Today in Labor History—November 21

Revolte des Canuts - Lyon 1831(public domain)

November 21, 1831 – Silk workers went on strike in Lyon, France. However, the entire city rose in insurrection when the National Guard killed several workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 21, 1863 – Workers across the country were striking and protesting against high prices during the Civil War. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 21, 1870 -- Alexander Berkman was born on this date in Vilna, Russia (Lithuania). One-time lover and life-long comrade of Emma Goldman, Berkman wrote Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, after serving time for attempting to murder Henry Clay Frick, architect of the massacre of striking Homestead/Carnegie Steel workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 21, 1921 – The original Columbine Massacre occurred in Serine, Colorado, with six striking IWW miners slaughtered by state police and company thugs. The police and guards used machine guns against the unarmed miners. Dozens were injured. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 21, 1945 – 200,000 United Auto Workers went on strike against General Motors. (From the Daily Bleed)

Charter School Enrollment Rising Rapidly

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Between the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, the number of students enrolled in charter schools rose by nearly 13%, to just over two million students nationwide, according to a new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. 110 school districts across the nation have at least 10% of their students enrolled in charter schools, 16 more than last year.

New Orleans leads the nation with 70% of its students enrolled in charter schools, the New York Times reported last week. Detroit, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, each have more than 30% of their public school students attending charter schools. New York City saw a 24% jump in charter school enrollment over the past year. California currently has the highest total number of charter schools, according to the WSWS.

The rise of charter schools has come primarily as a result of a highly effective and well-funded PR campaign financed by billionaires like Bill Gates, the Waltons, Eli Broad and others, that has painted the entire traditional public school system as a complete failure and charter schools as their best salvation. They have spent millions of dollars propping up fledgling charters that could not possibly have survived or thrived without private donations. They have bought politicians and initiatives in many states, resulting in laws that facilitate the creation of new charter schools and that defund traditional schools (like NCLB and Parent Trigger laws, which have been used to foist charter schools upon communities). Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers have also jumped into the charter school circus, recognizing the large profits to be made in public education (see here and here).

Proponents have even created their own reality with bogus studies that “prove” that charter schools are far more effective than they actually are. In reality, charter schools are no better than traditional public schools. A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford found that while 17% of charter schools produced better results than neighborhood public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and the rest were no different. Also, many of the studies that have found superior outcomes at charter schools were based on dubious or misinterpreted data.

Furthermore, charter schools are far more segregated than traditional public schools. 70% of black charter school students attend schools with 90-100% minority students, 75% of whom are also black, yet black students make up only one-third of all charter school students. Half of Latino charter students also attend racially isolated minority schools. Charter schools are also segregated by class. While, poor students make up 40% of public school students, they make up only 17% of private religious and 10% of private secular school students. (For more on charter school segregation (see here, here and here.) Additionally, many push out or block special education students and English Language Learners from enrolling. In contrast, traditional public schools must accept all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity or physical or mental ability.

Today in Labor History—November 20

Zumbi dos Palmares bust, Brasilia (image by Elza Fiúza/Agencia Brasil, creative commons)

November 20, 1695 – Zumbí, head of the Quilombo de Palmares, was assassinated on this date. Palmares was the largest and longest lasting Quilombo (community of freed slaves) in Brazil. Estimates range from 11,000 to more than 20,000 inhabitants living in Palmares during its height. The community lasted for more than 100 years. Members of Palmares routinely raided plantations, freeing slaves and brutally slaughtering their masters. Palmares was portrayed in the 1984 film, Quilombo, directed by Carlos Diegues.

Capoiera, or the Dance of War, by Johann Moritz Rugendas (1835)

November 20, 1896 – Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist and the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU), from 1933-1944, was born on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

Ricardo Flores Magon, portrait

 November 20, 1922 – Ricardo Flores Magón died on this date in Leavenworth, prison. Maginm with his brother Enrique, founded and edited the anarchist paper Regeneracion, founded the Partido Liberal de Mexico, organized with the IWW, and launched a short-lived revolution in Baja California, in which IWW members from the U.S. participated. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1936 -- Buenaventura Durutti, anarchist militant, was shot in the lung yesterday, and died this morning. Durutti's body was buried in Barcelona, in a ceremony attended by somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 people. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1946 – Bituminous coal workers went on strike directly against the US government, which had seized all the bituminous coal mines on May 21. The government secured an injunction against the strike, resulting in $3.5 million fine against the UMW. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1968 - The Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia, exploded, killing 78 miners. (From Workday Minnesota)

Obama’s Crushing Student Debt Repayment Scam

The Department of Education recently enacted new rules for Income-Based Repayment (IBR) of student loans. The hallmark of this “reform,” according to the WSWS, is that a small fraction of students will now be able to repay their loans in 20 years instead of 25 and their rates will go down from 15% of their discretionary income to 10%. The change will have no effect on undergraduates and may end up costing more for those who go on to earn graduate degrees if their starting salaries upon graduation are under $33,000 per year.

While tuition has been rising faster than the rate of inflation for the past decade the amount of student aid has been declining. Federal grants dropped 5% over the past year, the first decline in five years. Federal work study fell by 4% to $972 million—the first time it fell below $1 billion in over a decade. The Obama Administration has also implemented cuts to Pell Grants and interest rate subsidies.

Despite declining federal aid for students, need has actually been growing. A new report from the Project on Student Debt suggests that 66% of students must now borrow in order to afford a higher education. Student debt has risen by $303 billion since 2008, while the default rate has increased over 53% over the past several years. This has resulted in a recent series of new laws in some states to curtail recruiting scams at diploma mills (see here).

Obama’s student debt plan is clearly not designed to put any kind of dent in the problems of student indebtedness or defaults. Rather, its main goal is to protect the interests of the banks and investors that profit from student loans. The initial lenders are able to borrow from the Federal Reserve at just over 0%, while charging students anywhere from 3.4% to more than 10%. At the same time, hedge funds have been trading in student loans much like they do with mortgages and profiting handsomely from it.

Today in Labor History—November 19

November 19, 1904 – 6,000 members of the United Garment Workers of America struck at 27 wholesale houses in Chicago, which were then members of the National Wholesale Tailors' Association. (From the Daily Bleed)

Joe Hill

 November 19, 1915 - Joe Hill, IWW organizer and song writer was executed by a Utah firing squad after being convicted of murder on trumped-up charges. His final message from prison was “Don’t mourn, Organize!” His ashes were supposedly sprinkled in every state of the union, except Utah, because he had said, "I don't want to be found dead in Utah." However, it is said that the IWW still keeps a small vial of some of his remaining ashes. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Paul Robeson singing "I Dreamed I Saw Jow Hill"

Today in Labor History—November 18

November 18, 1918 – A major workers' insurrection occurred in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, involving over 6,000 workers and a plot to overthrow the government. (From the Daily Bleed)

Strikers Guarding a Window During the Flint Sit-Down Strike, 1937 (Library of Congress)

 November 18, 1936 - Workers at the General Motors plant in Atlanta engaged in one of the many sit-down strikes that occurred during the organizing waves of the 1930s. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—November 17

November 17, 1785 - The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen was founded on this date in 1785 in a tavern in New York City. The Society, which still exists today, created a library, clubhouse, bank and school for their apprentices, mechanics, tradesmen and their families.. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 17, 1878 -- The maritime strike of 1878-1879 began in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The sailors were supported by miners in New South Wales and by dock workers in the three colonies. (From the Daily Bleed)

Ben Reitman, 1910-1915 (Library of Congress)

 November 17, 1942 – Ben Reitman, hobo organizer, anarchist and one time partner of Emma Goldman, died on this date in 1942. Reitman served as a doctor for hobos and the downtrodden and participated in numerous free speech fights and anarchist causes, getting beaten, tarred and feathered, jailed, and run out of town for his troubles, most notably during the San Diego free speech fight. He also wrote the book, Boxcar Bertha. (From the Daily Bleed)

Victor Serge (public domain)

 November 17, 1947 – Revolutionary and author Victor Serge died on this date in 1947. Serge lived in Paris in the early 20^th century, where he participated in the Bonnot gang and collaborated with Raymond Callemin on the newspaper L’anarchie. He was in Barcelona during their anarchist uprising and contributed to the CNT’s newspaper, “Tierra y Libertad.” He went to Russia in 1918, initially in support of the communists. However, he quickly became disillusioned with the repressive, autocratic rule, criticized the party and was imprisoned. He wrote numerous books, including the classic “Birth of Our Power” and his autobiographical “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.” (From theDaily Bleed)

Idaho Voters Reject Merit Pay, Super Intends to Bring it Back

On November 5, voters rejected free market education initiatives in several states in what many have called a referendum on corporate education reform. These “reforms” are not going away any time soon, however. Their backers are plowing ahead with plans to expand the reforms or reinstate them in places where they lost ground.

In Idaho, for example, voters overturned their “Students Come First” laws, which had imposed merit pay on the state’s teachers for the past year. Immediately after the election, state superintendent Tom Luna jumped into the fray saying he intended to bring back part of his Students Come First package, including merit pay, during the 2013 legislative session.

Regardless of what happens in 2013, teachers who earned merit pay during the previous school year will still receive their merit paychecks by Dec. 15, according to Magic Valley News. Close to 80% of the state’s teachers earned merit bonuses, amounting to $38 million in bonuses.

While this might seem like a high percentage, there were many schools that saw gains in state test scores whose teachers still did not earn bonuses. Twin Falls Superintendent Wiley Dobbs said he wasn’t aware of any teachers at any of the state’s alternative schools who received merit bonuses, despite the many fine teachers who work at these schools.

One of the problems with the rejected law was that it required teachers to meet both state and local goals in order to receive a bonus. The state goals were based on student performance on the Idaho Standards Achievement Tests. Local benchmarks would have varied from district to district and could include factors like graduation rates and attendance. This created an inequitable system that varied widely across the state and relied heavily on factors influenced far more by students’ socioeconomic backgrounds than their teachers’ skill in the classroom.

Today in Labor History—November 16

British Press Gang, 1780 (wiki commons)

November 16, 1747 – The Knowles Riot occurred in Boston, with hundreds of sailors, laborers and free blacks rising up against British Navy Press Gangs. Commodore Knowles routinely had Bostonians kidnapped and forced to work on his ships. Protestors were able to kidnap several of Knowles’ officers, holding them hostage until all Bostonians were freed from his ships. (From theDaily Bleed)

Dostoevsky, 1879 (public domain)

November 16, 1849 -- Russia: Author Fyodor Dostoevsky receives a death sentence for engaging in socialist activities; later commuted to four years hard labor in Siberia. (From the Daily Bleed)

Élisée Reclus (public domain)

 November 16, 1871 -- France: Élisée Reclus is sentenced to transportation for life for his role in the Paris Commune; but, largely at the instance of influential deputations from England, the famed geographer & anarchist had his sentence commuted in January 1872 to perpetual banishment. (From theDaily Bleed)

November 16, 1989 - Six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were assassinated in El Salvador. They were among thousands killed by the military and right-wing death squads for speaking out for economic and social justice. (From Workday Minnesota)

Downsizing For-Profit Colleges

For-profit college giant Career Education Corporation (CEC) recently announced that it will close 23 of its 90 campuses, according to the Bay Citizen. The move comes in response to a $33 million decline in revenue and 23% drop in new student enrollment this quarter and will result in the loss of 900 jobs. Other for-profit colleges have also announced downsizing in response to declining revenues, including University of Phoenix and Corinthian.

CEC has not yet stated which of its 6 California campuses will be closed. CEC owns the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and the Cordon Rouge culinary schools in Southern California, as well as the International Academy of Design and Technology in Sacramento.

According to Kevin Kinser, professor of higher education policy at the University at Albany, SUNY, the wave of closures and downsizing at for-profit colleges is due in part to tighter regulation of the for-profit education sector. For example the U.S. Department of Education imposed a ban on incentive pay for recruiters last year. This has undermined these colleges’ business model which is based on admitting as many students as possible, charging them exorbitant tuition and sidling them with massive student debt.

Additionally, many for-profit colleges, including CEC, have recently gotten in trouble with accreditors for inflating job placement rates for their graduates. When CEC released its new accurate rates, most of its campuses had rates below the 65% minimum required by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. Once a school loses its accreditation, its diplomas become less credible and students are less likely to enroll.

Another factor is that some schools are losing access to state or federal Grants because too many of their students are defaulting on their loans. Under a new law in California, for example, a school’s loan default rate must be 15.5% or lower. As a result of the new law, the International Academy of Design & Technology in Sacramento lost eligibility for Cal Grants this fall because 20% of student borrowers were defaulting. The Academy of Arts College, in San Francisco, also lost Cal Grant eligibility this year. There were 154 institutions [PDF] (mostly for-profit) that were booted from the program this fall. This has likely contributed to the declining enrollment at these schools since few students can afford their expensive tuition without grants and loans.

None of this should be considered a sign that the for-profit college industry is going away. For-profit colleges are a $25 billion a year industry, with an average profit margin of 19.7%, according to the WSWS. Their CEOs earned an average of $7 million last year. Even with the new laws, it will continue to be a highly profitable sector. What we are actually witnessing here is their attempt to maximize profits in the face of a few unfavorable lawsuits and legislative changes.