FIGHT MASS LAYOFFS IN TEXAS SCHOOLS

TEXAS, May 30—In the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), over 60 layoffs were recently announced. SAISD has 91 percent Latin and 75 percent “at risk” students. Teachers are targeted based on claims of low performance evaluations—including seven teachers in the district’s historically Black high school. A letter written by an SAISD assistant principal exposed how district bosses forced principals to create lists of teachers to target and then ordered them to give teachers poor evaluations to justify mass layoffs.
Across Texas, school boards in major cities have announced mass layoffs. Schools face massive reduction in enrollment and as a result millions of dollars in budget cuts due to the loss of state and federal funds. In Houston, administrators announced a $115 million budget cut and the layoff of over 200 district employees.
Last year there was 100 percent teacher turnover in several middle schools as Texas state administrators seized control of school boards in smaller, poorer districts. The schools under attack educate mainly the lowest income working-class Latin and Black children.
Inequality under capitalism guarantees that these students will face a future of the highest unemployment rate and lowest wages. U.S. capitalism superexploits Black, Latin, and Asian workers and uses high unemployment to keep white workers’ wages lower, with the threat that they can be replaced easily if they don’t keep their mouths shut and take what they can get.
These cuts are connected to charter school chains—KIPP, IDEA Academy, Great Heart, Energized for Excellence Inc.—pulling students out of neighborhood schools. In addition, charters are being hired to take over schools in the working class neighborhoods in San Antonio and Houston. The SAISD’s recent hiring of a charter chain, Democracy Prep, to take over a local school, was met with outrage by teachers and their unions. Charters aren’t better for teachers, either—teachers at charter schools are also being screwed, often receiving half the pay of public school teachers.
Profit system hurts students the most
When public school funds are cut by the state, every student suffers. Although some families support this effort because they’ve been convinced they might get a slightly better education for their kids, the big picture is that there is a movement amongst the ruling class to kill off sections of public education because it costs too much to educate kids who will be underpaid in unskilled jobs or face unemployment, and to lower working-class youth’s expectations of their future.
The current attacks are only the most recent phase of a more general attack on the state’s public schools that has been occurring for several years. In 2010, Progressive Labor Party stood with parents and prevented the closing of several SAISD schools. Eight years later, though, many of those same schools are under attack. These attacks on public schools are intensifying because to stay competitive, U.S. businesses must raise profits. Lower pay and higher unemployment of workers is inevitable.
Students, parents, teachers denounce layoffs
In Houston, parents, students, and teachers are united to confront the school board. At an April board meeting, they angrily demanded that the board stop the charter school takeover, wearing shirts that read “Save Our Black and Brown HISD Schools.” They boldly called out the Black liberal board president for her complicity in carrying out the state’s racist plans. Outnumbered and afraid, the board revealed their fascism, forcibly removing and arresting two parents who went over their allotted speaking time, and then ordering police to clear the room. Because of the mass resistance to the board’s plans and outrage following the arrests, the board has since backed off their charter plan, but are still moving forward with hundreds of layoffs.
At this month’s SAISD board meeting, over 300 teachers and parents turned out to denounce teacher layoffs. The protest was so large that it spilled into the hallway, and outside the building. Many teachers being targeted with layoffs bravely spoke out and exposed the hypocrisy of a school board that gets rid of its best, most dedicated teachers. Even teachers with over 30 years of experience who have been honored in the past for their achievements were on the chopping block. Parents stood in unity, erupting with the chant, “Save Our Teachers!”
Working class unity creates potential for revolution
Members of PLP discussed the recent teacher strikes around the country with the teachers in the crowd. Some agreed that a strike in Texas could have put them in a stronger position. The struggles over the past two months have made it clear that all workers must unite to fight the bosses. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, and Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, have instituted similar attacks on civil service workers, teachers, airline employees and many others, all intensifying in the last few months. These attacks are being met with street protests, and as in West Virginia, Arizona, and Kentucky, by wildcat strikes of school teachers. The parents and teachers in these schools are leading the way and PLP is working to deepen our base in these areas of growing struggle.
We must explain to workers and students how the daily, systemic attacks against the working class inherent in the capitalist system are just as violent as any mass shooting. The anger and energy of the working class around mass layoffs and cuts shows that in a period of increasing crisis, there is increasing potential to grow and build a movement for communism.