Teachers and parents fight NYC cuts

[Hannah Bell]

LAYOFF THREATS, a wage freeze and slashed school budgets have spurred teachers, parents and community activists in New York City to picket and protest. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has called for a mass rally June 16 to oppose Mayor Michael Bloomberg's on-and-off threat to lay off 4,400 teachers. Bloomberg announced June 2 that he would take layoffs off the table, but instead impose a pay freeze.

Two days later, Bloomberg backpedaled, saying that he was still "up in the air" about teacher layoffs, owing to a likely $600 million gap in federal funds for the city's Medicaid budget. In any case, the mayor still plans to make deep cuts into school budgets. Meanwhile, according to the New York Daily News, "45 non-school bureaucrats and managers got up to 14 percent raises just weeks before the freeze in teacher salaries. Along with increases for five new deputy chancellors, the raises will cost the agency more than $800,000."

IN RESPONSE, a grassroots coalition of teachers, parents and students participated in a citywide day of protest on June 4 "to demand Mayor Bloomberg prioritize public school spending and withdraw his intention to further slash school-based budgets as well as his initial plan to fire over 6,000 teachers," said the Grassroots Education Movement's (GEM) press release...

THE UFT's June 26 rally at City Hall is an important step forward. But we also need more of the kind of rank-and-file organizing seen on June 4. The GEM organizers showed what is possible when teachers, under an onslaught of attacks--from testing recently being included as part of an evaluation deal to an expansion of charter schools in the state--reach out to their colleagues, parents and students and spend time organizing a fightback...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/09/teachers-and-parents-fight-cuts