BROOKLYN, NY, Oct, 28 — “The parents united will never be defeated!” This chant greeted parents as they entered school for parent-teacher conferences. About thirty students and teachers picketed at the entrance and passed out flyers inviting parents and neighbors to an upcoming meeting to discuss the Department of Education’s (DoE) plans for racist attacks against our schools. PLP members and friends helped organize this event as part of a growing campaign to build multi-racial unity against the destructive plans of the local education bosses.
Our building houses several schools, which were created as part of an earlier reform program. Education officials broke up large comprehensive high schools around the city and created smaller schools which they hoped would be easier to control. In our case, the building is physically located in a mainly white, middle-class neighborhood. However, the students who attend all the schools are black, Latino and Asian working-class youth from surrounding neighborhoods. While teachers have struggled to help these students learn, graduate and go on to college, the DoE has placed every obstacle they can in the students’ path. Budgets in the schools have been cut every year, the 100-year-old building has not been renovated and students are scanned through metal detectors every day as if they were criminals.
The newest attacks on our school are the most blatantly racist yet. We have been told the DoE plans to put an additional school into our building because the DoE’s formulas say that our space can hold more students. The stated purpose of this school is to “serve the immediate neighborhood,” the wealthier, white parents who have historically sent their children to magnet schools in other neighborhoods if they cannot afford, or do not believe in, private schools. This new school would be screened, meaning students would have to meet high academic standards to get in. The building will get millions of dollars worth of renovation to accommodate the new school, although our schools have been told we would not be renovated, even if we increased our enrollment to match their formula for space usage. The DoE has said they may remove the metal detectors with the addition of the new school, something they have refused to do for years when the school housed mainly black and Latino students. We’ve even heard rumors that the DoE is consulting with the custodial staff about the possibility of creating a separate entrance for the new school.
This kind of segregation within the same building is one of the most disgusting manifestations of the racism built into the capitalist system. This new school would create a system of “separate and unequal” within our building. Some of the politicians and DoE functionaries who have addressed the issue have been very direct about it, although others claimed that the current schools could reap benefits from the additional money coming into the building with the new school.
Students and teachers in our schools are horrified and looking for ways to fight back against this assault. In the past, students from our schools walked out over the cell-phone ban and have protested budget cuts to the schools and mass transit. Last spring, teachers picketed against the budget cuts before school. We know we now need to unite students, teachers and parents in class struggle. The actions on parent-teacher conference night were our first steps this year in fighting these new attacks.
That day, the debate team of our schools organized a debate on the issue during the after-school program attended by about 100 students and teachers. Although the student debaters are all against the DoE’s plans, they carefully researched and presented both sides so there could be a full discussion. After the debate, students and teachers were invited to “do something instead of just talking” and join the picket in front of school to publicize the issue to parents. A group of teachers, including Party members and friends, has been meeting after school to plan parent outreach and other tactics. These are good, but they are baby steps. Many of the students and teachers involved are already CHALLENGE readers. We aim to develop a student study group and many more CHALLENGE readers as more angry students, parents and teachers join the fight-back efforts. If Party members give leadership to the struggle, it has the potential to explode into mass anger. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of lessons to learn.