California Democratic Party “Rejects” Corporate Reform Agenda

Democrats in the California state legislature approved Resolution 13-04.47 last week—also known as “SUPPORTING CALIFORNIA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND DISPELLING THE CORPORATE “REFORM” AGENDA.” The resolution, sponsored (and probably written) by the California Teachers Association (CTA), California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and the California Faculty Association (CFA), the three largest unions representing teachers and university professors in the state, specifically criticizes two corporate reform organizations—Democrats for Education Reform (DfER) and Students First (Michelle’s Rhee’s organization)—because they

“see public schools as potential profit centers and children as measureable commodities . . . [support dismantling] free public education . . . and replace it with company run charter schools, non-credentialed teachers and unproven untested so called ‘reforms.”

However, the resolution makes no concrete commitment to do anything to actually curtail the growing power of billionaire philanthropists, investors and hedge fund managers, let alone increase funding for public education, protect teachers’ job security and academic freedom, or even improve learning outcomes for students. It merely “reaffirms” the Democratic Party’s

“commitment to free accessible public schools for all which offer a fair, substantive opportunity to learn with educators who have the right to be represented by their union, bargain collectively and have a voice in the policies which affect their schools, classrooms and their students.”

This resolution might be encouraging if it had any teeth, or even any credibility. However, the Democratic party (and the teachers unions) have continually watched idly (and in many cases encouraged) all the things they criticize in the resolution, including the growth of private, for-profit charter schools and online, digital and distance learning schemes; the erosion of teacher’s collective bargaining rights and the deterioration of student learning opportunities. Even the criticism that the reformists are reducing children to mere commodities rings hollow when virtually every politician, regardless of party (as well as most teacher and student advocates), has been calling for more STEM graduates, and for all students to graduate career- or college-ready—which is to say all students have a price on their heads and a value to employers. Never mind that there is currently a glut of STEM graduates and thousands of jobless science PhDs, while pretty much the only people getting jobs at all are those willing to accept low wage work in the service sector. Children are a commodity, and the less employers have to pay to educate them now, the more they save on their taxes and the less they’ll have to pay to employ them later.

The implication that the “reformists” are solely responsible for dismantling public education is also an obfuscation of the facts. California, which ranked 46^th in per pupil spending in 2010-2011, spent $2,856 less per student than the rest of the U.S. and would have had to increase education spending by $17.3 billion to reach parity with the rest of the country (less than the $20 billion the state had slashed from its education budget between 2008 and 2011). California also fell to 50^th in ratio of students per teacher and per librarian and 49^th in ratio of students per counselor.

During the past decade the gap in per pupil spending between California and the rest of the nation grew each year, yet most of this was the result of cuts to state funding (often bipartisan), not because of policies of the reformists.  This has been exacerbated by California’s increasing reliance on state taxes, rather than local property taxes—a consequence of Proposition 13, which passed in 1978, decades before Students First or DfER were even gleams in the reformists’ eyes. Prop 13 allowed businesses and wealthy homeowners to keep their property tax rates at 1978 levels, thus reducing revenues available for schools and shifting more of the burden onto the state. Prior to Prop 13, California’s schools received 53.7% of their funding from local property taxes and only 35.3% from the state. By 2010-1, they received only 29.8% from local taxes and 56.8% from the state. (Data from the California Budget Project)

If the Democrats truly cared about providing quality “free accessible public schools for all,” they could dramatically increase revenues by raising taxes on the wealthy and their businesses, increasing royalties on oil extraction (California is currently the 3^rd largest onshore producer of oil in the U.S., yet it is the only oil producer with no severance tax and has a far lower overall tax rate for its oil producers than either Texas or Alaska), taxing marijuana sales and abolishing the death penalty and Three Strikes law. Democrats currently hold a super majority in both houses of the state legislature, giving them the power to raise taxes and override the governor’s veto, the first time they have had this power in 120 years. Instead, they gave us Prop 30, which imposes an infinitesimal tax increase on the wealthy and increases the regressive sales tax (which disproportionately affects lower income people), but barely holds education funding steady, thus maintaining California’s status at the bottom in per pupil spending (and restoring none of the $20 billion the schools lost over the past few years).

They could also reverse Prop 13 and dramatically raise the portion of education funding coming from local property taxes, thus reducing schools’ current dependence on the whims of state legislators and greed of the state’s business owners. Instead, they have made another nonbinding resolution and even this only proposes closing one of the initiative’s loopholes. If the lawmakers were to convert their Prop 13 resolution into law (something they so far have not attempted), property taxes on businesses would be reassessed “regularly” instead of being locked into their 1978 values. While this would certainly increase revenues, it still allows millionaires to maintain artificially low tax rates on their multiple multi-million dollar homes.

The notion that Democrats are opposed to privatization and the influence of millionaires is also patently false. Governor Jerry Brown, arguably the head Democrat in the state, created two of his own charter schools in Oakland when he was mayor there and used his powers as mayor to divert city staff members to charter school duty. Both charters were heavily funded by wealthy donors. Furthermore, Prop 30, which was pushed by Brown, initially permitted the funneling of tax dollars away from the free public K-12 system and into the pockets of private charter schools. He also proposed killing California’s transitional kindergarten program, which helps low income children catch up to their affluent peers by the time the reach kindergarten.

The resolution is nothing more than window dressing, an attempt by the unions to make their buddies in the Democratic Party appear to be pro-union, pro-teacher, and pro-education. The unions need this window dressing because they have done virtually nothing to resist the reform agenda. For example, when New York, Illinois and Los Angeles imposed Value Added Measures as part of their teacher evaluation plans, the unions whined and complained, but eventually rolled over and accepted it without a real fight. They argued that they couldn’t strike because it had been imposed by state law, in Illinois and New York, or by court order, in Los Angeles. 

This is ridiculous and pathetic on several levels. First, when the state or courts dictate how teachers are evaluated—something that has historically been negotiated between the teachers’ unions and their school districts—they are shredding teachers’ collective bargaining rights. The unions have accepted this attack on collective bargaining in the name of democracy (or, more precisely, in order to not offend their patrons in the Democratic Party). Second, workers have a long history of striking despite injunctions, vigilantes, police violence and even armed suppression by the military or national guards, risking beatings, imprisonment, deportation and death. Indeed, most strikes were illegal during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The 1936-7 Flint Sit-Down Strike was declared illegal. Sympathy strikes and General Strikes were made illegal in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley Act. The 1981 PATCO strike was declared illegal by President Reagan, resulting in the mass firing of air traffic controllers. Many of the strikes and protests in support of the 8-hour work day were declared illegal. Many of the Civil Rights, women’s rights, gay rights and anti-war marches were declared illegal.

Ultimately, if teachers and other workers want to retain their right to collective bargaining, let alone improve their working and living conditions, they need to be willing to engage in strikes and other forms of collective action, even if it sometimes involves civil disobedience. The same is true for changing the tax structure, increasing education funding, and keeping public education under the control of local communities rather than corporate boardrooms.

Let Them Eat Ballots: Unions’ Obsession With Political Action

California’s Proposition 32, on the November ballot, has been dubbed the Stop Special Interests initiative. In reality, it is targeted at the state’s unions, with the goal of preventing them from using payroll deductions to fund their political campaigns and lobbying. The bill would have virtually no effect on private businesses or corporate lobbying, as private businesses do not raise political funds through payroll deductions.

The campaign in support of 32, not surprisingly, has been heavily funded by corporate interests that hope to stifle unions’ political involvement, which is already miniscule compared with theirs. Yet even their small involvement in politics is unacceptable to the wealthy, who would like to see the unions, as well as any workplace and environmental protections, disappear completely.

One of the major funders of Prop 32 is the American Future Fund, a Super PAC affiliated with the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove, which recently contributed $4 million from secret donors to the campaign. Prop 32 is also backed by Democrats for Education Reform (DfER), an anti-union and anti-teacher organization that is funded by hedge fund managers and Wall Street brokers.

While the backers of 32 have been very deceptive in their promotion of this legislation, inaccurately suggesting that the bill would stop all special interests from influencing politics, the unions themselves have engaged in a deceptive, top down and undemocratic campaign to defend themselves. For example, representatives of the California Teachers Association (CTA) have told members the bill would end collective bargaining rights for them. However, Prop 32 says nothing about unions’ right to collectively bargain and if it passes it would have no direct effect on collective bargaining. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the bill’s backers would like to end collective bargaining, and that passage of the bill would facilitate this goal by stifling unions’ ability to lobby in defense of collective bargaining.

It is also probably safe to assume that most union members would oppose 32 if educated about it and that they would support their unions’ efforts to resist it. However, the CTA’s decision to prioritize the anti-32 campaign (and the pro-30 tax increase campaign) over virtually all other activities was essentially made from the top-down, with very little input from the rank and file. This approach has the potential to alienate and anger members, rather than encourage their support and participation.

Furthermore, the way the CTA engaged the locals to participate in their campaigns has been autocratic and coercive. In my local, for example, our CTA representative told us we “had to” participate in the CTA activities around these two initiatives and we “did not” have a choice in the matter. To make matters worse, we were expected to carry out some of these activities during the same week we had to vote on a new contract, adding an unnecessary degree of confusion, anxiety and frustration to our members, who were already overburdened with their normal teaching responsibilities, and to our organizers and representatives responsible for carrying out these two unrelated union duties.

Of course it will be devastating to students and teachers if 30 loses and 32 wins. K12 and higher education will lose $6 billion in funding, while the corporate education reform movement will gain considerably more political power to further gut public education. Yet one the reasons why corporate interests have gained so much political power in recent years is that unions have relinquished their most powerful weapon—direct action—in favor of going toe to toe with the wealthy in the political arena. Even without Citizens United, corporations were able to outspend unions by large margins. And even without outspending them, policy will almost always come down in favor of the wealthy and their businesses because the politicians are members of the same class and their economic interests lie more with their corporate friends and allies than with the rest of us.

The unions argue that their funding of political campaigns and lobbying have led to important gains for teachers and this is partly true. However, this does not mean that political action is the only or even most effective tactic. And despite these gains, real wages and benefits have been declining steadily for decades. Class sizes have been soaring. Programs continue to be cut. Working hours have increased. And perhaps most devastating to teachers’ living conditions, the unions have completely failed to do anything substantive about rising health care costs, with the result that workers must pay more and more out of pocket for health coverage each year, a cost that further erodes take home pay.

Workers’ real power lies in their ability to withhold their labor, and this is only effective when workers are well-educated and organized. Ironically, a well-organized and educated membership can also easily be mobilized to engage in canvassing, phone banking, letter writing, fundraising and other political activities, potentially with greater effectiveness than can be achieved through union-hired lobbyists and campaign managers. However, the ultimate goal should always be job actions, including General Strikes, as these have the greatest potential to force bosses and politicians to buckle to workers’ demands. This sort of organizing  needs to be initiated from the bottom up and, to be effective, must empower workers, not make them feel like minions of their unions.

DfER Defiles the Holy Name of Democrats

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Democrats for Education Reform (DfER) is a veritable who’s who of Education Deformers, privatizers, vultures and union busters. In California the group includes Gloria Romero, an anti-teacher Democratic state legislator, as well as Ben Austin, a leader of the astroturf organization Parent Revolution.  One of DfER’s primary objectives is to get pro-charter school, anti-teachers’ union officials elected to office.

Eric Bauman, chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, says the group’s name sows confusion and implies Democratic Party support for DfER-backed candidates when none exists. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Bauman sent a letter to DfER accusing it of violating California’s election code and ordering it to "cease and desist" its "unlawful" use of the word "Democrat."

Bauman said his fight was ". . .about preventing voters from being fooled."

However, the Democratic Party itself is engaged in the much larger deception of suggesting that it is somehow defending Public Education when many of its members have supported and promoted the same agenda as DfER.

It is true the DfER is all about gutting teachers’ unions, tenure and due process rights, as well as promoting charter schools, vouchers and other privatization schemes. But what has the Democratic Party done for education lately? Gov. Brown is currently extorting the public by threatening to slash another $5-6 billion from K-12 education if it does not support his tax increase this November, a tax increase that would temporarily increase taxes on the wealthy, while also imposing a regressive sales tax increase that would disproportionately harm lower income residents.

The Democrats did virtually nothing to halt the looting of $20 billion from K-12 education over the past four years. They have sat idly by as class sizes have mushroomed, while nurses, counselors, librarians and course offerings have been decimated. They have worked side by side with Democratic Gov. Brown to slash teachers’ pensions. They willingly participated in the corporate sellouts known at Race to the Top RttT, Common Core Standards (CCS) and NCLB.

The Times’ article framed the situation as turf war between various factions in the Democratic Party. And to some extent they were right. However, what is most unpalatable about DfER to Democratic Party hacks is not its disingenuous adoption of the name “Democrat,” but its presumptuous challenge to the teachers unions’ status as the preeminent non-corporate donors to Democratic Party candidates.

However, from the perspective of teachers, students and those who care about the quality of education in California, DfER’s party affiliations are irrelevant. DfER, like many of its allies on both sides of the aisle, still wants greater privatization and weaker unions and job protections, and it wants these things not because they will help children (they won’t), but because they will help business.

Obama Chooses Charter School Shill as His California Spokeswoman

According to the Times, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) is irate over Obama’s decision to choose a Parent Revolution executive as his spokeswoman in California and has even threatened to back out of his reelection campaign if he doesn’t fire her.

The Times portrayed the CFT’s response as petty Party politics, suggesting that the CFT was simply refusing to work with someone it didn’t like. Gloria Romero went even further, calling it “threatening” and “bullying,” thus lending credence to the argument that it is a turf war between Democratic Party factions.

Yet one must remember that Parent Revolution’s main purpose is to rally parents to demand that their neighborhood schools be turned over to Educational Management Organizations (EMOs) and private charter school operators, thus abolishing existing teacher contracts and union protections and reducing parental and community control by allowing management decisions to be made behind closed doors by EMO board members.

Hence, Obama’s California spokeswoman is not just a shill for the charter school and privatization movements, but further evidence of his general hostility toward teachers’ unions and K-12 education. Considering his extortionist Race to the Top competitive grants program, and his support for increasing privatization through charter schools and Common Core Standards, teachers should NOT be supporting his campaign, regardless of his choice for California spokesperson. Obama, in practice, as well as intent, has been as antagonistic toward public education and teachers as the Bush Administration.

This brings us back to the question of Party factionalism versus Party loyalty to Capital. If Obama, DfER and so many other prominent Democrats are supporting vouchers, charter schools, CCS, RttT, evaluation reform, and other questionable, unproven, yet highly profitable changes to public education, it would seem reasonable to presume that they are in it for the money, just like their Republican counterparts. That is to say, they support these “reforms” because they are good for business.

The only significant difference between overtly anti-union Democrats like Gloria Romero and ostensibly pro-union Democrats like Jerry Brown is their rhetoric and their funding streams. Romero’s group, DfER, takes in much of its funding from anti-teacher philanthropies, while Brown takes in much of his funding from the teachers’ unions. In the end, they both are bad for teachers and for students.