PHILADELPHIA, April 20 — Workers across the country are being forced to supposedly “share” the sacrifices by giving up raises, benefits, pensions, and even their unions! There are some differences among the ruling class as to how the attack should be carried out (out-right smashing of unions as in Wisconsin vs. using the sellouts to “only” roll-back wages and benefits) but in the end, all of the ruling-class plans will be devastating to workers.
Here in Philly, the main brunt of the attack is on teachers. Teachers are being blamed for lousy test scores and the general deterioration of education. The offensive against teachers is more than “just another group of workers being singled out for punishment.” They are a key part of the bosses’ anti-communist arsenal. The schools both teach and reinforce all of the anti-worker lies that the ruling class wants the next generation of workers to learn: (1) anti-communism, the bosses’ trump card in destroying worker fight-backs, (2) racism, the key to worker disunity, (3) individualism, the basic philosophy of capitalism, and (4) patriotism, loyalty to the ruling-class government.
While the bosses need the schools to miss-educate the working class, they can no longer afford the expense that requires. As a result, it is vital that teacher salaries, benefits, and pensions be drastically reduced. Here are some of the ways this is being done in Pennsylvania (and Philadelphia in particular):
• Privatizing “public” education by creating low-wage, non-union, for-profit charter schools.
• Passing laws that require teachers to teach for at least 10 years to receive a pension while also reducing the amount that teachers will receive for each year taught. The Pension “Reform” law passed last September in Pennsylvania requires new teachers to teach for 50 years to receive a full pension!
• Making teaching as oppressive and distasteful as possible (by requiring teachers to do all kinds of extra duties) so that very few people would even consider teaching as a life-time job. In Philly, for those schools that have not been immediately turned into charter schools, the school board has created Promise Academies. These require a longer school day, Saturday school twice a month, and summer school. As of this writing, not enough teachers even want to sign up for this grueling program. In addition, how could a person with family responsibilities participate? Clearly, the Philadelphia School District wants young, low-salary people for these schools.
• Using several “teacher-training” programs (such as Teach for America) in which college graduates get various benefits for two years of teaching in an urban or rural setting. Most of these “teachers” leave after finishing their two years, virtually ensuring a high turnover and low salaries.
The ruling class is still not fully unified as to how to deal with the educational system. On the one hand, they are still using the phony “to-get-a-good-job, you-need-to-get-a-good-education” slogan but the lack of “good” jobs is making this less and less useful. On the other hand, the bosses do need a lot of low-level functionaries (lawyers, accountants, scientists, politicians, etc.) to keep their system running so they can’t simply abandon the schools. For our purposes, it is important that we not fall for any of their supposed “reform” schemes. It is also crucial that we expose the schools as one of the primary ways that the ruling class spreads anti-communism and racism.