as well as for many other teachers, this has gone from being about me protecting my take-home pay to being about us [standing up for] something on the larger scale.”

After all, Medford teachers took strength from their colleagues in Portland who were getting ready for their own battle. Chris Geankoplis, a seventh grade middle school teacher at Hedrick Middle School, described the impact of the Portland teachers’ nearly unanimous vote to strike, which came the night before Medford teachers walked out.

“We knew then that we had to stay strong,” Geankoplis said. “Because if we folded, Portland would probably have to go on strike, and 48,000 kids there would have to go through what our kids had to go through.”

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Lessons for the Future?

“What I’ve learned is that when people gather together for a cause, nothing is impossible.”
— Cat Brasseur

As long as public education remains a still-to-be-tapped source of wealth in the eyes of corporations and neoliberal reformers, the attacks on public schools–and in particular teachers’ unions as their main bastion of defense–will continue nationwide.

But in Oregon, the ruling class determination to target teachers and their unions as the largest remaining sector of unionized workers couldn’t be clearer.

From Eagle Point, Reynolds, Gresham-Barlow and Parkrose two years ago; to Portland, Medford and now Eugene today; to Portland State University, where professors will be voting to strike in the coming week, it’s looking more and more like open season on public education in Oregon state.

In this context, the story of how the Medford teachers fought and won should be seen as a textbook example of the transformational power of the strike. Across the country, teachers and other working people can look to this city for inspiration about what’s possible: If we organize and struggle together, we can top the corporate education reformers’ ramped-up anti-union offensive–and emerge with our side standing stronger.

As Dan Bridge, a veteran IBEW member and active in support of the Medford teachers, said while the strike was underway:

Somebody wasn’t very smart. They started their pick-on-unions fight against teachers–of all people. The smartest of the group, and the most beloved in the community…This has only made the union stronger. Somebody picked a fight that they’re not going to win.

The experience in Medford should remind us all that going on strike isn’t just a good way to win your demands. It’s essential in strengthening and preparing workers, unions and even entire communities for the bigger struggles of the future.

Grant Booth contributed to this article.

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**WHAT YOU CAN DO**

Medford teachers could still use your help. State collective bargaining laws mandate a pay loss for each day on strike that translated into a 3 percent cut for the majority of Medford teachers who were out for the duration of the strike.

Donations would be greatly appreciated to help teachers who stood up for their future and that of their students. Click here to donate online or send checks and cards of support to: Southern Oregon UniServ Office, Attn: Medford Education Association, 2495 S. Pacific Hwy., Medford, OR 97501-8759.

For more information about the strike and ongoing struggles, go to Medford Education Association website.

 

Portland teachers prove the power of solidarity

First published at SocialistWorker.org

Sarah Levy reports on a tentative agreement for Portland teachers that wins on most of the union’s main demands–thanks to teachers’ thorough preparations for a strike.

February 25, 2014

Outside the theater where Portland teachers voted nearly unanimously to authorize a strike (Tzen Xing)

WITH LESS than 48 hours to go before what would have been the first strike in the history of the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), the union’s bargaining team reached a tentative agreement and suspended the walkout that was set to begin on February 20. The tentative agreement will now be put to a ratification vote by the rank and file.

The deal came after a marathon 23-hour-long bargaining session, but the critical factor in putting pressure on the school district–after 10 months of negotiations without much movement from school officials–was the union’s thorough preparation for a strike, which culminated in a near-unanimous vote on February 5 to authorize the walkout.

In a February 24 report about the agreement to the union’s contract organizing committee, PAT officials said that they had forced the school board to concede on a number of fronts, including probably the most prominent demand of all–hiring additional teachers to allow for a meaningful reduction in class sizes.

The district has promised to add a “minimum” of 150 teachers–a significant victory given the district’s prior refusal to even address the issue. Throughout bargaining, and until the last few days before the strike, officials had stuck with their offer of only 88 additional full-time employees (FTEs), claiming that the union’s demand of 175 was “unreasonable.”

Under the tentative deal, with the addition of 150 FTEs, the number of teachers in the district will grow by around 5 percent. Fifty FTEs will go to high schools, 70 to pre-K through 8th grade, and 30 to special education.

As a result, average class sizes will be reduced, giving students more attention from teachers, who, in turn, will see their workload reduced. The district was also forced to drop its demand to remove an overall cap on class sizes from the contract.

In another win for the union, elementary school teachers will see their planning time increase from 185 minutes to 260 minutes per week. The agreement also requires the school board, over the next two years, to re-establish student load levels back to where they stood in 2010-11, should the district choose to maintain the current class schedule. The district gets the option to add two school days, but must pay teachers at the per diem rate.

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SCHOOL OFFICIALS also agreed to pay raises of 2.3 percent in each of the next three years, retroactive to July 2013. This is a modest amount, but better than the pay freezes and pay cuts seen in many public-sector labor agreements. The proposed deal also mandates that the school district continue to pay 93 percent of health care costs.

The PAT also pushed back the district’s effort to delete contract language covering teacher evaluations and the use of student test scores in evaluations. The proposed contract contains language that bars “the use of student performance on standardized tests as a basis for involuntary transfers, layoffs, placement on the salary schedule, and/or disciplinary language,” union officials said.

In winning this provision, the PAT scored an advance on an issue where many local teachers unions have retreated. The union also withstood district attempts to restrict teachers’ right to file grievances over procedures.

The proposed contract also requires the district to consult with professional educators when selecting district-wide textbooks, and adds new academic freedom language allowing professional educators to determine “the support materials and methods used for day-to-day instruction, including differentiating instruction based on student needs.”

The union won a contract language preamble that acknowledges teachers’ role as advocates for children and public education. It reads, in part:

The parties believe that a well-rounded public education should prepare every student for college, career and full participation as an active and informed community member, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or zip code. The parties also recognize that a well-rounded public education includes, but is not limited to, giving students a strong start, and providing students with an enriched, diverse and comprehensive whole-child curriculum.

The PAT did, however, make a concession on two fronts.

The union allowed the district to phase out incentives for a popular early retirement program. Under the proposed contract, teachers must have 15 years of service by June 30, 2016, to be eligible for the current retiree insurance benefits and stipend. After that date, according to PAT negotiators, “any qualifying retiree below the age of 60 no longer has the option of paying the first years of insurance premiums and having the district pay the final five years up to age 65.”

The union also agreed to limit the internal transfer process to one round of internal hiring, compared with two rounds of internal hiring in the past. This means that teachers with less experience can potentially bypass teachers with more experience, and probationary teachers could potentially bypass non-probationary teachers for jobs. But external applicants still cannot jump over teachers currently working in Portland Public Schools (PPS).

These are setbacks, but they are relatively minor compared to other teachers contracts negotiated recently, where unions have abandoned long-held opposition to merit pay and attacks on tenure. By preparing to strike, the PAT won a contract that holds the line on the issues teachers say they care most about.

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BUT EVEN with teachers relieved by the prospect of avoiding a walkout, many see this contract as only a first step in a much longer fight for the schools Portland students deserve.

As Lincoln High School teacher and PAT bargaining team member Steve Lancaster wrote in a message to teachers after signing the TA:

I believe we have achieved a contract that will improve teaching and learning conditions and moves closer to treating teachers as professional educators…

[But] we must consider the hard-won victory of this contract as a single battle in a larger war to restore our classrooms to conditions that make it possible for teachers to do their jobs…Enjoy this moment but remember that the fight is NOT over; there remains so much left to do to achieve the schools that we can truly say provide a world-class teaching and learning experience.

The gains made in this contract must be seen in the context of the last two decades, during which Portland teachers have made a series of concessions, supposedly to stave off even worse measures, like the firing of teachers.

Since 2003, when teachers worked for 10 days without pay in order provide students with a full school year and avoid a strike, they continued to give up cost-of-living increases and delayed paid step increases. They endured cuts to their pensions and increases in the amount they contribute to health insurance.

Over time, PAT members went from being some of the highest-paid teachers in the metropolitan area to some of the lowest–all while suffering an increase in workload.

To top it off, when the current round of bargaining began last April, teachers had just agreed to delay their step increases by six months to save $2.5 million. This, along with the district putting in an additional $2.5 million into the budget and the city’s injection of $5 million, covered a $10 million shortfall.

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GOING INTO contract negotiations, teachers framed their demands around the idea that teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. The PAT’s initial contract proposal at the start of negotiations began with a preamble titled “The Schools Portland Students Deserve”–modeled on a similar document put out by the Chicago Teachers Union in the run-up to its September 2012 showdown with the city.

The union used this framework to show how what they were demanding in their union contract–such as class size and workload (the total number of students one teacher sees) relief; wraparound services like counseling and other professional student support; and full funding for programs such as art, music and physical education–wasn’t just for the good of teachers, but for students and the community as a whole.

The union has also argued that smaller class sizes would disproportionately benefit low-income, minority and other students who are the most in need–contrary to the line of the Oregonian newspaper that greedy teachers would only hurt the neediest students with their contract demands.

Teachers also drew attention to the district’s skewed spending priorities, making it clear that the problem was not a lack of funds. One stark example: PPS’s decision to pay union-busting consultant Yvonne Deckard some $15,000 per month–a total cost of $360,000 in taxpayer dollars over two years if she completes her no-bid contract, which runs through June. At the same time, the school district claimed it couldn’t find the money to maintain teachers or programs in art or physical education, or even libraries in many schools.

Teachers also pointed out the refusal of the district, which recently announced an unexpected $29.9 million in revenue, to put any of this money into the classroom Instead, school officials funneled the majority into a $34 million district reserve fund. (As an additional blow, much of the unexpected revenue came from recent cuts to the statewide Public Employee Retirement System, meaning teachers were already suffering reductions in benefits they were previously guaranteed.)

The district’s money hoarding even motivated a number of Oregon state representatives to send a letter to the school board, using remarkably similar language to “The Schools Portland Students Deserve”:

We are heartened by the [additional revenue forecast]…for PPS next school year, thus providing even more resources to reduce class sizes. Our expectation for our reinvestment budget was to make sure school districts had the resources to hire additional teachers and other educational professionals in order to decrease class sizes and improve the learning environment for all students.

The legislators’ letter concluded with a call for the “Portland Public Schools our children deserve.”

Another influential statement came from Rev. Chuck Curry , who wrote an “Open Letter from Portland Religious Leaders Concerning the Possibility of a Portland Teacher Strike” that was co-signed by 20 religious leaders of different faiths across the city.

“We stand in support of the PAT,” the letter begins, offering backing for the teachers’ demand for a “fair and balanced contract that both lowers class sizes and lifts up underpaid professional teachers.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

BUT MOST impressive in the teachers’ strike preparations was the outpouring of grassroots and neighborhood-based support from parents and community members who, inspired by the teachers, were determined to put all the pieces together in order to insure the success of a strike.

In the weeks following the February 5 strike vote, hundreds of community members were recruited from among thousands of signers of petitions circulated by the Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign (PTSC) and among Jobs with Justice activists. They were put to work spreading the word about options for parents in case of a strike and pooling local resources for child care and food distribution in every cluster.

PAT supporters could be seen outside nearly all of the district’s 80 schools, handing out thousands of leaflets, window signs and buttons. “Support Teachers” lawn signs were strategically targeted to surround school board members’ homes, and to line major streets. In the last few weeks, churches, unions and community centers began to offer strike-day child care.

As Jamie Partridge, an organizer with the PTSC and a retired letter carrier, said:

I was amazed at the outpouring of support for teachers, despite the constant drumbeat of anti-union propaganda from the district and local corporate media. Long-time and first-time activists understood the importance of this fight and jumped into organizing their schools and neighborhoods…I think it was when we actually put together the strike plan that we got the district to move.”

Meanwhile, the Portland Student Union (PdxSU) continued to plan and mobilize student support for teachers, spreading the message loud and clear that if “They strike, we strike, too!” Students had planned a march for the first day of the strike and were helping to coordinate baby-sitting and other strike resources where needed.

Cleveland High School senior Ian Jackson said that even if the settlement proves to be a win for the teachers, “There’s still a lot of work to do. The PdxSU stands by the statement that there can be no compromise when it comes to our education. Even if we win this, there’s still going to be standardized test-driven curriculum, there’s still going to be racism and inequity in our schools. The contract campaign was just a beginning.”

Together, the community organizing and students’ support for their teachers helped to counter the district’s attempts to weaken the union, especially in the last few weeks. When the district tried to say that a strike would only hurt the students, students walked out for their teachers, and churches pledged to provide child care.

When the district and mainstream media began claiming that a strike would hurt minorities and low-income families the most, these communities came together to coordinate child care in their neighborhoods and mobilize for district-sponsored English Language Learner parent forums to help spread the truth in multiple languages.

Further countering the district’s attempt to divide the community, the local chapter of the NAACP, the N/NE Coalition of Neighbors and the Black-led Portland Parent Union all came out with statements of support for the PAT.

Now, rather than winding down their organizing, teachers, parents and community activists are eager to maintain the current momentum and newfound community engagement. Discussions are on about possible next steps in a larger struggle to reclaim public education.

As Steve Lancaster, the PAT bargaining team member, wrote in his message to fellow teachers:

As we return to “regular life” and find ourselves buried in work, please keep the fire of activism burning. Remember how much further we still have to go to reach our ultimate goals. Achieving a school environment that is just survivable is not nearly enough. So recharge while we regroup, and prepare yourself for the next battle to win back our schools!

Eff the O

The Oregonian hit a new low today, packing all its big punches into their Sunday edition.

The latest version of their PPS-entangled strategy (PPS has made sure to send out the most anti-union propaganda pieces to both teachers and parents as soon as they hit the press)-

First it was the teachers fault for being greedy! (The selfish union is only thinking of themselves. What about the poor children??)

… Then the new line became, Actually… it’s the students’ fault (!) for missing school, and displaying “chronic absenteeism” even as early as first grade! The stupid kids just don’t show up, that’s the problem! If they would just go to school, then everything would be fixed! Maybe then, everyone would realize there isn’t actually a problem!

…and you know, who’s fault it is, (besides the kids themselves, of course) if students aren’t showing up!

The parents! And those gosh-darn families! And you know the ones who are the worst?? Just what “culture” it is that’s so “not caring?” Yeah… I’ll let you just guess…
Cause if those silly families who just may or may not be low-income, immigrant, or minority would just smart-up and take their kids to school, they would see that in reality our schools are actually just fine! They should be greatful they’re not in Gresham-Barlow!

…
But wait, maybe Betsy Hammond and all the other anti-union editorial staff just didn’t read far enough in their own paper to begin to get a sense of the bigger picture. Because all I had to do was turn the page, and I saw this! (I understand, turning pages can be difficult. Plus, maybe they just saw Obama’s face and decided to steer clear…)
But you just said that our schools aren’t that bad! Someone as the O must have made a mistake including this, especially when it’s on the page right after they told off students in possibly the most condescending headline in history…

…except for this one:

As a final hurrah, in case anyone was not quite clear on whether the O! is pro- or anti-union, they give you this:
the ILWU isn’t the only one…

“‘Biggest Loser’ winner criticized for losing too much weight”

“‘Biggest Loser’ winner criticized for losing too much weight”

…

–> ‘Biggest Loser’ TV show criticized for making an entire generation of young girls, women, (and others) obsessed with their physical appearances and thus fostering incredibly harmful relationships with food, only at risk to their own health (and valuation of self-worth)…:

…

I would like to take a moment to say something about how much this headline “‘Biggest Loser’ winner criticized for losing too much weight” makes me want to simultaneously scream and cry and jump up and down and shake the sexist, capitalist mainstream media violently back and forth until it explodes.

The only thing that’s sadder than a show who’s sole goal for contestants is already to lose weight– as much weight as possible, to be the Biggest Loser– is when the supposed winner of that show, who won the most weight the fastest, is then criticized for being unhealthy.

YES–the whole premise of losing weight as fast as possible in a competitive atmosphere is unhealthy.

But it’s not the show that is being called out; it’s the lone woman who simply carried the competition to its logical conclusion.

I don’t want to go into whether the winner of the latest season– Rachel Frederickson, who lost nearly 60% of her body weight (and now weighs 105 lbs down from 260) in order to gain $250,000– is actually “unhealthily skinny” or might be anorexic. I just want to emphasize how she is the one being pointed to as the problem, not the show itself. 

People should be outraged that a mainstream television show (one you don’t even have to watch to know that it’s message to society is “if you’re not losing, you’re a loser”) is even allowed to exist, now that it’s visual message to young girls and women (and all people) is “WINNERS DON’T EAT.”

This makes me so angry I could cry. Maybe I’ll write something when I’m not just busy screaming.
For now here are these statistics from the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders

-47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.
• 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape.
• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (Collins, 1991).
• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).

-Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.3
• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.”5
• 86% report onset of eating disorder by age 20; 43% report onset between ages of 16 and 20.6
• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents.7
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.8
• 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a weight-management technique.3
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.4
• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.17
• In a survey of 185 female students on a college campus, 58% felt pressure to be a certain weight, and of the 83% that dieted for weight loss, 44% were of normal weight.16

On the anniversary of Howard Zinn’s death, what I would tell the school board:

We all know that the board has the money to fund smaller class sizes, but that they’re simply choosing not to do so

1–They say they need more for their “rainy day” fund, for uncertain economic times ahead

But I ask—isn’t the best way to prepare for an uncertain future to invest in the lives of the future TODAY, to make sure that all students TODAY have a solid education under their belt—so they are prepared to cope with WHATEVER lies ahead??

2—I also want to say, that I think that even if the extra money hadn’t turned up,

as school board members isn’t it their job to work to make pub ed as good as it can be?

This should mean not only putting money where they see fit, but also standing up when THEY see funds being poorly prioritized in our state and in the nation.

The pentagon’s budget is over $600 billion per year. That includes over $3 bil to fund an illegal occupation in Israel, $1.3 billion to tear gas and shoot “rubber” bullets at democratic protesters in Tahrir square, and millions more to drone innocent civilianss—many of which are children– in Pakistan and Yemen.

That means that Oregon tax payer money is going abroad to kill and ruin the lives of children in the middle east, at the same time as 1^st grade children learning to read here in Portland are crammed into rooms of over 40 kids, because the state, and consequently the board, claims there “is no money.”

Carole Smith, if you want to be truly “courageous” I challenge you to stand up to state legislators when education is being underfunded at the expense of war and occupation.

And Carole,

If you don’t think you have quite that much courage, a smaller, but just as needed courageous conversation you could have, would be to stand up to federal pressure that is trying to tie state education funding to the implementation of Common Core and to our teachers are being evaluated based on test scores.

STAND UP to the idea that education should be a COMPETITION, not a RIGHT for EVERY child in this country, regardless of their race or their zip code.

—

FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY Howard Zinn, the beloved teacher and historian, and someone who inspired so many of us as learners, educators, and as citizens, passed away.

It was Howard Zinn who said:

“Historically, the most terrible things – war, genocide, and slavery –(I’ll add the implementation of standardized and corporatized education)– have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”

Zinn also said,

“What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but “ho is sitting in– in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories — and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.”

WE’RE ALL HERE TODAY because we know that what matters IS NOT who’s sitting in the front of that school board meeting—but who’s crammed inside and outside of it, DEMANDING the schools that Portland students deserve, and DEMANDING THAT the school board settle a fair contract with the PAT.

We will not be silent, and we will keep fighting until the teachers get what they deserve, because we know that’s the only way the STUDENTS of today, and of the FUTURE will get what they deserve, and what the world needs to see.

PPS– You say you care about equity? Fund smaller class sizes

Published here at the Portland Tribune (with below slightly expanded)

I want to thank the Tribune for covering Courageous Conversations, and particularly parents’ concerns about the program.

While it’s great that the district is prioritizing equity and putting so much into a program that claims to serve as a “strategy for school systems and other educational organizations to address racial disparities,” when we’re talking about over $2.4 million that the district has already given to the Pacific Educational Group to train staff in these conversations (not to mention additional travel costs), one must ask, are Courageous Conversations themselves enough to actually address the issue of equity in education? Or is the district just spending money talking about it?

If the goal of the program is to “rais[e] achievement for all kids,” as district spokeswoman Erin Barnett is quoted as saying, it’s worth looking at what other possible measures have been proven to do this.

For example, numerous studies (see here, here, here, and here, just for a few) have shown that reducing class size results in improved student performance in every way that can be measured, including higher test scores, better grades, and improved attendance. Additionally a recent re-evaluation of the STAR experiment in Tennessee “revealed that students who were in smaller classes in Kindergarten had higher earnings in adulthood, as well as a greater likelihood of attending college and having a 410K retirement plan. In fact, according to this study, the only two ‘observable’ classroom factors that led to better outcomes were being placed in a small class and having an experienced teacher.” 

(Even besides on students’ future earnings, smaller class sizes have shown to affect students health and rates of teen pregnancy.)

But while reducing class size has a positive effect on all students, it has shown to have a disproportionately positive affect on students of color (See here and here). This implies that reducing class size is a concrete way to narrow the racial achievement gap among students. This must be looked at in conjunction with studies that show that overwhelmingly today “schools [with] high numbers of minority students are more likely to feature large classes of 25 students or more.”

If this is the case, why isn’t the district doing all it can to decrease class size, particularly where it would affect minority students?

The Portland Association of Teachers’ latest contract proposal lays out how reducing class size by adding more teachers is something the district can afford, leaving one to wonder, why aren’t they doing so?

Racism, and racial disparity does not just come from a few people with bad ideas—it is institutional. This means that addressing the issue must get at the root, or the material source of the problem which has led to the disparity.

When schools in the Jefferson cluster–Jefferson being the only majority black high school in all of Oregon— have been continually underfunded, closed down, and “reconstituted,”

leaving students in classes of over 40 students, or simply unable to get into the classes they need to graduate, it seems like a clear first step to addressing the effects of systemic racism in our schools would be

to stop attacking the schools in communities where students need the most help, and where families are the least able to compensate for what is lacking from their education.

This has to start by keeping the schools in these communities open.

But we can’t just end there, and sit by as ceilings crumble and students go off to attend other schools. Let’s give schools like Jefferson– and all schools– the resources they need to succeed. Give shools more teachers and counselors. Fully fund programs like the arts, music, theater, and P.E. Fund advanced courses so that students are challenged, and prepared for the world outside the classroom once they leave.

If PPS truly cares about the issue of equity, reducing the racial achievement gap, and raising the achievement of all students, they should prioritize putting money into resources that directly impact to the students of color and in need, not simply into programs that allow the adults to talk about how the disparity–that they have the power to address and turn around– affects them.

Since reducing class size is the easiest, most effective way to raise achievement of all students and diminish the racial achievement gap, the clearest first step that the district should take if it wants to be truly “courageous” is to give the Portland Association of Teachers the contract they have proposed that puts smaller class sizes at its center.

Because teachers’ working conditions are students learning conditions, supporting students—and especially students of color—has to begin by supporting their teachers.

PPS, settle the contract.

Give Portland students the schools they deserve.

The schools that Portland students demand

First published at SocialistWorker.org

Sarah Levy reports from Portland on a demonstration of hundreds of students, parents and community members who want to send the school district a message.

January 21, 2014

Portland students send a loud-and-clear message in support of teachers (Bette Lee)

THE PORTLAND School Board walked out of its own session early on January 13 when students mic-checked the meeting out of frustration that the district has not listened to nor prioritized their concerns of students as they negotiate with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) in what has become an increasingly heated contract battle.

“Stay at the table! Don’t impose! If you do, we’ll strike too!” shouted the students, as all the board members except Steve Buel got up out from their seats and exited from a door at the front of the room–as documented in an incredible video by Peter Parks.

Backed by a standing-room-only crowd of around 500 parents, teachers, unionists and community members dressed in blue–the official color of PAT–the students read off a list of 10 demands they had compiled into a document titled “The Schools Portland Students Demand”–in reference to the PAT’s preface to its contract proposal titled “The Schools Portland Students Deserve.”

Students say they are frustrated that the district hasn’t listened to their concerns, even while they claim to be acting in students’ best interests as they take a hard line negotiations with the teachers.

When students weren’t given any of the public speaker slots allocated by the board for the Monday night meeting, the Portland Student Union (PdxSU) decided to mic-check the meeting–a tactic revived from the Occupy movement for activists to insure that their voices are heard in decisions that will critically affect them. As Jefferson High School sophomore Sekai Edwards said via mic-check after the district walked out:

[Superintendent] Carole and the school board cannot make decisions for my education. They are not in the schools every day. They do not have my experiences, and they do not know what I need. If they expect me to respect them, they need to respect me. They need to listen to what I need and what I demand!

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THE JANUARY 13 protest at Portland Public Schools (PPS) headquarters came after a week of student actions to build support for teachers, whose contract campaign has taken up issues of education justice, challenging swollen class sizes, inadequate health care and the standardized testing mania.

Walkouts were held at Jefferson High School and Wilson High School, while members of the Cleveland Student Union held speak-outs and went around their school during lunch period to talk to fellow students about what they would like to see inside their classrooms and other questions.

Also on January 13, supporters outside of Portland participated in a “Wear Blue in Support of PAT” day of action that led to a stream of photos of teachers and supporters wearing blue, all the way from Vietnam and China, to Peru and Chile, as well as from across the U.S.

The various demonstrations on January 13 and in the week leading up to it were organized by the Portland Student Union and Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign, and brought out support from the Oregon AFL-CIO, Portland Jobs with Justice, Oregon FNHP, Teamsters Local 206, Laborers’ Local 483, PFSP, SEIU Local 49, SEIU Local 503, IBEW, Oregon Education Association, ATU Local 757, Oregon Nurses Association, Washington State Nurses Association, AFSCME, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 8, Portland IWW, National Association of Letter Carriers, teachers from Hillsboro and Beaverton, and single-payer health care activists from Healthcare for All Oregon.

Demonstrators approaching the district office were greeted by a Teamsters Local 206 truck blasting union tunes and providing a festive atmosphere in the lead-up to a rally that took place before the crowd marched into the board meeting.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THIS STRONG display of union solidarity is even more significant in the local context of increasingly bitter attacks on unions, and on Oregon teachers in particular.

Portland educators are not the only ones in the midst of heated contract negotiations in this state. Just in the last week, teachers in Medford have had a contract imposed on them, while teachers in Central District 13J, which covers Independence and Monmouth, have now been working without a contract for over 200 days. On January 13, school board meetings for Medford and Central District J13 were also packed with supporters of teachers.

The simultaneous attack in Oregon is no coincidence. As the largest sector of unionized workers in the U.S., teachers are being singled out as part of the larger assault on the working class as a whole. This is compounded by the wider drive to privatize public services, including education, plus the push by business interests to transform Oregon into a “right to work” state, as happened in Michigan.

In Portland, PPS has used increasingly aggressive tactics in negotiations with the teachers, canceling meetings and using the media to spread confusing information about concessions they’ve supposedly made–these have actually come in the form of non-binding “supposals,” meaning they aren’t set in stone. As Alexia Garcia wrote for Labor Notes:

PPS is not bargaining in good faith; it has refused to talk about issues that are important to teachers, to the point that PAT has filed an unfair labor practice…The district has the Portland Business Alliance on its side, and therefore access to media, which has been incredibly biased. And PPS has all parent e-mail addresses, which it uses to send out information that excludes the teachers’ side.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THIS IS the context in which Portland students decided to take matters into their own hands by creating a list of things they think should be in a teachers’ contract–issues the students see as not only affecting their classrooms, but their futures.

The PdxSU’s “The Schools Portland Students Demand” offers a counter to the increasingly common line in the mainstream media that students are being used as pawns by their teachers in contract negotiations. The statement offers students a way to confront a board they see as claiming to act in their interests, while failing to address the issues that matter to them.

The list of demands includes:

1. Class sizes less than 20
2. Proper funding of the arts
3. More time with guidance counselors
4. Student-teacher collaboration in building curriculum
5. Rich, relevant curriculum–not Common Core
6. Democratic process in the allocation of funds
7. Restorative justice–not suspensions and expulsions
8. Funding for wrap-around programs
9. Support for all teachers
10. No school closures

The students’ document ends by stating that PPS’s first step toward meeting these demands must be an agreement with the PAT’s contract proposal for “The Schools Portland Students Deserve.”

“We wrote ‘The Schools Portland Students Demand’ because, oddly, we tend to be forgotten when it comes to our own education,” said Cleveland High School senior and PdxSU member Emma Christ.

Marley Schlichting, a Cleveland sophomore, said she hopes the “Demands” can be used to strengthen the voice of students: “I believe that within all of this bargaining, there are–or at least there should be–three groups [at the table]: the school board, the teachers and the students. The school board has communicated what they believe, the teachers have voiced what they think is best, and now we, the students, have done so as well.”

Elijah Cetas, a Cleveland senior and member of the PdxSU, likewise explained that he thought the list of demands:

puts into perspective what the PAT is asking for, and how it’s not really that radical. The kinds of things listed on “The Schools Portland Students Deserve” should just be normal. But they are being painted as radical. We wanted to show people that we are our own group. And these are our goals. The PAT represents student interest, and we support them for that, but ultimately, we are autonomous and fighting for students.”

Ian Jackson, another Cleveland senior and student activist, said he hopes “The Schools Portland Students Demand” document can also be used as a tool for moving forward beyond the teacher contract solidarity campaign. “Students know that the contract isn’t enough,” Jackson explained. “We have to win [the contract], but we also have to organize past that…We have to be talking about what it’s going to actually take to get all these things.”

At the January 13 rally, Jefferson student Sekai Edwards talked about what’s at stake for students, and explained how the attack on public education goes beyond schools.

“I have sat in classrooms and learned that inequality is a thing of the past, but been a victim to it in these same classrooms,” said Edwards, who goes to the only majority Black high school in the entire state of Oregon, one where three-quarters of students are on free or reduced lunch. Edwards noted that it’s no coincidence the Jefferson cluster of elementary schools that feed into the high school has seen more school closures and reconstitutions than all other clusters in PPS combined.

“In the face of district proposals to destroy the already crumbling education system, we are here to say: No!” Edwards continued. “The district cannot take away my education. I support my teachers. We support our teachers. Carole and the school board, stop claiming you speak on my behalf. You are not a student, and you are not dependent on this educational system. But we are.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THE GREAT turnout at the January 13 demonstration shows how Portland students, the labor movement and the community are well aware of how the PAT’s contract struggle is about much more than the workers represented by it.

As students raise their voices, organize walkouts across the district, assert their own demands and show solidarity with their teachers by occupying school board meetings, it will become more and more difficult for the district to claim it speaks and acts on behalf of students–when, in reality, it is trying to push through its own union-busting agenda.

If Portland teachers win this showdown with the district, it will be a victory not just for the PAT, but for teachers across the country. After the heroic strike of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2012, the victorious MAP test boycott in Seattle last year and the spreading movement of parents who are refusing to let their kids participate in standardized tests, all eyes should be on Portland as the next chapter in what Seattle teacher Jesse Hagopian has described as an emerging “Education Spring.”

While the chapter has not been finished yet, Portland students are showing their determination to not be passive actors, but writers of their own destiny. They see that nothing less than their collective future is on the line. And they’re standing up for their demands because, as Schlichting put it, “There should be no compromise when the excellence of education is at stake.”

Jefferson demands respect

(first published here)

Sarah Levy reports from Portland, Ore., on a walkout at a high school the media has smeared as “failing”–while the teachers’ struggle for a fair contract goes on.

January 13, 2014

Jefferson High School students march through the streets of Portland after walking out (Bette Lee)

ABOUT 200 students at Jefferson High School in Portland, Ore., walked out of classes on Friday, January 10, in support of their teachers who are locked in an increasingly heated contract battle with the school district–and to reclaim respect for students and the school in general against media claims that Jefferson is a “failure” and a “gang” school.

The protest came during a week of action to build support for the teachers, whose contract campaign has taken up issues of education justice, challenging swollen class sizes and the standardized testing mania. Called by the Portland Student Union and Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign, the week of actions will culminate on Monday, January 13, with a rally and march on the Portland Public Schools (PPS)board meeting.

On Friday, Jefferson students chanted, “We’re the future of this nation, we deserve an education!” as they blocked both lanes of traffic for several blocks on North Killingsworth Street, a busy thoroughfare in North Portland. The signs they held read “No more racist school closures,” “We support our teachers,” “More art, less OAKS [Oregon’s standardized test]” and “Black student power.”

“We want to show that students are standing up for their teachers, but also standing up for themselves,” said Jefferson student Sekai Edwards. “We want the district to know that they can’t treat our education this way, and that we are aware of what they are trying to do.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

AS THE only majority Black school high school in Oregon, Jefferson has been painted by the media as an example of “failing” public schools that need to be shut down and reconstituted.

What you can do

Portland teachers and their supporters are asking for solidarity on Monday, January 13.

If you live in Portland, come to a demonstration at the school board meeting sponsored by the Portland Student Union and Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign–the protest begins at 5:30 p.m. outside PPS headquarters at 501 N. Dixon St.

If you don’t live in Portland, but want to show your solidarity with Portland teachers, please wear blue on Monday and upload a picture of yourself to this Facebook page.

Over the last 10 years, more K-8 schools have closed in the Jefferson cluster–elementary schools that filter into Jefferson High School–than in the rest of the district combined.

The Jefferson area is majority Black and low income, as are the students who attend the high school–in a city and school system that is increasingly segregated. In addition to the “failure” myth, the school and its students have been labeled as gangsters, with police regularly attending sports competitions–contributing to the school’s negative reputation and fueling the drive to close the high school and its feeder schools.

The federal No Child Left Behind law and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program have helped to systematically defund schools like Jefferson, leading administrators to support parents’ decision to transfer students out of Jefferson, rather than address the lack of equity and resources. With fewer students, there are fewer programs and fewer options for those who remain. Popular classes are often overcrowded or unavailable, leaving teachers to solve the problems as best they can, while students miss out on the education that should be their right.

As Jefferson sophomore Mikey Garcia said at the rally on Killingsworth Street:

I’m here because I love my teachers, and I love my school. But you know what’s not fair? It’s not fair that there are 43 kids in my anatomy class. It’s not fair that my teachers don’t have prep time to prepare lessons for me. It’s not fair that the district is trying to take these things away, not give them more.

Many students spoke to the connection between the problems they face in their education, and what’s at stake in contract negotiations between PPS and the Portland Association of Teachers. Their stories illustrated clearly how when teachers get cut short, so do students.

With the teachers’ struggle heating up and headed toward a showdown in the coming weeks, organizers of the Jefferson students’ rally hoped to channel energy toward the school board meeting on January 13–an action aimed at forcing the board to listen to what students, parents and community members want to see in the teachers’ contract and in our schools.

“We will back our teachers if the district tries to take away their rights,” shouted Sekai Edwards to a street full of cheering students. “We will let the teachers know that we will be here for them, just as they are here for us every single day.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

DURING THE rally, students gave numerous examples that show how–as the PAT has also insisted during its contract campaign–teachers’ working conditions acutely affect students’ learning conditions.

One stunning example: Jefferson High School has a single art teacher who is in charge of yearbook, photography, beginning and advanced art and drawing. She is forced to teach two different subjects to two whole classes at the same time.

As senior Edith Moore said:

If she’s having to teach two classes at once, that means she has to give half of what she would be able to give for one class. And half is not enough for us. I want to see teachers able to actually teach us–to be able to teach what they’re passionate about, what they know about, and be able to teach the right amount of students so we can grow up and do something with our lives and give back to our community.

Students also addressed the stereotype of Jeff students being failures. “Right now, I’m taking my third Portland Community College (PCC) class,” said junior Anna Robertson. She added that she was one of many Jefferson students enrolled at PCC:

We’re taking college classes while we’re in high school, so obviously we’re capable. It’s just that we don’t have the resources we need at our own school. It’s not that our teachers aren’t doing their job–because they are. And they’re doing their hardest. But the problem is that the school district isn’t helping them…

[Too many political leaders] are saying that we [students] are the future, but then setting us up to fail. We want to be as great as we can be. We want to be the generation that changes things, that makes this a better world. But we can’t do that if they aren’t letting us…They’re not giving us what we need to be great.

The energy felt by all at the Jefferson walkout is adding new fire to fight for the schools Portland students deserve. This couldn’t come at a better time, as the district continues to follow an aggressive strategy against the teachers’ union and displays an unwillingness to compromise. It seems more and more likely that the district will try to impose its contract on the union, possibly forcing teachers to strike.

If it comes to this, students could play a pivotal role in a crucial struggle to defend public education. But Jefferson students, as well as many more across the district, have already shown that they are ready to take a stand.

Lauren Steele, a Jefferson junior, drove this home in a spoken-word piece, titled “Teach Me,” which she performed at the rally:

You can’t leave our education in the hands of a few folks with degrees
We are all perfectly capable of achieving what this system needs
I’m tired of artless, colorless schools, same syllabus every year
Don’t support our future leaders and your future is unclear
Your answer to worldly crisis could lie in this city
There are young potential leaders in need of more than just your pity
So we’re gonna walk out here in hopes of contributing to this fight, ’cause maybe with a little help
Our generation
Will get it right

Walking out for our teachers

(first published here)

Students and parents are showing their solidarity with Portland teachers as their union confronts school administrators who want to raise class size limits.

December 18, 2013

Students from Wilson High School picket outside their school in support of teachers (Walker K. Devine)

SOME 70 students walked out of Wilson High School on December 13 to demand smaller class sizes and show their support for the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), which is in the midst of heated contract negotiations with the Portland Public Schools (PPS).

Holding signs that read “Unlimited class sizes limit our education” and “Honk if you love small class sizes,” students marched to rally at a busy section of Southwest Capital Highway, where they were joined by a dozen parents and community members. Students chanted, “We deserve our education, we’re the future of this nation!” and “What do we want? Smaller class sizes! When do we want them? Now!”

Students are particularly concerned about a part of the district’s final contract offer that takes away language limiting class sizes–a step that could lead to ballooning numbers of students for each teacher and leave the teachers’ union unable to negotiate about the issue.

Both sides are currently in a “cooling off” period, but if neither side concedes, the teachers will soon be forced to decide whether to accept the district’s offer or go on strike.

“We don’t support [the district’s proposal]!” said Emily, a Wilson junior. “I think that [a walkout] is the best way to get our statement out there and show that we as students don’t support this–to show it’s not just the teachers, that they’re not alone in this.”

The Wilson walkout followed a walkout at Roosevelt High School on December 2, and a lunchtime student rally at Cleveland High School a few weeks earlier. In addition to supporting their teachers, these actions are a part of rebuilding and strengthening a district-wide student union that aims to make sure students’ voices are heard and organize around the issues students care about.

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FOR PORTLAND students, class size is no small issue. A recent article in the Oregonian titled “Oregon schools pack in most students per teacher in history, state says,” showed that Oregon teachers on average have 35 percent more students than the typical U.S. teacher. The report stated that, for 2012, classes of 30 or 35 were common in Oregon middle and high schools. At Wilson, one computer science class is packed with 45 students.

Andries Menger, a junior at Wilson and member of the Wilson Student Union (WSU), said that for the most part, Wilson class sizes are “alright, around 25 students.” However, students are worried that classes could dramatically inflate under the district’s proposed contract, citing what happened in Beaverton after this nearby school district removed similar class size-limiting language from their teachers’ contract.

Beaverton’s “new normal” high schools class size is now 35 to 55 students per class, and many teachers have over 50 students. “The district is saying, ‘This won’t happen, that’s just a looming threat, you just need to trust us,'” said Menger. “But we don’t. Nobody trusts them because they are trying to do this…We want something set in stone.”

As reported in SocialistWorker.org, Oregon’s mainstream media has gone to town trying to paint the teachers’ union as selfish, accusatorily asking, “Who’s in it for the kids, and who is using kids as a bargaining chip to gain power?”

Yet despite the biased coverage, students are clear about whose side they are on, and about what’s at the heart of the teachers’ negotiations. “We’ve all seen how teachers are forced to not teach as well as they could just because they have too many kids in a class,” said Menger.

Wilson senior and WSU member Keenan Murray added, “Already, teachers have less time to give students individual attention. [Teachers] are more overwhelmed, and they don’t have enough time to plan new activities because they have more grading to do at home.”

All of these things affect students, he said, and would only be made worse by the district’s proposal. “This is why the teachers’ proposal is what’s better for students.”

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THE AFTERNOON before the walkout, Wilson Principal Brian Chatard sent an e-mail to all parents urging them to discuss the protest with their children and help them “reconsider the decision to leave school during class time.” Parents and students were told that a marked absence would affect their participation in extracurricular activities that day, such as drama rehearsals and sports competitions.

“It is completely reasonable for students to get involved, discuss the issues, form their own opinions and, if necessary, express their constitutional right to protest, march, rally, chant, etc.” wrote Principal Chatard in the e-mail. “I am proud to see that our students want to have their voice heard before the issue is decided…However, it is not acceptable for students to leave the building during instructional time.”

Menger explained that the smaller-than-desired turnout was due to fear among students, not apathy. In the days before the walkout, he says that many students told him directly that they were in support of the walkout, but that they’d be “risking too much,” fearing they would face suspension or detention after seeing Chatard’s e-mail.

“In reality, they’re not actually risking too much,” he said. “It’s just that our rules are so vague that they’re being interpreted incorrectly and used against us. I think that when [the students who didn’t walk out] see that we did this, and we were okay, we’ll begin to see more students joining us in future actions.”

However, while the intimidation from the administration may have helped to hold back a portion of students, it had the opposite effect on some parents.

“The principal informed us that our kids would be punished if they participate, and asked parents to help their students ‘reconsider participating,'” wrote parent Justin Norton-Kertson on a Facebook event page he created in response to the principal’s e-mail. “Instead, I am encouraging my kid to walk out, and I’ll be standing across the street from the walkout meeting point with a sign that says, ‘Parents support teachers and the student walkout!'”

One Wilson parent and member of IATSE Local 28 who attended the protest, expressed her support for the students’ walkout as well as her own frustrations with the district. “Some of us have had kids in the school system for a long time and we’ve watched it degrade, and we’re seeing [the district] not be [transparent] in explaining everything,” she said.

She explained how the district e-mails parents their updates and their version of what’s going on with the negotiations, but when parents ask for the teachers’ side they are just provided with links and told to find it themselves. “So PPS can just e-mail us with their side of the story, but teachers don’t get the same right. I think it’s wrong that we’re getting one-sided messaging,” she said.

The parent hoped that rallies like these could help make more people aware of the issue and explained that, even if they don’t have kids in the school system, Portland residents should support teachers. “These are our future leaders,” she said. “We’ve got to educate them.”

In addition to parents, students from other high schools came out to support the action at Wilson. Ian Jackson, one of a handful of Cleveland High School students present at the walkout and a member of Cleveland’s Student Union, addressed the crowd at the rally, speaking to why he and others from Cleveland had come:

Solidarity is our weapon. We can walk out here at Wilson, but we also need to talk to our comrades and our students across the city, and we need to organize walkouts and actions all across this town. It’s our responsibility to talk to our friends about the teachers’ contract, to talk to our friends about class sizes. We need to understand the struggles in each and every school in Portland…

We’ve had a walkout at Wilson. We’ve had a walkout at Roosevelt. We’ve seen actions at Cleveland. But we need to bring these actions together. But we can’t just speckle walkouts across the city; we have to create a movement. We need to come together as students. Today’s the beginning.

With an upcoming “Parents Support Portland Teachers” rally, Portland is also beginning to see a more coordinated effort of community support for PAT.

The fight for smaller class sizes in Portland is just one piece of what it will take to win the schools Portland students deserve–and Portland should be proud that students are already a part of that fight.

Bitter anger at a detainees’ death

(first pubished here)

Sarah Levy reports on Israel’s abuse of Palestinian prisoners and the fury it has caused.

February 28, 2013

Mass funeral protest for Arafat Jaradat (Stop the Wall Campaign)

MORE THAN 10,000 Palestinians took part in a funeral procession on February 25 in the West Bank village of Saeer for 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat, who died while in Israeli detention.

Jaradat’s death on February 23 in Megiddo Prison came less than a week after he was arrested for throwing stones at Israeli cars in the West Bank. Although Israeli officials say he died of cardiac arrest, an autopsy shows clear signs that his death was the result of horrific torture, according to Palestinian Authority officials.

Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs, and severe bruising on his face, the autopsy revealed. Kameel Sabbagh, Jaradat’s lawyer, said that his client had been “beaten and hanged for many hours on end in Israeli custody.”

Thousands of Palestinians protested throughout the West Bank and Gaza over the weekend, with mass protests taking place in Hebron, al-Arrub refugee camp, Beit Ummar, Halhul, Bethlehem, Qalqiliya and Tulkarem. Thousands also marched from Birzeit University to Ofer Prison.

Israeli forces fired rubber bullets at protesters, injuring dozens, yet protests continued right up until Jaradat’s funeral. Protesters held signs that read, “Will the world remain silent until the toll reaches 1,000,000?”–in reference to Jaradat being the “79th prisoner to die in Israeli jails since 2000 due to torture, medical neglect, excessive use of force during interrogation or execution by arresting officers,” according to the Alray Media Agency.

The protests also had an echo within Israel’s prisons. Some 4,500 Palestinian prisoners–nearly the total population of Palestinians held by Israel–took part in a one-day hunger strike as a “sign of mourning for Jaradat,” according to Prisoner Affairs spokesman Hassan Abed Rabo.

On February 25, the Palestinians Women’s Union issued a statement calling on the international community to “hold Israel accountable for the killing of Jadarat and to protect Palestinians from rights violations in Israeli jails.”

Lawyers in Gaza went on strike on February 26 to protest Jaradat’s death, holding a sit-in at the union’s office, according to union official Salameh Bseiso. Lawyers representing Palestinians also announced they would boycott Israeli courts on February 25. “We won’t stay calm regarding this crime, and we will make intensive calls with Arab lawyers to reveal Israeli crimes,” Bseiso said.

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JARADAT’S DEATH comes amid a rising tide of Palestinian resistance in support of four Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike and against Israel’s atrocious treatment of prisoners, including its sweeping use of administrative detention to hold prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial.

The plight of prisoner Samer Issawi, now past his 215th day on hunger strike, as well as three other prisoners currently refusing food has galvanized protests across Palestine. This comes almost a year after a mass hunger strike involving nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners swept through Israeli jails last April.

Since early February, the Popular Committees in many villages have organized protests and marches of thousands following Friday prayers. At these events, protesters have combined chants against Israel’s occupation with demands to release hunger strikers. In the week leading up to Jaradat’s death, daily protests took place outside of Ofer Prison–an Israeli incarceration facility in the West Bank–in support of Issawi. During the February 15 protest outside of Ofer, more than 100 people were injured and 13 were hospitalized after the Israeli army fired live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters into the crowd.

“The situation in the prisons, the economic plight and the stalled peace process are pushing people to the brink,” said Qadura Fares, chairman of the Palestinian Prison Society Qadura Fares, warning that the situation could lead to a “third Intifada.”

Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, made a similar point on February 25:

The Israelis have left no door open for Palestinians…[Israel is] using settlements and Israeli army violence to provoke Palestinians and suppress them. We counted tens of cases of people hit with live ammunition in the last week. The atmosphere is similar to the first Intifada…It’s popular, nonviolent and massive and will spread all over the Palestinian territories.

In addition to the marches, more than a dozen Palestinian activists who are not imprisoned have taken up hunger strikes of their own to continue to draw attention–both local and international–to their cause. Since February 11, activists have set up protest tents inside the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Ramallah and are visited daily by dozens of supporters.

“When they see me and my friends here on strike, it’s more visual for people,” said Khader Adnan, a former prisoner who was released from administrative detention in April 2012 after a 66-day hunger strike. “It’s a message to the international world and the international community that their silence is killing us.”

The ICRC sit-ins have in turn “inspired a wave of daily demonstrations across the West Bank” with daily morning marches of hundreds from the ICRC to Al-Manara Square in Ramallah, according to Allison Deger of Mondoweiss.net. A protest tent has even been established inside Nazareth, Israel.

According to the activists, part of the reason for targeting the Red Cross in Ramallah is that it has so far failed to fulfill its duty of providing services to Palestinian prisoners and facilitating family visits as stated in the aid organization’s mandate. In response, the ICRC has now shut its headquarters and relocated its operations to Jericho, further devastating the families of prisoners who are now struggling to obtain the required permits to visit their loved ones.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

SINCE 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This translates to 40 percent of the total male population living within the Occupied Territories having spent time in Israeli prisons at some point.

As of December 2012, more than 4,500 Palestinians were being held in Israeli jails, according to an Israel Prison Service report. The report states that 1,031 are being held until the conclusion of legal proceedings, 178 are in administrative detention, and 170 are under 18 years of age. At one time or another, most Palestinian families have had at least one family member imprisoned by Israel, making the fate of prisoners a visceral issue for virtually all Palestinians.

Additionally, there is a widespread pattern of arrest without charge, release and re-arrest that has stolen years from the lives of a growing number of young Palestinians. This has had an emotional impact on many in the community who have been left with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness after being themselves, or seeing family members, repeatedly detained, often in unjustified night raids by Israeli soldiers.

Samira Halabi has experienced all four of her sons being taken away from her in the middle of the night. In an interview with the ElectronicIntifada.net, she recounted her plea to soldiers when they came for the last of her sons, Nael, in a night raid on her home last March. “I went to hug my son, and I said, no, you’re not taking this one, you have three already, leave this one!” she said.

The week before Nael was taken, soldiers had raided the Halabi home and taken another of Samira’s sons, Nasser. This was Nasser’s second time in detention since he was originally arrested in 2009. Released two years later, Nasser enrolled in Bethlehem University in an effort to reestablish a normal life, only to be rearrested seven months later.

Samira explained that Nasser is an example of how Israel’s policy of arrest without charge, release and then re-arrest has “ripped the late teens and early twenties” from all of her sons, and all too many young Palestinians. “Our problem is a real problem,” said Halabi. “We don’t know what to do or where to go…[How has the loss of four sons affected our family?] Depression. You think about them all the time.”

Samira Halabi has been one of the regular visitors to the ICRC tent protest, and the only one of her sons not currently in prison, Nafar, is taking part in the solidarity hunger strike inside the ICRC.

Halabi’s sons are only four of the more than 7,500 Palestinian boys between the age of 12 and 18 who have spent time in the Israeli prison system during the past 11 years. According to a report by Al Jazeera, “[M]any former detainees display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and almost all find it difficult to slip back into the position they occupied in their families and communities prior to arrest.” Since the arrests often happen at night, many young Palestinians “live with the fear that they could be re-arrested and taken back into prison at any time.”

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ALTHOUGH ISRAEL has justified its use of administrative detention and arrest without trial on the basis of its need to protect “secret information,” the protest movement that has helped draw attention to cases like those of Issawi and Jaradat has led to heightened international concern over Israel’s treatment of detainees. This has created cracks in Israel’s “security narrative.”

Groups such as Amnesty International view Israel’s current incarceration of 178 Palestinians under administrative detention as a possible war crime, arguing that Israel has violated international law by using the emergency law to harass the population under occupation, stifle dissent and restrict Palestinians’ right of movement.

In response to the recent protest of thousands after an Israeli court refused to grant the release of Issawi, the European Union issued an urgent call for Israel to “[fully respect] international human rights obligations towards all Palestinian detainees and prisoners.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to grant all prisoners a fair trial or allow for their prompt release. Physicians for Human Rights has issued a statement accusing Israel of violating prisoners rights, calling Israel’s treatment of hunger-striking Palestinians “a systemic moral, ethical and professional failure.”

Apparently rattled by the growing prisoners’ protest movement and the attention it is getting, Israel is doing all it can to further tighten its grip on prisoners. On February 25, Israel transferred 50 prisoners to various facilities as punishment and to remove and separate activists, placing one of Jaradat’s relatives in solitary confinement, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

In addition, Israel has called on the PA to curb protests ahead of Obama’s visit to the region next month–and threatened to withhold $100 million of tax revenues if protests continue. The PA, however, issued a statement warning Obama that Gaza could be “on fire” at the time of his visit if he fails to pressure Israel to address its abuse of Palestinian prisoners, especially those on hunger strike.

But Obama has already shown his devotion to Israel, even in the face of Israel’s siege of Gaza, its bombing campaigns and its ongoing construction of illegal settlements. Thus it will require significant pressure from below to win justice for these prisoners.

While Palestinians within Israel and the Occupied Territories continue their relentless resistance, recognition of the Goliath they are up against is the basis of their call for an international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that can build a sustained challenge to Israel.

The immense courage of prisoners like Issawi and the thousands of ordinary Palestinians who continue to take to the streets despite severe repression give inspiration to the growing international movement to challenge Israel’s blatant disregard for human rights.