How You Can Support L.A. Teachers Before And During the Strike

by Marcy Winograd

Pre-Strike Community Support-Let's Go!

Let's Organize Community Support for Striking LAUSD Teachers!

Show up on Thursday, Friday and Monday: 7 am-8am, at your neighborhood LAUSD school (I'll be at Venice HS, 13000 Venice Blvd., in front--meet me there) to show pre-strike and strike support for our 34,000 public school teachers and support staff.

Directory to LAUSD Schools

Teachers are fighting for lower class size (now over 40 in some classes), more nurses on site every day (80% of the schools reportedly have no full time nurse), more counselors (some have over 700 students on their case load!) and librarians (who now run back and forth between schools). Teachers are also asking for pay increases (3% at first, followed by another 3%) not tied to cuts in health benefits for new teachers.

The District says it can't afford to adequately staff our schools, but LAUSD's reserves total almost $2-billion.

I'll have signs and flyers at Venice Hs or you can download this sign and bring it or show up with your own organization's banner. (FYI ... Strike support at Venice HS will be headquartered at the Venice Alumni House, 2435 Walgrove Ave.)

It looks as though teachers may or may not (operative words) strike Thursday (still in court fighting District attempts to stop the strike), but if it's not Thursday or Friday then probably Monday, Jan. 14th. Regardless, the key to a successful teachers' strike is widespread community support, so let's get out there Thursday, Friday and Monday morning, Jan. 10, 11th, 14th, wave signs of solidarity and make some noise!

If you prefer to go to your neighborhood school, organize a contingent of community friends to show up with banners and signs and write and deliver a letter to the principal expressing your support. Show up before school or at the end of the school day when you can talk to parents. Principals have been told to notify the superintendent of the level of community support--so you matter big time in this effort to not only improve conditions for teachers and students but to save public education from the claws of privatizers!

That's right. LAUSD's superintendent, a former investment banker, wants to break up the district into over 30 mini-districts, close lots of neighborhood schools and open charters, instead--then push and highlight the charters, publicly funded but privately operated--some by corporate chains), in student enrollment packets. This is called the portfolio plan and threatens to bankrupt LAUSD, which, according to United Teachers of Los Angeles, is already losing $600 million dollars a year to charters that don't pay their fare share of infrastructure maintenance costs.

Read more about the privatization plan here.

LAUSD is the second largest school district (600,000 students) right behind NYC, so what happens in L.A. will reverberate throughout the country.

Who's schools?

Our schools!

In solidarity,

Marcy Winograd (P.S. I'm supporting Jackie Goldberg for the LAUSD District 5 seat in the special election on March 5, 2019. Jackie will protect our schools!)

Teachers Uprisings Are The More Long-Term Story Of The Political Revolution Underway Than Any Single Congressional Eelection-- A Guest Post By Jonathan Tasini

Our old pal, Jonathan Tasini, labor activist, author, podcaster and former Senate candidate, has been on the teacher uprising case for months. He's certain that "those uprisings are the more long-term story of the political revolution underway with far more consequences for the country than the obsession over any single congressional election." A new guest post he originally did for Playboy, Why the Midterm Battleground Could Be in Classrooms Instead of Congress, that "those uprisings have the potential to obliterate the Big Lie in our economic lives, a lie that has bankrupted many states."

Travis Benda is not a name you’ll hear uttered by most political pundits. He may, in fact, never achieve long-term institutional power or become a household name. Yet, his recent surprise primary victory may be signaling a long-term titanic shift in the nation’s attitude toward taxes and what we are willing to pay to have a properly functioning government. This was all triggered, or at least significantly advanced, by the teachers’ uprisings sweeping the country.

Benda is a high school math teacher. In the May 22nd Republican primary, he defeated the House majority floor leader, Jonathan Shell, who two years prior had led Republicans to a takeover of the legislative chamber and was hailed as a paragon of young Republican future leaders. Benda challenged Shell for one basic reason: the incumbent’s support for an anti-teacher pension bill that would have reduced promised benefits.

Benda is a high school math teacher. In the May 22nd Republican primary, he defeated the House majority floor leader, Jonathan Shell, who two years prior had led Republicans to a takeover of the legislative chamber and was hailed as a paragon of young Republican future leaders. Benda challenged Shell for one basic reason: the incumbent’s support for an anti-teacher pension bill that would have reduced promised benefits.

That Benda won running as a Republican only underscores what teachers, and other workers in the education system, have sparked. In mostly conservative states across the country, tens of thousands of teachers and support staff-- defying or skirting laws barring teacher strikes-- poured into the streets and amassed at state capitol buildings. Importantly, they did so almost always with strong support from parents and even many superintendents of school districts, which have been starved for funds.

The public, it seems, has woken up to a stark reality regardless of political affiliation: education, and other key government services that make for a functioning society, need money to run-- and the coffers are empty.

The short-term impact of the teacher uprisings will be felt in November. To be sure, elections hinge on many factors, and it is often hard to isolate, in retrospect, one element that makes the difference between victory or defeat. Yet, taken together, the teachers revolt is arguably going to tip scores of state legislative races, and perhaps the balance of power in Congress-- largely because teachers’ unions, along with other labor and community allies, are making a concerted effort to defeat anti-school funding politicians. To make an obvious point: Teachers, and their educator brethren, are everywhere, in every community, large and small. Consider this: Nearly nine million educators work for states and local governments nationwide, accounting for more than half of all public sector workers.

It would be hard to find a more conservative state than Oklahoma: Republicans control the legislature, governor’s mansion, both seats in the U.S. Senate and every House district. Tax-cutting and business-friendly policies have been an almost unshakeable article of political faith. Yet, Oklahoma was fertile ground for a revolt because its tax-cutting mania created a crisis. As the Oklahoma Policy Institute points out, “state aid funding will remain some $145 million less than it was in FY 2009, even as K-12 enrollment has grown by over 50,000 students. As important as the pay raises are for moving Oklahoma teachers towards a fair and competitive salary, schools remain in desperate need of additional operating support to reverse cuts that have led to fewer teachers and support professionals, larger class sizes, fewer courses and programs, and outdated textbooks and supplies.” It’s worth hammering home the point that despite an exploding student population, the current education budget is lower than a decade ago.

The teachers’ union in Oklahoma sees the opening, and is backing 100 candidates for state office, 48 who are union members and the rest who have ties to union members or simply support the union’s agenda. “OEA is supporting many teacher candidates this election cycle, but we will also support non-educator candidates and incumbents who show strong support for public education,” says Alicia Priest, the union’s president. “If an incumbent has a great voting record on education, we will stick by them, even in the face of an educator running against them.”

North Carolina also has a strong teacher resistance movement. “We are doing targeted calls to districts to defeat Republicans, calling voters and focusing on education,” Mark Jewell, the president of the state’s educators’ association, told me. Those efforts may, then, tip two federal House seats to Democrats-- the 13th Congressional district held by an incumbent Republican, and the 9th Congressional district where the incumbent Republican lost a primary race.

Setting aside the November elections this year, I am more intrigued by the longer-term impact of the teacher uprisings because it is possibly much more consequential for the nation’s economic future. Teachers, partly because they are held in high esteem by the public, have been able to bring focus to the Big Lie: For four decades, Republican ideologues (buttressed by a good helping of Democrats) told the people that society would be just fine without robust taxes to adequately fund government’s basic services. You know the rap: Cut taxes deeply, let the money trickle down to everyone, and, presto, big booms in jobs and economic output would follow. The Big Lie came all dressed up with a theory called “supply side economics,” which Republicans, business leaders and billionaires could foist on people to give the whole gimmick some respectability and believability.

Except supply side economics, starting with its big splashy debut at the core of Reaganomics in the 1980s, was proven, time and again, to fail. It was a theory with no empirical data proving it worked. There is virtually no evidence—none—that shows tax cuts spark job growth, certainly not tax cuts entirely structured as gross handouts to the very wealthy. But, what can be documented quite well is society’s breakdowns-- crumbling roads, failing schools, poor housing, soaring healthcare costs-- that all trace back to the tax cut-starving of the government.

From the outset, if its advocates were honest, it was clear that the supply side economic “theory” was primarily a political gambit. People who hated the government simply wanted to kill it-- and dressing up dastardly, dumb policies with a faux economic theory was part of the scam. And it worked, for a time, at least judged by the four decades of relentless reduction in taxes at the state and federal level.

But, like many scams, eventually reality comes crashing in.

Today, the cupboard is bare. Poor teacher pay isn’t an abstract problem that can be waved away by ignorant talking heads on television. Most people will tolerate, grudgingly, crumbling roads. They may also not feel personally effected by fewer parks rangers or even a public library imposing shorter hours because of staffing shortages. But, when your kid does not have pencil and paper, or every day she walks into a crowded classroom with 35 other kids taught by a substitute each year because qualified teachers can’t afford to take a job with starvation-level wages, that’s a problem plopped right on the kitchen table at home, a problem that does not discriminate between Democrats, Republicans or independents.

Meg Wiehe, the deputy director of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, the foremost tax analysis research group in the nation, thinks voters are starting to draw the connections. It’s personal for Wiehe. She lives in North Carolina where the “story is yet another example of how lawmakers have prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations over public services,” she points out. “North Carolina legislators have cut taxes four times in the last five years. When all of the tax cuts are in place, the state will have $3.5 billion less a year to spend on public services, including education. The recent tax cuts will provide the state’s millionaires with an average annual tax cut of more than $45,000, which is nearly as much as the average teacher’s annual salary of about $50,000.”

West Virginia, where the rebellion started, has been, politically, trending more Republican in elections-- but it still retains a strong awareness of its historical union roots, principally because of the once-mighty United Mine Workers. “The teacher and public employee strike woke a lot of people up to the fact that you cannot tax cut your way to prosperity,” says Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy. “I’d say at least a third of those striking were Republicans, and many of them for the first time understood that their fate was not a matter of affordability but priority.”

Mark Jewell sees a new sentiment in North Carolina. “The public has always been behind public education. When you go out to western North Carolina, which is more conservative, they like their schools, and they’ve seen them decimated. We saw a lot of Republican teachers out in the streets with us. It opens up a bigger conversation that government is protecting the people, and it’s all an investment. We got the Research Triangle partly because we had a strong public-school system. The idea was you could come to North Carolina and put your child in a public school. Now businesses are saying I can’t bring my workers here if they have to put them in private schools that they can’t afford.”

Arizona’s legislature-- which, except for one session, has been controlled by Republicans since 1978-- has cut taxes every year since 1990, says David Lujan, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress who also served as a Democrat in the state House from 2005 to 2013. “Most polling that I saw during those years consistently showed majorities of Arizonans opposed to raising taxes,” he tells me. “In contrast, a number of polls of Arizona voters that I have seen in the past year have consistently shown Arizonans support raising taxes to fund state priorities like public education.” In fact, Lujan says, while this year saw a couple of small tax-cut bills pass, the major tax cut effort, which included a capital gains tax, was defeated principally because of teacher opposition.

Teachers’ union president Priest sees the longer-term shift underway. “It feels as though every day Republicans in Oklahoma have started to shift toward more moderate stances on taxes, recognizing that reasonable taxes are necessary to fund our essential state services like schools and healthcare,” she says. “As a conservative state, however, the anti-tax rhetoric still resonates with many voters. Our Platform Caucus in the legislature, which is extremely anti-tax, seems to be weakening, with many members in jeopardy of losing their seats this year. Until we see what happens in November, though, we won’t know if a real shift has occurred.”

Yet, Oklahoma has seen a fascinating turnaround. In 2012, the governor proposed entirely eliminating the state income tax, claiming it could be done without cutting services. But, in the past session, the legislature passed, with a supermajority vote, a $500 million tax increase, including tax hikes on the heretofore almost untouchable oil and gas industry. “The political makeup of the government has not changed,” says David Blatt, the executive director of the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Significantly driven by the teachers’ uprising, he says, “Lawmakers got the message that voters wanted higher teacher pay even if it means higher taxes.”

As the November election nears, Travis Benda is busying himself with tasks left undone, most having little to do with politics. There is, for example, the unfinished addition to a garage at home. In an overwhelmingly Republican district, Benda knows he is headed for public office, and will almost certainly have less time for personal chores once he is sworn in.

He will be representing a district where he sees a real shift. “What the legislature did in the last session was give tax cuts that were only going to go to those making $175,000 or more, and the cuts in services were disproportionately going to affect those making less than $175,000,” he says, a hit on people like many of his neighbors and constituents. “I live in a rural area, it’s a working class conservative area that still has strong conservative Christian beliefs. I’m more of a social conservative on the Second Amendment and capital punishment,” he says. “But we have to have certain services in place.”

Teachers are reminding us not only that it is a good place to live where a kid can learn but that virtually every progress society makes comes from investments-- taxes-- made by the public, the community. Despite the swaggering and self-serving narratives of billionaires, no fortune-- not a single one-- is made without passable roads leading to workplaces, the internet (started by government funding), regulations (for example, the rules governing the stock market) and, yes, public schools to educate workers in reading, math and sciences-- all paid for by us, by our taxes.

We want our community to be healthy-- and, so, we have invested in government-funded research in medical technologies and drugs. We want to eat food that won’t poison us-- so, we have built a network of inspectors who make sure contaminated food is kept out of stores and restaurants (and when we cut the inspection regime, more people get sick). We want our community to be safe in their homes, so we make sure the firehouse down the street stays open because though we may never personally need the help, we want to ensure our neighbor can rely on that red truck careening down the street lickety-split, fire hose at the ready, if needed.

In essence, reclaiming the idea that taxes are a good thing isn’t about the specific “services” we individually get. It’s about community itself. And reminding ourselves of its value.

And that’s worth every dollar.

Tom Guild, an educator himself, has to fight a primary runoff (August 28) before he gets to face his reactionary Republicans incumbent, Steve Russell in the Oklahoma City 5th district. Obviously he's watched the Oklahoma teachers movement closely and after he read Jonathan's piece, he reminded me that "In Oklahoma, a spontaneous movement began when a middle school teacher started a group on social media that grew at warp speed. His success was noticed by more traditional players in the education establishment and a teacher walkout ensued. Thousands were gathered at the state capitol grounds for days on end. Many local units had their own tents and infrastructure on the capitol grounds. Tent A housed Edmond teachers, B educators from Oklahoma City, C teachers from Moore, and D a group from Norman. The teachers walked the halls of the state capitol and lobbied state legislators and had a tremendous impact on state politics. Those who had opposed reactionary budget cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate elitists were galvanized. Teachers had great homemade signs. My favorite was, 'Pluto is still a planet in my school’s textbooks!' A number of incumbent legislators were subsequently defeated or taken to August runoffs in their re-election campaigns. Many of the walking political wounded are Republicans challenged by educators in the nominating process. You can feel change in the air in Oklahoma. The political establishment was trounced in a successful medical marijuana ballot measure that was placed on the primary election ballot, because the Republican establishment was terrified at the prospect of progressives and non-Republican voters marching to the polls in massive numbers in November. As Garth Brooks sang in 'The Dance,' if we knew how it all would end, we’d miss the dance. So far, many Oklahoma voters are dancing to the beat of their own drummer. The incumbent lieutenant governor was denied a place in the Republican runoff when he finished third in a huge field of primary candidates. The first shot has been fired around the state and Oklahoma voters seem to be channeling the classic movie Network saying, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!!"

"Language is a virus," says Tom Tomorrow, and there appears to be no vaccine against or treatment for Andrew Breitbart's lies

Language is a virus

[Don't forget to click to enlarge.]

DOES ANYONE ON THE RIGHT KNOW ANYONE WHO'S
EVER SPOKEN THE TRUTH ABOUT ANYTHING?

Well, yes, when they're among themselves, or think they're safely among their own kind, free of intruders from the Outside World Where Reality Exists, they are apt to relax their guard and, amid the outpourings of psychotic delusion, speak their own actual (psychotically deluded) beliefs. Otherwise, not so much.

Just the other day I wrote about historian Rick Perlstein's terrific new Mother Jones piece, "Inside the GOP's Fact-Free
Nation," which concludes:

Sure, there will always be liars in positions of influence -- that's stipulated, as the lawyers say. And the media, God knows, have never been ideal watchdogs -- the battleships that crossed the seas to avenge the sinking of the Maine attest to that. What's new is the way the liars and their enablers now work hand in glove. That I call a mendocracy, and it is the regime that governs us now.

An ongoing demonstration of the infotainment noozemedia's indiiference-slash-incompetence-slash-collusion is the continued existence of serial liar Andrew Breitbart. While the Right continues to destroy the lives and careers of decent people by flagrantly twisting their words into weapons for the wackos' propaganda of poison, there appears to be no lie, or rather network of lies, too extreme to turn them into pariahs among decent humans.

So naturally here is the vile Breitbart at it again, and being treated with respect rather than universal choruses of "Liar!" "Scumbag!" "Devil!"

Ned Resnikoff has worked out some of the details for Media Matters:

Breitbart Starts Big Push To "Go After Teachers" With His Trademark Deception

April 29, 2011 1:59 pm ET by Ned Resnikoff

Andrew Breitbart is at it again.

A week after he promised to "go after the teachers and the union organizers," his website BigGovernment.com started running a series of choppy, heavily edited videos taken from labor studies courses taught at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The posts promoting these videos claim, among other things, that the professors "instruct students on how fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools," and that they teach their students that the US flag is "racist."

But given Breitbart's history of dishonesty and his declared intention to "go after" teachers and unions, do we have any reason to think Big Government's claims are credible?

In a word, no. And in fact a quick review of the full context of these clips reveals that Breitbart is up to his old tricks again.

The fraudulent editing is neatly laid out onsite, if you're up for the gory details.

Why do they lie? Because there are propaganda victories to be won, and no price to be paid.

Why are they allowed to continue lying? Because the people whose job it is to call them out are (take your pick) stupid, lazy, incompetent, or outright corrupt. (This is not multiple-choice. Pick as many answers as you like.)

Sigh.


OH YES, DON'T MISS ANDREW BREITBART TOMORROW
AT THE L.A. TIMES'S 2011 FESTIVAL OF BOOKS AT USC

He's to be interviewed by the paper's Robin Abcarian. (He's got a book out, remember, presumably on the theory that the world isn't beset with enough misinformation, not to mention disinformation.) The event, originally scheduled for the Campus Center Ballroom at 12:30, has been moved to Etc. Stage at 3:30. I'm totally unfamiliar with the venues, so I don't know what if any bearing that may have, and I haven't been able to find any explanation.

#

Mr. Boehner, Roland Is Not A Special Interest

When I met my pal Roland he had made his way from Maine to L.A. with no plan at all other than getting away from Maine. He hadn't finished high school and he didn't know what he was going to do with his life. Eventually he decided to go to college. He didn't have a cent. He worked every crap job you can think of. He got a high school equivalency diploma, went to community college, finished up at a state university, and then got a Masters-- working nights the entire time. Then he went to teach in Compton, L.A.'s toughest neighborhood. He loves it. He loves his kids. He loves what he's doing and he loves making a contribution to the lives of these kids. When the school board cut back on supplies he started buying things for the kids with his own money. He doesn't make much. He's a hero every day. And John Boehner is a piece of festering garbage.

Nancy Pelosi dragged Boehner and his cronies off their golf courses and is forcing them to vote on a jobs bill tomorrow. Their answer: saving jobs of teachers and firemen and policemen is catering to "special interests." Special interests? Like the ones who have bribed John Boehner from Big Tobacco ($201,959, third highest in the House after his cronies Eric Cantor and Ed Whitfield), from the Finance Sector ($3,612,064), the Medical Giants ($1,473,347), or the Insurance Industry ($1,000,996). Those are special interests. Roland uses his money to buy a coat for a kid who couldn't make it to class because his family could only afford one coat for two brothers and they took turns coming to school. He doesn't give anything to Members of Congress. That means he, like most of us, have no influence and these scumbags. But today Roland looked at the video up top, watched the Blue America BeatBoehner ad and donated $5 through the thermometer at the right.

Boehner has already declared he would vote against the jobs bill. His wealthy donors don't want it. They want tax breaks for themselves instead. Speaker Pelosi's blog went into some detail about it earlier today.

Congressional Republicans have made their choice clear—with jaw dropping indifference to America’s teachers and police officers, the GOP is calling for an extension of the deficit-busting Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest few and saddling Americans with nearly $700 billion in debt over a paid-for bill that reduces the deficit by $1.4 billion and creates 319,000 jobs for hard-working Americans.

Just last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner referred to this legislation to protect hard-working American’s jobs as a “special interest bailout.”

Special interests? Really? The legislation will save or create more than 319,000 American jobs-- 20,000 more teacher jobs than reflected in previous estimates from the Department of Education (161,000 teacher jobs saved and 158,000 jobs created or saved, including police officers, firefighters and nurses). These funds are needed immediately to prevent layoffs and actually rehire teachers and prevent law enforcement officers from losing their jobs.