Today in Labor History—December 10

Portrait of Spies, prior to his execution on trumped up murder charges

December 10, 1865 – August Spies, anarchist labor organizer and Haymarket martyr was born on this date. Spies once said, "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."(From the Daily Bleed)

December 10, 1906 – The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) launched the first sit-down strike in the U.S. at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. Their method was later adopted by the labor movement in the 1930s, with the Flint Sit-Down Strike being the most well-known.

December 10, 2006--Augusto Pinochet, long-time dictator of Chile, who massacred thousands of labor activists, radicals and opposition members, died on this date. 

Today in Labor History—December 9

Kropotkin, c1900 (from Wikipedia, public domain)

December 9, 1842 – Prince Peter Kropotkin, geographer and anarchist communist, was born on this date in Moscow. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 9, 1869 – The Knights of Labor was founded on this date in Philadelphia as a secret society open to all members of the producing classes except "parasites" like stockbrokers, gamblers and lawyers. The Knights were one of the most important labor organizations of the late 1800s, reaching a membership of 700,000 by 1886. While other unions were fighting for a 10-hour work day, the Knights were demanding a 8-hour day, as well as an end to child and convict labor. They were also one of the earliest labor organizations to accept blacks and women. Yet they supported the Chinese Exclusion Act and participated in anti-Chinese riots. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

December 9, 1953 – General Electric announced that it would fire all Communist employees.

December 9, 1990 - Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity trade union, was elected president of Poland, demonstrating that even a labor agitator can become a member of the ruling elite, so long as he promotes free market capitalism. (It doesn’t hurt if he is also a rabid anti-communist, anti-abortionist, homophobic nationalist).

Today in Labor History—December 8

December 8, 1886 - The American Federation of Labor was organized in Columbus, Ohio, growing out of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, which started in 1881 in Pittsburgh. From its very beginning, the AFL represented nearly half a million workers, fighting for the eight-hour workday, an end to child labor and compensation for workers injured on the job. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—December 7

Antonio Maceo (Wikipedia, public domain)

December 7, 1896 – Antonio Maceo (1848-1896), the "Titan of Bronze" Cuban revolutionary leader, died from wounds after 27 fights in 92 days. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 7, 1896 - The International Union of Operating Engineers was founded. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 7, 1905 – A general uprising began on this date, collapsing 23 days later, with over 1,000 dead. More than 150,000 workers participated in aGeneral Strike as part of the uprising. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 7, 1918 – 100,000 textile workers went on strike in Lancashire, England. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 7, 1928 – Noam Chomsky was born on this date in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (from the Daily Bleed).

December 7, 1941 - Pearl Harbor was attacked, leading to the U.S. entry into World War II and the second mass slaughter of millions of working people to protect the interests of capital.

(From Workday Minnesota)

December 7, 1949 – The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions was founded, London. (from the Daily Bleed).

December 7, 1995 – Up to 1.75 million striking French workers demonstrated in marches that shut down the country as part of a series of General Strikesagainst government cutbacks & global exploitation of workers. (from the Daily Bleed).

December 7, 2010--Julian Assange was arrested in London and the U.S. declared war on Wikileaks.(from the Daily Bleed).

Bill to Undermine Teacher Due Process Revived in California State Legislature

California state senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) has reintroduced legislation that is supposed to speed up the dismissal of teachers for gross misconduct, the Los Angeles Times reported this week. The new legislation, SB 10, will be very similar to a failed bill advanced last year by Padilla. The text of the bill was not available as of Monday.

In the wake of LAUSD’s sex abuse scandal (see here, here and here), it is understandable that the public would want a more efficient and effective process for removing child molesters from the schools. However, the problems in LAUSD were not the result of ineffective disciplinary rules. Rather, the school district was asleep at the wheel, routinely ignoring parental complaints, losing personnel records, and not doing the necessary investigative work when it did respond to complaints. Several parents are currently suing the district for its incompetence in handling the Miramonte case.

According to an audit released last week, LAUSD frequently failed to report teacher misconduct to state Commission on Teacher Credentialing authorities and took too long to investigate abuse allegations. In one case, a principal took eight months to notify an employee after it had concluded its investigation. Overall, the audit found that LAUSD failed to promptly notify state authorities about 144 misconduct cases. Some of the cases were report as much as three years after the allegations were first made.

Padilla’s previous attempt at “improving” the disciplinary process would have done nothing to make school districts more accountable, more effective at record keeping or better at their internal investigations. It would, however, have significantly reduced due process for teachers, by taking the final disciplinary decisions away from an objective state body and placing them in the hands of local school districts, which are often biased against their own teachers and which have a strong stake in controlling public perception, even at the expense of teachers’ due process rights. LAUSD demonstrated this last year when it fired the entire staff at Miramonte Elementary, even though only two of its teachers had been accused of abuse.

The state audit concluded that the lengthy and expensive dismissal process for teachers in California contributes to districts making settlement agreements with them instead of fully investigating and disciplining them. This is because certificated employees (i.e., teachers) who appeal their dismissals are currently entitled to a hearing before the Commission of Professional Competence (CPC). One of the goals of the Padilla legislation is to reduce settlements by speeding up the dismissal process, in part by ending teachers’ rights to a hearing before the CPC.

While it is certainly desirable to get molesters out of the classroom as quickly as possible, the right to an appeal is a necessary due process right, as innocent teachers are sometimes arbitrarily or vindictively accused of misconduct by administrators, parents and students. Ending this right will do nothing to protect children, as districts already have the right, as well as the legal obligation, to immediately remove accused abusers from the classroom, even while investigations are pending. While the new legislation would do nothing to expedite the removal of molesters from the classroom, it would reduce the amount of time it takes from the end of the investigation until a teacher is dismissed, thereby saving districts money that would have been spent housing teachers in “rubber” rooms or paying them salaries during the appeals process.

Today in Labor History—December 6

December 6, 1810 – Miguel Hidalgo abolished slavery in Mexico. (From theDaily Bleed)

Colored National Labor Convention, Harpers 1869 (pub. dom.)

December 6, 1865 – The U.S., always the backwards, 3^rd world nation, followed Mexico’s lead 55 years later by ratifying the 13th amendment and abolishing [chattel] slavery. Prisoners could (and can still) be forced to work without wages, while all workers were (and still are) subject to wage slavery. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 6, 1869 – The first national black labor group, the Colored National Labor Convention, met for the first time in Washington, DC. Roughly 214 delegates attended, sending a petition to Congress requesting direct intervention in the South by subdividing the public lands into forty-acre farms and providing low-interest loans to black farmers. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 6, 1888 - Heywood Broun, cofounder of The Newspaper Guild, was born in New York City. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 6, 1889 – The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 6, 1907 – 361 coal workers were killed in West Virginia's Marion County when a mine explosed at the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah. It was the worst mining disaster in American history.

December 6, 1928 – The "Ciénaga Slaughter" occurred in Columbia. After breaking a mass strike in the banana region in November, National Army troops fired on a peaceful rally of thousands of strikers, killing over one thousand workers.

December 6, 1933 – Dorothy Day cofounded the Catholic Worker newspaper, New York City

December 6, 1965 – Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist, died on this date. Pesotta was the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU) from 1933-1944. She participated in a 10-year struggle to organize workers, including a turf war with a communist faction.  

December 6, 1984 – Children picketed the Mendiola Bridge in Manila, Philippines, demanding the release of their parents, who were being held as political prisoners by the U.S.-supported Marcos regime.

California Near Bottom, Texas Near Top in Graduation Rates—And Your Point Is?

The U.S. Department of Education has just published state-by-state high school graduation rates that are, for the first time ever, based on uniform accounting measures, according to the Los Angeles Times. California ranked 32nd in overall high school graduation rates for the 2010-2011 school year (tied with Washington, Utah and West Virginia), with only 76% of its high school students graduating on time. Iowa had the highest graduation rate, 88%, followed by Wisconsin and Vermont at 87%. Texas and Tennessee were tied for fourth with Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire and North Dakota, with a rate of 86%.

While California was one of ten states with worse graduation rates in 2009 than in 2002 (others were Nevada, Connecticut, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nebraska, Arkansas, New Jersey and Rhode Island), the graduation rate between 1998 and 2008 actually climbed from 67.5% to 73%, according to a report in Thoughts on Public Education (TOPED). The TOPED article points out that in 2005 the state’s graduation rate was 78.1% and then suddenly dropped to 62.7% in 2007 and then was back up to 73% in 2008, suggesting that accounting methods, rather than pedagogy was at play. One notable factor that likely contributed to the drop between 2005 and 2007 was the implementation of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) in 2006 as a new graduation requirement.

The TOPED article also notes that the U.S. Department of Education has used three different formulas for calculating completion rates in recent years and that all were flawed and skewed by politics. The most recent data is being touted by the Dept. of Ed as the most consistent and reliable to date, as it relies on the same metric from state to state rather than the previous methods which relied on self-reporting data from each state that were calculated using a variety of different methods.

The new method uses a 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which is based on the number of students who graduate in four years with a regular high school diploma (in contrast to a GED) divided by the number of students who form the adjusted cohort for the graduating class. Put more simply: the number of students graduating in four years divided by the number of students who entered high school as 9^th graders. The cohort is adjusted by adding students who transfer into the cohort and subtracting those who transfer out, emigrate out of the country or die.

This still leaves considerable wiggle room for states to game the system. States can boost their graduation rates by having easier exit exams (or none at all) and fewer graduation requirements. There are also numerous ways states can also subtract out students who would be likely to drop out, thus increasing the percentage of students graduating. The Texas Tribune reports that school officials in that state have reported student withdrawals using more than twelve different “leaver” codes, several of which allow students to not be counted toward the state’s graduation rate. For example, students who are removed from public school to be home schooled are no longer counted toward the four-year graduation rate.

This is not a trivial point as Texas has both an unexpectedly high graduation rate and a documented history of cheating. The majority of states with high graduation rates (80% and above) have relatively low childhood poverty rates (less than 20%), though Texas has both a high graduation rate (86%) and a high childhood poverty rate of 27%, according to data from Kids Count. In 2006, a study by Harvard, UT Austin and Rice University determined that Texas was inflating its graduation numbers by allowing districts to not count students who left school for a wide variety of reasons. After this report became publicized, the state began using the federal definition, which still allows them not count student who leave school for a variety of reasons.

It Might Be Fascist, But At Least The Kids Are On Time

Proponents credit Texas’ creativity and innovation for its four-year rise in graduation rates, particularly its emphasis on accountability. One of these “innovations” has been the adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for students by many of the state’s school districts. The RFID tags allow schools to monitor students’ every move and quickly pinpoint whether or not they are in class. This can lead to quicker and more accurate identification of truancy, one factor that contributes to students dropping out. The plan was covered by Wired's Threat Level blog, and has garnered increasing attention in light of a lawsuit by a student who was suspended for refusing to carry her RFID tag.

While the RFID tags may lead to more efficient reporting and improved attendance, resulting in increased revenue for schools that are funded based on average daily attendance (ADA), the RFID tags are unquestionably an invasion of privacy. They allow administrators to know how often students go to the restroom and how long they spend there. They also allow administrators to know how often and how long children meet with counselors or school safety advocates, meetings that are supposed to be privileged and confidential. This could cause some students to avoid emotional assistance or counsel when needed. Perhaps the most insidious and oppressive aspect of the use of RFID tags in school is that it conditions children to accept a world in which surveillance, social control and a lack of privacy and civil liberties are the norm.

What is the Significance of the New DOE Graduation Statistics?

The new federal formula for calculating high school graduation rates was intended to make graduation data collection uniform from state to state so that valid comparisons could be made. However, because the new formula still allows states to define for themselves what counts as a “drop out” or a “leaver,” and to create their own graduation requirements, valid comparisons are not possible.

The primary reason why graduation rates are even in the national spotlight is because of the general hysteria about our “failing schools”—a myth (or at least a gross exaggeration) that has been used by free market education “reformers” to justify the privatization of public education.

In reality, graduation rates have been steadily climbing across the nation, and they have been doing so for the past 140 years. In 1870, the first year in which records were kept, only 2% of students graduated from high school. By 1940, half of all students were graduating from high school. By 1969, 77% of students were earning diplomas. Since then, there have declines and rises in the graduation rate, with a general rising trend over the last decade.

Those who worry about graduation rates seldom look at the actual reasons why students drop out. In the 1940s and 1950s, many students were dropping out to enter the work force, raise families or join the military. Poverty has also played a large role, with lower income children entering school far behind their more affluent peers in pre-reading and other academic skills (see here and here). This gap grows over time as they have less access to enriching extracurricular and summer activities and increases the chances that they will drop out of school. Anti-poverty programs in the 1960s helped mitigate this to some extent, but childhood poverty rates began to rise again during the Reagan years and this likely contributed to the declines in graduation rates seen in the 1990s.

Today in Labor History—December 5

December 5, 1798—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was recruited to run a new orphanage in the Swiss town of Stans, after the French sacked the town, leaving many children without families or homes. This would be Pestalozzi’s first major foray into education. Pestalozzi would go on to become a major influence on later pedagogues like Friedrich Froebel (creator of the first kindergartens) and Francisco Ferrer (founder of the first Modern Schools).

December 5, 1912 – General Strikes occurred in both Germany and the U.S. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 5, 1944 – A wildcat strike occurred at the Dodge truck plant in Detroit, Michigan—one of many "illegal" wartime strikes. (from the Daily Bleed)

December 5, 1955 - The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) merged into a single mega-union—the AFL-CIO, ending a 20-year schism in the American trade union movement. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 5, 2008--Wall Street bankers received a gift from the taxpayers of $1.2 trillion in secret loans (on top of the $700 billion in TARP funds they already received). (from the Daily Bleed)

Michigan's Education Coup Attempt

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

On November 6, Michigan voters repealed Public Act 4, allowing Detroit school board to reclaim control over 15 “failing” local schools from the short-lived Education Achievement Authority. Within days of the election, GOP lawmakers introduced a bill into the Michigan House to codify the EAA into state law, in an attempt to nullify the November election results.

Advocates for the EAA argue that “real” education reform takes five to seven years to show success, according to the Detroit News, and thus the EAA should be allowed to continue, despite voters’ wishes. In reality, there is no consensus about what “real” reform even means, let alone any evidence that reforms share a five to seven year timeframe. Nevertheless, if the EAA were allowed to continue its control over these schools, we would likely never know if they “improved,” since the new legislation would exempt EAA students from the state exams that are used to compare schools and judge their success.

The EAA was a corporate coup that usurped local control of 15 Detroit schools from parents and the community and handed it over to an unaccountable cabal of business leaders. The new legislation not only keeps the schools out of the jurisdiction of Detroit Public Schools, it also allows the EAA to work outside the authority of the state superintendent and elected state school board. It would also be permitted to take over hundreds of other low performing schools throughout the state, as well as many that are not low performing, potentially making the EAA the largest school district in the state.

The EAA was never really about improving educational outcomes for low income students, as proponents have argued. Rather, it is about transferring tax dollars into the hands of private education profiteers. The agency was described by its chancellor, John Covington, as a “public body corporate,” according to an article in Counter Punch, which describes the EAA as a “for-profit” vulture seeking to take over financial control of the 50,000-student, predominantly poor and black school district. The EAA was created in 2011 as a joint venture between Eastern Michigan University’s board of regents and DPS, with the support of Gov. Rick Snyder, who hired a former GM executive to manage it. (It should be pointed out that soon after Covington left his former district, Kansas City, the district lost its accreditation). 

The EAA funnels public funds into the hands of private corporations by outsourcing many of its education services, including food concessions and maintenance. It can also profit by leasing or selling unused school buildings to private charter schools. The curriculum is heavily based on canned computer lessons purchased from Agilix and School Improvement Network, the Huffington Post reports. Each child gets an individualized learning plan ostensibly tailored to his or her needs. However, these plans are tied to the computer lessons, which students must master before advancing to the next level. Thus students are tied to their computers and the digital curriculum, while the companies that produce the curriculum are guaranteed long-term customers.

Supporters argue that the curriculum and pedagogy are “student-centered,” which is a catchy edu-babble way of saying it is superior to other pedagogies. One EAA teacher even invoked Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, suggesting that the EAA digital curriculum was a positive move away from the didactic, “banking” model of traditional public schools, according to the Counter Punch piece.

Of course this is completely absurd. While the curriculum may in fact be adaptable to the needs of each individual student, it also isolates students from their peers and denies them the social aspects of learning. Placing children in front of computers for hours at a time is not only unhealthy physically; it also undermines their development of communication and collaborative skills. But it may help them adapt more easily to a future career in an office cubicle.

The EAA’s digital pedagogy is just another form of “blended learning,” one of the many trendy national “reforms” that undermine the quality of education and the integrity of the teaching profession in order to transfer public education revenues to the private sector while weakening the public sector unions. With a uniform curriculum created by outsiders and imposed on all students, there is no longer a need for skilled, credentialed teachers. A warm body will suffice—somebody who can take attendance, make sure kids stay on task, and send them to the office when they misbehave.

The EAA’s assault on teachers goes well beyond the deskilling of the teaching profession. EAA teachers have been stripped of their collective bargaining rights and they are paid less than their peers in DPS. The EAA is also forcing them to pay for 40% of their own medical benefits, while depriving them of pensions, according to the Detroit Free Press. They are also required to work 40 more days than their colleagues in DPS.

Teachers Struggles Around the World

Croatia has been cutting its spending in order to close its deficit and improve its credit rating as it prepares to enter the European Union. It has been doing this by slashing public services like education and healthcare. In response, teachers and nurses have been striking against government plans to cut their pay. 70% of Croatia’s education workforce took part in a strike last Thursday, according to the Teacher Solidarity website.

In the German state of Saxony, teachers have begun a series of “warning” strikes for “equitable education funding” (also from the Teacher Solidarity website). More than 20,000 people (75% of Saxony’s education workers) took part in a November 16^th strike, with thousands participating in rallies in Leipzig, Dresden and other cities. One of the strikers’ demands is a shorter work week for older teachers to ease their workload and provide more openings for younger teachers, who make up a minority of Saxony’s teaching staff.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, teachers have been participating in work-to-rule actions every Thursday in an attempt to roll back concessions imposed on them by their governor two years ago (from Labor Notes). The 2011 contract, which expires in 2013, included cuts to their pay and benefits. Their union negotiated a compromise contract, which included performance pay, evaluation reforms and a two-tiered compensation system for new hires. Not surprisingly, the teachers voted this contract down.

The teachers are arriving just before classes start and leaving immediately at the end of classes, temporarily ending after school tutoring, club supervision, lesson planning and grading papers. In lieu of their normal unpaid labor before and after school, the teachers have waving signs to passersby to promote their cause. They are hoping to bring up wages (starting salaries for Hawaiian teachers are only $31,000) and resist pressure to accept performance pay.

As in many states, Hawaiian teachers are barred from striking until after negotiations have resulted in impasse. Rather than waiting until then, when it would be harder to mobilize teachers, as well as public support, they have begun their protests and outreach early. So far, teachers are saying that students and parents are supporting their actions. The key will be to maintain both high participation rates in their actions, as well as public support, until their demands are met.