The 5 Biggest Stories from the Fight for the Survival of Public Education

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http://www.alternet.org/5-biggest-stories-fight-survival-public-education


Hunger strikers and supporters march down Broad Street in Philadelphia

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1. Chicago Teachers Strike

The year opened with a bang, as 30,000 teachers and other district staff affiliated with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) took to the streets in protest of Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s education agenda. Beginning on September 10 until September 18, when teachers and students returned to classrooms, the strike highlighted the deep divisions between the Democratic Party’s establishment, including President Barack Obama and the key elements of the party’s base in organized labor and working-class communities in the nation’s large, multi-racial cities.

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2. Michigan Laws

Everyone knows that Republicans won sweeping victories in the 2010 midterms, conquering state houses across the nation and using their newfound power to pass powerfully anti-union legislation in Midwestern states once considered some of the strongest redoubts of the labor movement. Many of these policy coups took place in the early months after the midterms, but in Michigan two of the harshest laws weren’t passed until the lame duck session after November 2012.

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3. Seattle Testing Revolt

In early January, all the teachers and much of the administration at Garfield High School in Seattle boycotted their school district’s standardized test, Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), because they claimed it detracted from the students’ learning experience.

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4. Charter School Union Organizing

The relentless expansion of the charter school movement, especially in urban school districts, has resulted in waves of school closings across the country. Public schools in these areas are often unionized; not just teachers, but janitors, cafeteria workers, and other district employees. Charter schools are rarely unionized, and when they are, it’s usually because states like Maryland, and a handful of others, have laws requiring charter employees to be included under the same collective bargaining agreements as district employees.

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1. K&R