Today in Labor History: April 21

Friedrich Froebel, 1897

April 21, 1782—Friedrich Froebel was born. Froebel was a German pedagogue who coined the term “kindergarten” and produced the first educational toys, known as Froebel Gifts. Froebel was one of the first to recognize of the importance of activity and play in early childhood (Freiarbeit, or free work), as well as the notion that one learns by doing. Thus, kindergarten was not simply a poetic “garden” of children, but a literal garden for them to observe and interact with the natural world. Froebel’s kindergartens were suppressed by the Prussian government for its supposed denigration of religion and politics. He rejected the notion of original sin and promoted and practiced the coeducation of boys and girls. He also felt children should be able to grow and develop without the influence of arbitrary political and social priorities—ideas that would endear him to anarchists like Francisco Ferrer and others in the Modern School movement. (For more on Froebel, click here)

April 21, 1834 – 30,000 marched for the freedom of trade unionists transported to Australia from Tolpuddle, Britain. The Tolpuddle struggle, which began in 1832, for the repeal of the “Combination Laws,” marked the beginning of British trade unionism. (From the Daily Bleed) 

Caricature of the Bonnot Gang

Victor Serge

April, 21, 1913 –Andre Soudy and Raymond Callemin, members of the anarchist Bonnot Gang, were executed. Callemin had started the individualist paper "L'anarchie" with Victor Serge. The Bonnot Gang was a band of French anarchists (plus Serge, who was Russian) who tried to fund their movement through robberies in 1911-1912. The Bonnot Gang was unique, not only for their politics, but for their innovative use of technology, too. They were among the first to use cars and automatic rifles to help them steal, technology that even the French police were not using. While many of the gang members were sentenced to death, Serge got five years and eventually  went on to participate in (and survive) the Barcelona and Soviet uprisings. Later, while living in exile, Serge wrote The Birth of Our Power. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

Jules Bonnot, Dead

 April 21, 1921 – Police fired on striking miners in Butte, Montana. (From the Daily Bleed)

Stealing Candy From Babies in California Schools

"They are literally taking food out of the mouths of kids," Richard Zeiger, chief deputy superintendent of public instruction. (From the Los Angeles Times)

Image from Flickr, by wenews

 Eight or more California school districts have misused millions of dollars in federal funding earmarked for schools’ free and reduced lunch programs, including Los Angeles Unified School District, according to a state Senate watchdog group. State officials believe the fraudulent use of the funds may be far more widespread, according to the Los Angeles Times. Other implicated school districts include Oxnard, San Diego, Santa Ana, San Francisco and Compton.

The districts have been ordered to repay more than $170 million by the California Department of Education. LAUSD must also pay back $158 million in unrelated misappropriated funds from the six years prior to 2012. In most cases, the misused funds were diverted from food to pay for personnel, utilities and other expenses, even though federal rules require the money to be used only for food services. According to the Times, many schools tried to cut costs by shortening lunch periods, slashing cafeteria staff and serving more processed foods—all of which hindered access and availability of the program for low income students.

Some of the misappropriations were reported by whistle blowers. The reason officials believe the problem may be more widespread is that there are only 60 state examiners who must monitor nearly 3,000 districts. They still haven’t completed all the inspections required since the 2001 rules went into effect and, when they do, they often just skim over the records.

11,000 Educators Fired in December

Clean Up Your Act Teachers or You're Out! (Image from Flickr, by  emilydickensonridesabmx)

The Great Recession has been officially over for more than three years, but the plunder of the public sector and middle class wealth continues. According to the Department of Labor, more than 13,000 public sector workers were laid off in December, more than 11,000 of whom were teachers or other school employees (see WSWS).

This is unusual. Typically, teacher layoff notices go out in February or March in anticipation of coming budget shortfalls, giving teachers the summer to look for work (or to be rehired, as often occurs when revenue picks up). Mid-year layoffs are an indication just how desperate many school districts are, with states continuing to have large deficits and the feds continuing to do nothing about it.

Indeed, by ignoring the problem, state and federal governments facilitate the deterioration of public education, making it easier to argue that it is broken beyond repair, or that it can only be repaired through privatization. Since 2008, the private sector has hired about 725,000 new workers, while the public sector has lost almost the same number of jobs (again, see WSWS)—a statistic that is largely due to the divestment of tax dollars from the public sector. Obama, despite receiving early endorsements and massive support from the NEA and AFT, has made no indication that he intends to help struggling school districts.

Many cities are shuttering their schools and selling off their facilities or the operation of their schools to private for-profit education management organizations (EMOs). According to the WSWS, Philadelphia plans to close 36 schools. Detroit has closed dozens of schools over the past few years, with former financial manager Robert Bobb attempting to close half the city’s schools in 2011. Many of the closed schools were sold or rented to private charter school operators. Recently, secret leaked documents revealed that Chicago has been planning to close or consolidate as many as 95 schools, with many of them going to private charter operators. New Orleans already has 70% of its students attending charter schools.

As schools close and teachers are let go, the teachers unions lose members and strength, something they seem unwilling or unable to fight. In fact, the social contract union leaders have made with the bosses to keep their members on the job at all costs (not to mention the no-strike clauses in many of their contracts and state prohibitions against public sector strikes) has effectively stymied the unions and is leading to their own downfall. The laid off teachers, however, are free to sell their labor to the highest bidder—Increasingly nonunionized private charter school operators that pay less and require far more work than the traditional public schools.

The Sky is Not Falling After All: US Schools Rank High Internationally

It is commonly believed that public education in the U.S. is in miserable shape, with terrible teachers causing high dropout rates and worse educational outcomes than our trading partners. There are test scores (PISA) that confirm this, with the U.S. ranking lower than countries like South Korea, Finland, Japan and Hong Kong. And Ed Deformers have glommed onto such data as proof that the system needs a dramatic makeover and use the data to justify everything from privatization schemes to the dismantling of teachers’ unions.

A new analysis of international data by Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution suggests that the U.S. may not be as far behind their counterparts as previously thought, according to U.S.A. Today.

The rankings tend to be given in raw numbers such that countries with statistically indistinguishable scores appear to have different rankings. Thus Hong Kong (607) and Singapore (599) were listed has 1^st and 2^nd place for fourth-grade math scores in 2007. This is misleading, as their scores were virtually indistinguishable statistically. By grouping together in first place, all the other nations would move up in rank.

Loveless examined the scores and rankings more closely and grouped nations together that had statistically indistinguishable scores. By doing so, Hong Kong and Singapore were grouped together as tied for 1^st, while Netherlands (535), Lithuania (530), U.S. (529), Germany (525) and Denmark (523) were grouped together in fifth place.

The Rise and Fall of Arlene Ackerman

Former Philly school Superintendent Arlene Ackerman gave a $7.5 million no-bid contract to cronies at IBS Communications to install surveillance cameras. IBS was given the no-bid contract despite previous work with the district that involved cost overruns 12 times what they had originally estimated.  She then scapegoated underlings for the scandal and squeezed the Philadelphia school board for a $900,000 buyout package to get her to resign and go away.

Now, in a civil-rights lawsuit, John Byars, the school district’s former head procurement officer, is saying Ackerman personally directed the awarding of the IBS contract and tried to pin it on him, according to Philly.com. He is also accusing the district of suspending him and trying to fire him for speaking to the FBI about the matter. Five other administrators were also disciplined in the scandal. Ackerman continues to deny directing anyone to give the contract to IBS.

While four of the six administrators who had been suspended were ultimately allowed back to work, Philly.com reports that Francis X. Dougherty, former deputy chief business officer, has filed papers indicating that he plans to sue for wrongful termination under the state's whistle-blower law. Augustine Pescatore, a School Safety commander who was suspended and allowed back to work filed documents in Court indicating he also plans to sue Ackerman for slander and libel.

Ackermen’s corrupt and autocratic stint in Philadelphia was no mere aberration in an otherwise stellar career. In San Francisco, Ackerman secured herself a $250,000 salary, plus a $2,000-a-month housing allowance and $375,000 severance package, payable even if she quit, which she was forced to do not long after taking over. As superintendent of SFUSD she pretended to clean up the district’s sloppy financial records and the scandals of the Bill Rojas years, while completely missing Trish Bascom’s embezzlement scheme going on right under her nose. This blunder was no doubt due to her obsession with quashing dissent and getting her underlings to toe the line. “I can’t continue to tolerate the dissension,” she said about her SFUSD staff and teachers.  Part of her strategy for reducing dissent was to spend $400,000 a year of district money on a PR firm to put a positive spin on her leadership, money that should have gone to classroom instruction.

Publicly Funded Schools Becoming Things of the Past

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Public education implies that all children will be educated without additional costs to the parents. Of course for this to work, everyone must contribute a little through their taxes, whether or not they have kids.

Prior to the anti-tax revolt of the late 70s and 80s and the budget crises of the past several years, the overwhelming bulk of public education financing came from taxes. However, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, K-12 foundations, PTAs, booster clubs and other groups brought an additional $1.3 billion to California schools in 2007, up from $70 million in 1989.

Charitable fundraising has historically been used for “extras” like supplies and equipment. California Watch says that private donations are now being used to simply to keep schools open by preventing teacher layoffs, hiring librarians, and preserving music and foreign-language classes. Additionally, teachers and parents are being asked more and more to fund clubs, band, theater and other programs through donations and student fundraising activities.

The growing reliance on private donations is not simply shift in how schools are funded. Because affluent schools are able to raise considerably more money (sometimes by several orders of magnitude) than lower income schools, this trend has the potential to vastly increase the existing gap in spending and quality between schools.