The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Issue no. 974 — October 27 - November 10, 2014

EDITORIAL
A Working Class Program for the Crisis

Oct 27, 2014

Unemployment continues to batter the working class, with proportionately fewer people working today than in decades. Our standard of living continues to decline. Public services are crumbling and publicly funded education is a disaster area.

It’s a crisis for working people, but the two big parties, both asking for our votes in the 2014 election, don’t speak about this crisis. And both Democrats and Republicans ignore its causes.

But the causes are obvious. In their never-ending chase for profit, the banks and corporations stole the wealth the workers produced with their labor. The corporations and banks squandered it on themselves, they speculated with it and hoarded it. And they stole public money, gorging their pockets with the money all of us paid in taxes.

The big parties ignore it, but there is a way out of this crisis.

The wealth the corporations and banks have stolen needs to be taken back, used for emergency measures to provide a job for everyone who wants to work. Companies should be forced to use their profits to maintain jobs. They should be forced to slow down the pace of work and to shorten the hours of work with no loss in pay to anyone. These measures alone could put most of the unemployed back to work, and immediately.

The wealth that has been accumulated by the capitalist class should be used to provide everyone with a decent standard of living. Wages, pensions, Social Security and disability benefits should be set so we can all live normal lives. Our incomes should be indexed. When prices go up, our income should go up an equivalent amount—and immediately.

Public money—our tax money—should be spent on public services and public education, instead of going to subsidize profit. Teachers could be hired back. Firefighters, emergency service workers, sanitation workers, construction and maintenance, trash collectors, bus drivers and mechanics—they could all be hired back. The money the state now gives to corporations and banks should be used to create jobs that are necessary for a civilized society to run. The money the government now wastes on wars and prisons should be used for schools that give every child a chance to develop fully.

There will be no recovery for ordinary people until the working class puts its hands on that stolen wealth, takes it back, and uses it to answer the pressing needs ordinary people have.

In other words, the working class has to fight for its own policy.

It’s true, there isn’t much fight today. But sooner or later there will be. This greedy capitalist class will keep pushing us until we fight. Our problem, when the fight begins, is to make sure we make the bosses pay for the crisis they created. Our problem, then, will be to keep the fight going until we have won what’s necessary for every one of us to have a comfortable life.

These are proposals to answer the crisis: a working class program to answer the crisis. It’s a program that Democrats and Republicans have never proposed—and never will.

In fact, the only ones proposing it today, in the 2014 elections, are five people running in Michigan on the slate, “For a Working Class Fight, For a Working Class Policy”: Sam Johnson, running for Congress from Michigan’s 13th district; Gary Walkowicz, running from the 12th; Mary Anne Hering and Kenneth Jannot, Jr., running together for the Dearborn School Board, which also is responsible for Henry Ford (Community) College; and D. A. Roehrig, for Wayne County Community College.

They say that working people should not pay the cost of the bosses’ crisis. And they ask workers to vote for one of them to show that there is a part of the working class today that understands it is necessary to fight, that understands that workers need to have their own policy.

It’s a campaign that may not have billions to spend. But it is this year’s most important campaign.

Pages 2-3

Stockton Bankruptcy:
Robbing the Working Class

Oct 27, 2014

On October 1, in California, a federal judge ruled that City of Stockton’s obligations to its workers is contractual, and that the contract can be “impaired” in bankruptcy.

Stockton declared bankruptcy in 2012. During the ruling, the judge said, “I’ve concluded that pensions could be adjusted.” This decision may cause the City’s current and future retirees to lose their pensions big-time.

City workers have already lost their income in a big way. They were hit by involuntary furloughs between 2008 and 2012, gave up cost-of-living increases for several years, and began paying a retirement contribution of up to 9% in 2011. Benefits for the new employees were already gutted.

For the current 2,400 retirees, the average pension is $24,000 a year. And retirees receive NO Social Security benefits for their service to the City. The health claims of the retirees were already reduced from 545 million dollars to 5.1 million dollars. The 5.1 million dollars does not even cover health insurance costs for a year.

On top of all these drastic cuts, if the court ruling goes through, the pensions would be cut by 60%, leaving the average retiree with a pension of $9,600 a year.

All these cuts are imposed on the workers only to funnel the money to the banks and investment firms. In Stockton’s case, a Wall Street firm, Franklin Templeton, holds more than 36 million dollars in the City’s debt and wants this debt to be paid. The federal court is simply paving the legal ground for this payment.

As Stockton’s bankruptcy proceedings show, the federal government is colluding with big business in robbing the workers to satisfy the greed of the rich.

Library of Congress:
Workers Discarded

Oct 27, 2014

The Library of Congress, based in Washington, D.C., has cut its workforce over the last decade, down to around 3,000. Almost half its catalog and acquisition librarians and a quarter of its reference services staff are no longer there. The job cuts are a long-term campaign against these federal workers, legislated by both parties and agreed to by their unions. The reductions also threaten the many services provided by this largest library in the world.

Not just a tourist site, the Library of Congress is a free research library open to anyone 16 and older. The stacks hold more than 150 million books, pictures, and recordings, with 12,000 more added every workday. Schools use its millions of online digital materials, authors register hundreds of thousands of works each year with its copyright office, and blind people use its recorded and Braille books. Staff economists and scientists research hundreds of thousands of questions from congressional staff each year. Plus six overseas offices collect materials from many other countries. All this is done by around 3,000 workers.

Cut into these services? That’s like going back to the Dark Ages!

Hedge Fund Incomes over a Billion Dollars Each

Oct 27, 2014

Six hedge fund operators had incomes last year of more than one billion dollars each, according to Forbes magazine. The top 25 of these operators had a total income of 24 billion dollars.

Number one was George Soros, with four billion dollars, equivalent to the pay of seventy-nine thousand factory workers. Much of his money came from betting on changes in currency rates, and also manipulating the stock price of Herbalife. Number two was David Tepper with 3.5 billion dollars in income. His hedge fund is Appaloosa Management, which made a gigantic profit off the bankruptcy of American Airlines, leading to layoffs, big cuts in pension payments and a worsening of airline workers’ conditions.

The hedge funds invest money for the very rich. They manipulate stock and bond prices, make bets on raw materials and food and buy and sell derivatives–financial schemes that contributed mightily to the current crisis we’re living through and the bankruptcy of cities like Detroit. They destroyed housing by the widespread use of subprime mortgages which led to foreclosures and abandoned homes.

The wealth these funds have could be used for real investments to remedy the many problems we have, like rebuilding bridges, repairing roads and building and running decent schools. In the process, this would create millions of good paying jobs, enabling people to live decently. But that means taking their wealth away from the hedge funds, as well as from the rest of the capitalist class and its banks.

Recovery?
For Whom?

Oct 27, 2014

Recently, the national unemployment rate dropped a fraction below 6% to 5.9%. Politicians and economists haven’t stopped gloating, calling this proof of a recovery. But for most people, the opposite is true.

Take Maryland, for example. You bet it’s a Recovery for the rich.

The worth of Steve Biscotti, main owner of the Baltimore Ravens, rose from 2.1 billion dollars to 2.6 billion dollars in 2014.

The worth of Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, headquartered in Baltimore, rose from 1.7 billion dollars last year to three billion dollars in 2014.

Compare this to the working class.

Maryland’s unemployment rate has shot up in recent months to 6.3% in August and 6.4% in September, much higher than the state’s 4.7% average before the recession.

In Baltimore the rate has continued at around 10%–one out of 10 people looking for work, unemployed ... officially.

Wages have not risen for most workers, especially in manufacturing, the food industry and health services. One out of three new jobs are lower paying jobs. Median household income dropped more than 5% since 2007. A popular term these days is a “wageless recovery.”

More people are working part-time, not by choice.

Labor force participation is at an historic low.

This is the reality.

California:
Drilling for Water

Oct 27, 2014

About two dozen small, mostly impoverished rural communities scattered throughout California’s rich farmlands are either out of water or close to it, as their sources of water, such as wells, streams and ditches dry up. As a result, thousands of households cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket. Families have to spend hundreds of dollars to wash their clothes at the laundromat and on paper goods to avoid washing dishes.

This is not because of the three-year drought. Big corporate farms right next door are still using vast amounts of water. These farms get little rain–even in the good years. But they usually get plentiful water at a very low price from an enormous infrastructure of dams, aqueducts and canals run by both the federal and state governments–all paid for by taxpayers and individual ratepayers in the cities.

Because of the drought, the federal and state water projects have been forced to reduce their water deliveries to the big farms. To make up the difference, the big farms have been pumping record amounts of precious water from underground aquifers. They use the latest technology that allows them to drill wells faster and deeper. They also draw water from not only under their own land, but from miles around. In fact, the farms are in competition with each other to pump as much water as quickly as possible in a perverse race to the bottom.

There are terrible consequences to this overpumping. It is largely responsible for lowering the water table, sometimes by thousands of feet. That’s why river flows are much lower, and the shallow wells that individual households and communities depend on are exhausted.

Overpumping by big farmers in California is an age-old problem. Decades ago, overpumping sunk half of the entire San Joaquin Valley, in one area by as much as 28 feet, as the underground layers of porous rock that used to hold water compacted, stacking like pancakes. Today vast new areas of California farmland are subsiding–that is, slowly collapsing–some by almost a foot each year, damaging building foundations, bridges, canals and roads.

Of course, these structures can be repaired. But what cannot be repaired is the collapsed underground porous rock, unable to hold water.

In their rush for short-term profit, the big companies that own the farms are turning the drought into a much bigger disaster.

Pages 4-5

Gary Walkowicz:
Time the Workers Are Heard

Oct 27, 2014

The following is a leaflet that workers at Ford’s Dearborn Truck plant circulated in the plant in support of Gary Walkowicz, running for congress in Michigan’s 12th district.

I am running for Congress because I think it is time that the working class is heard in an election.

People know that I have stood up and spoken out against concessions and the attacks on Ford workers and autoworkers. At the UAW Convention, I have twice run for president in order to bring a voice of the workers into the Convention where it is not normally heard. For the same reason, I decided to run for Congress because the voice of the working class is never heard in the government elections. The two parties only represent the big corporations and banks, who are prospering while the working class is suffering.

Autoworkers have suffered wage and benefit concessions, 2-tier wages, reduced break time, cuts to retirees’ health care, all of which have led to a lowered standard of living and worsened working conditions. But we are not alone. We are part of a working class and what has happened to us has also happened to almost every worker in this country. In most cases, other workers are even worse off.

The attacks on workers do not end on the job. In cities where we live, with the public services we use, in the schools where our children go to school, conditions are bad and continue to get worse.

But while the majority of the population is suffering, the wealth is there to solve these problems. But this wealth is being hoarded by a handful of banks, large corporations and a few rich individuals. It is an outrage that a few people are hoarding the money which could be used to solve society’s problems.

The money is there to get rid of 2nd-tier wages and bring everyone’s pay up so that workers can have a decent standard of living. The wealth is there to hire everyone who wants to work and make sure that no one is overworked. The wealth is there to ensure that retirees don’t have to go back to work to survive. The money is there to hire the teachers and improve our children’s schools. The money is there to hire back all the public workers and construction workers who are needed to fix the streets and bridges and sewers. We have every right to demand that the wealth that workers created is used for our benefit.

I think that many workers are angry and fed up. I am running for Congress so that working people can use their vote to protest and speak out against what is happening to us. Our situation will not be changed with a vote. It will take a fight of the working class to make the changes that are needed. But a vote can let people prepare for the fight to come.

I am running on a slate with three other independent candidates. I am running in the 12th Congressional District and Sam Johnson, a retired Chrysler worker, is running in the 13th District. Most of the people who work at Dearborn Truck live in either the 12th or 13th District and can vote for one of us. Mary Anne Hering and Kenneth Jannot, Jr. are teachers running for Dearborn School Board.

I ask you for your support. If you agree with what we are saying, talk to your friends, neighbors and relatives about our campaign. We don’t have millions of dollars like the two parties do; our campaign depends on the support of working people.

Our campaign stands for a Working Class Fight Based on a Working Class Policy.

Sam Johnson:
The Big Picture

Oct 27, 2014

The following is most of the second part of a speech Sam Johnson gave at a recent campaign meeting in Detroit. He is running for Congress in the 13th District.

....So like I said, the more we understand where we fit in the system, and what they’re doing, and where all this is coming from—when we start to fight we’ll know where to take it to. We will need a certain number of people that understand that to direct the fight.

Because you’re going to have fighters. Right now, you’ve got a lot of young people in the streets. They’re fighters. But they don’t know where to take it to. Who are they fighting? They’re fighting each other. Or they’ll fight some worker that may have a few dollars in his pocket—rob him, and take that few dollars. Like I said, they don’t know where to take that fight to. But if you get something started, when those young people see the numbers spread, they’ll be some of the best fighters.

I remember the rebellions of the sixties. That’s when I first understood what it means when you bring certain numbers together—that you have a force. We shut this whole city down. When workers today understand that … that they did that in the sixties? And we’re going through hell today? Worse maybe than in the sixties? And we’re not doing anything? Know what I’m saying—that’s what’s going to happen all over again.

Once it starts, it’s not going to just stop and stay here. It’s going to go from city to city, state to state. That’s what happened then—50 years ago. It went to different states when black workers began to fight.

Once you get that bigger picture … you realize that it really would do that, it would spread like that because you got all the big cities where people really want things to change. Once things get started, you better believe, they will spread. It’s not just about Detroit sending them a message. You’ll have other cities, other states, and workers will do more than send them a message.

We’ve Got the Forces

We don’t need to be going through none of what we are going through today. We’ve got the power to take it all out of their hands—out of the hands of this capitalist class that controls everything, take it away from this one per cent that grabs all the wealth.

We’ve got the power. But most of us feel like we don’t. Because, you know, THEY will say well there’s a law against this … What’s the law? That’s THEIR law. And who protects THEM? Who protects THEIR laws? That’s us, the working people, that protect THEM. The police officers, the troops, the National Guard, that’s all part of the working class that protects THEM. And then THEY say it’s not right for us? Why can’t we protect us against these attacks that are coming from THEM? When they won’t have the forces to keep this going, to keep themselves in power....

All of these problems with the schools, closing of the schools. We can stop all of that. We can stop that because we know the capitalists have got the money. They’re lying when they say they don’t have the money. They’ve got the money. They can spend billions somewhere for something else, but here’s the thing that working people right here need. And the capitalists are lying when they say they don’t have the money. We all know they’re lying.

Fight to Take it All Back

So when we’re ready to fight, we’ve got to fight to take it all back out of their hands. Take all their billions and trillions back. That’s what we’re going to have to do. We can bring jobs, bring schools, eliminate crimes.…

When we do that all of this, crime will stop. Because the conditions the capitalist class creates in this society, that’s what brings about the crime, when people are pushed to the level that they don’t have anything. That’s why young people rob their family, everybody. Just to get a few dollars. This rotten system that we live in has pushed them to that stage. So that’s got to change. We’ve got to change it.

Right now, we’ve lost most of the workers who were out there with the experience to carry out that fight. And then some that’s still around, like me one of them, we are getting to that age that we might not be around that much longer.

So that’s why we’ve got to really pass some of it down to the younger generation who really can take it further. And then don’t stop, where we took it to. Take it further. Because once you stop, what’s going to happen then, they just come back, and take it back. Just when you may have pushed them back, they’ll come right back and take it back. But once we understand that they’ll do that, then we ain’t going to stop. We should keep it going, until we take everything out of their hands

This city, this country, this whole country can be run by working people, in the working people’s interest. Because it should be in the first place, because all the wealth comes from our labor.

One Person Can’t Change Things

I’ve been a fighter all my life, I know I can’t change it all by myself. That’s why I say we need more people to understand what we did, and be fighters. And be able to direct it, so that a fight can spread. That’s what it’s really going to take. And all the problems that we see today—we’re going to have to stop waiting on these politicians because they’re the ones carrying out the policies that cause the problems....

They try to tell us communism is a problem. No, they lie. The issue that I get from that—it was the working class that went up against the capitalists in Russia. They went up against that capitalist class, back in 1917. They wanted to build communism. You understand, it was the working people that was organizing against the people who created the problems. That means that back then workers already understood that they had to fight against that upper class, that one percent. That fight, that’s what socialism and communism means.

And so we have to understand that. Because if we start something right here, it won’t just stop in this country. It will spread to other countries. Because a lot of those countries are being exploited by this number one imperialist country. This is the number one power now, right here. The U.S. is the number one power, the number one monster. That’s why everywhere you look at other countries, the U.S. is going there … they’re going there.

Bring Their War Home

They try to tell us that we’ve got a problem with some other country. No. They have a problem with it.

The war—see that’s another thing—the war. We’re going to go and fight a war for what the capitalists want. But when we get that bigger picture—there ain’t no way we’re going to fight that war. We’ll be fighting right here against the problems that the capitalists bringing at us here.

The workers in other countries will see that too. There won’t be no war. Why should we be going and fighting each other, killing each other for what the capitalists want, control of all the world’s wealth? The U.S. capitalists are controlling this country, and they exploit other countries and control the other countries too. And when we disagree, and won’t accept it, then they’re going to tell lies, and send us to war. And say we’ve got a problem—we’ve got to go fight for our country. No, they’re sending us to fight for more exploitation, for what they want.

I didn’t really get it, but I got some understanding of it when I was five or six years old. One of my uncles was in the Second War. He was coming back and he refused. He went AWOL. And they come everywhere. They come to our house looking for him, were trying to find him. But he said that he wasn’t going back in that war. Just like that.

And in the Vietnam War, I had cousins then that sat down and talked to me about the Vietnam War, and explained something to me about it.

And when I was in California at Northrup Aircraft. I was working there building the jets for Vietnam. One of my brothers was arguing with the supervisor, saying, before he let his son go in that war, he’ll kill him himself. “Before I let him go to Vietnam, I’ll just kill him myself.” We was working there building jets for Vietnam. Then the foreman said to me, “Well what about him? He’s a traitor to your race.” I said, “No man, I wouldn’t go in that war either.” I had heard Muhammad Ali speak out against that war. And so I got the bigger picture then about the war. The war wasn’t for us. I knew that way back then. And it’s still true.

In their wars, you give your life for them, for the capitalists, when you should be right here fighting against them. That’s the bigger picture that we’ll have to get. Our war is here at home against them.

Pages 6-7

Book Review:
Sand Queen—A Novel about Women Soldiers in Iraq

Oct 27, 2014

Sand Queen was written by Helen Benedict, a journalist who interviewed many female soldiers about sexual abuse in the U.S. military and testified twice before Congress to expose the issue. The novel follows Kate Brady, daughter of a small-town cop. Kate doesn’t want to stay the same submissive, obedient person she was raised to be, volunteering at church bazaars and obeying her father but never asserting herself. The only way out she sees is to join the army. And in boot camp she learns to fight physically.

Early during her deployment at a base in the Iraqi desert, an officer tries to rape her, but Kate fights back. Then her command punishes her by reassigning her to increasingly dangerous jobs. The male soldiers continuously address her as a sex object and not a fellow human being. A female soldier tells her not to fight the abuse, to go along with it—and then she confesses the same officer also assaulted her.

By the end of the novel, Kate has taken brutal action against an Iraqi prisoner. She has become someone she did not want to be.

The novel was written to oppose military sexual abuse. In doing so it shows how destructive the U.S. military intervention is for everyone involved.

The Drive for Profit Turns Airbags into Weapons

Oct 27, 2014

Hien Tran died on October 2, four days after she had been in a car crash. Emergency medical workers noted that she suffered stab wounds to her neck not consistent with car crash injuries. Homicide police were stumped until a week after her death when her family received a recall notice from Honda to replace her 2001 Accord’s airbag!

The recall which lawmakers say could include 30 million vehicles, now involves 11 automakers world-wide and affects vehicles built from 2000 to 2008. The problem is that Takata, one of the few makers of airbags for the automakers, failed to properly seal the airbag inflators. This causes the bag to explode instead of to inflate and leads to people getting struck by shards of metal in the neck and chest. This has caused at least four deaths and more than 140 injuries to date. This is not new. Honda has been recalling cars for this issue and other air bag issues since 2008.

There have been other issues with airbags failing to deploy or deploying for no reason or deploying in low impact accidents. A 2007 study found that drivers taller than 6 foot 3 inches and drivers shorter than 4 foot and 11 inches are at greater risk for serious injury. Even when they aren’t assassinating you with shrapnel, airbags are still only designed for the average size of a man and can still seriously injure or kill you.

Takata, like every corporation, is in business to make profit. They take all kinds of short cuts and use cheap materials in the process. It makes no difference what is produced in capitalist society: so long as it is produced for profit, the result almost always gets misdirected. In this case, turning airbags into weapons.

Bolivia:
Evo Morales and the Narrow Way of Reformism

Oct 27, 2014

This article was translated from the October 17th issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

With 61% of the votes, Bolivian President Evo Morales was elected for the third time on October 12. His party, the MAS (Movement for Socialism), got 85% of the seats in the legislative assembly. It came ahead in all but one province, including that in Santa Cruz which was the stronghold of its most radical opponents, the right and the large landowners who tried to overthrow him a few years ago.

Morales, who has been in office since 2006, has undeniably benefitted from a large popular support, in particular among the poor in the countryside and the towns. As for the local bourgeoisie, so far, it has found its own accommodation with Morales.

Morales is certainly no revolutionary and has never claimed to be one. But he appears unusual, compared to political leaders in Latin America and elsewhere. He has kept part of his promises to the poorest section of the people, letting them benefit a little from the wealth of the country.

Before 2006, Bolivia and its 10 million inhabitants ranked as the poorest country in Latin America. Today, although still lagging behind, Bolivia is ahead of Paraguay. Morales, an Indian as are most people in the country, was a poor peasant who was trained as a peasant trade unionist. He was elected following the wave of working-class mobilizations against international oil and water companies, and against their puppets, i.e., the government then in power.

Morales, with popular backing, forced the oil, gas and mining companies to give up a little more of their profits to Bolivia. He did not expropriate them nor nationalize their installations. The Bolivian state only owns 20% of the gas production capacities, the main resource of the country. But it gets tax income on the profits of the large international corporations. At a time when the prices of hydrocarbons, especially gas, were soaring, this created a bonanza for the Bolivian state, allowing it to partly redistribute money to the poorest. In eight years, the national wealth has tripled, and so has the income per capita.

At the social level, the official rate of poverty has shrunk from 38% to 18% of the population. The minimum wage has tripled, although it reportedly does not exceed $250 a month. Campaigns were carried out to improve literacy and health of the poorest peasants. And for the first time, Indian peoples—who been despised and pushed aside—were promoted. Specific aid was given to mothers and people over 60.

All of this accounts for Morales’s popularity with the poor, who are the large majority. As for the Bolivian bourgeoisie, it has benefitted from part of the financial bonanza which previously only went to the vaults of the multinational corporations. Inflation, which skyrocketed up to 24,000 % before 1985, has returned to some normal level. All of this contributes to good business.

In the past, U.S. imperialism overturned governments for doing far less than Morales, but so far, caught up in a range of wars around the world, it has made a different choice.

This limited but positive improvement in the living conditions of the poor totally depends on the prices of hydrocarbons and ores. If the ongoing world depression hits the country, Morales’s may well push back against the population.

Morales already had to face a large popular mobilization when he tried to raise the price of fuel by 80% in 2011 and had to step back conspicuously. The never-ending fighting and rebellious spirit of the poor and the workers in Bolivia will remain their best assets.

Page 8

Chicago:
Emanuel’s Election Ploy

Oct 27, 2014

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that high school students graduating with a 3.0 (B) average would get scholarships for two years to the City Colleges of Chicago, the community colleges, to cover their tuition, fees and books, worth about $11,000 over two years. These costs keep many of the poorest students out of college. Yet decades ago, community colleges were as free as high schools.

Emanuel put the cost of these scholarships at two million dollars a year. That means he expects only 364 students a year to get them or 2% of all high school graduates. And how many don’t even graduate?

Even if that 2% get the scholarships, what is that? Nothing. But it’s an accurate reflection of the education provided the children of Chicago’s working class.

A few years ago, Rahm Emanuel told Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, “25% of the students in this city are never going to be anything, never going to amount to anything, and I’m never going to throw money at them.” He’s been acting on this disgusting position ever since being in office. Except it’s more like 90-95% of the students his policies discard.

Rahm Emanuel has closed inner city schools and pushed students out of neighborhood schools. And teachers and staff have been cut. Librarians, counselors, and the arts teachers were the first to be laid off. Very experienced teachers were out on the street. Some were replaced by new hires with very little teaching experience. Constant tests mean that tens of thousands of students from poor backgrounds have been held back. The tests aren’t used to decide who needs extra help, but who will be discarded.

Mayor Emanuel’s 3.0 scholarship was nothing but an election announcement, designed to divert attention from his vicious attacks on the children in most of Chicago’s schools.

L.A. Schools:
Deasy Is Gone, but NOT His Policies

Oct 27, 2014

Los Angeles schools superintendent John Deasy was finally forced to resign on October 16, about one and a half years before his contract expired. Over his three and half year reign, Deasy had been engulfed in scandals. Over and over, his administration had been caught red handed, basically throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars on extremely expensive junk served up by big companies that never worked and sowed chaos in the schools. Apple and the Pearson publishing company, for example, were awarded a 1.3 billion-dollar contract for materials that were practically useless. Deasy was pushed out because these scandals put too bright a light on how money that was supposed to be for the schools was really being spent.

Throughout his term, Deasy had aggressively attacked teachers. He carried out measures aimed at making it easier for the district to fire higher seniority teachers, who have more experience and earn higher pay. It was one way to save money on the schools in order to funnel it into the profits for business.

Not surprisingly, schools in working-class neighborhoods continued to get worse under Deasy. Continual layoffs of teachers and other school workers resulted in crowded classrooms and school buildings in disrepair. Right now, more than two months into the school year, many students at various working-class schools are still not assigned to classes they need to graduate.

Deasy’s policies are not an accident. They are the same policies as those of school boards across the country in the name of “school reform”. And they are certainly the same policies advocated by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who had strongly supported Deasy up to the very end.

These “reforms” are nothing but a systematic attack on the education of working class children that is being advocated by well-known billionaires such as Bill Gates, the Walton family and Eli Broad. Deasy himself had been an executive for the Gates Foundation. These “reformer” billionaires have poured big money into a nationwide effort to hand management of public schools to private interests, such as charter companies, in order to open up education more for profit.

Deasy may be gone, but his departure, by itself, does not mean a change in policy. In fact, that’s exactly what members of the L.A. school board said after Deasy was pushed out. And the school board confirmed this by replacing Deasy by Ramon Cortines who had been the superintendent before Deasy. Cortines, like Deasy, pushed through “reforms,” that is, attacks, and Cortines had also groomed Deasy as his successor.

No, shuffling the deck at the top of the schools won’t stop the cuts and other attacks on the education of the children of the working class.

That can only be imposed by the struggle of working people fighting to have their needs met.

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