Bosses leave students behind, workers organize

LOS ANGELES, April 10—When the threat of the spreading coronavirus forced the closing of schools in Los Angeles, students and teachers at the charter network where I work, which serves 11,000 students, received a lesson in how little capitalist education has to offer working class children. Having no plan for a shutdown, which was expected to last four weeks, administrators decided to give each student one novel and tell them to visit Khan Academy (a tutoring website) to practice math. This was their BIG plan.
As the gravity of this world-wide crisis began to hit us more and more every day, the management of this charter network from assistant principals all the way up to the chief academic officer were silent. While other districts in the nation were rolling out distance-learning plans, the “leadership” at Green Dot charter school was missing in action.
We could not stand for this, because our students deserve more! I contacted as many teachers as I could via text (about two-thirds2/3 of the staff) and asked others to help with reaching those for whom I did not have phone numbers. We all agreed we could serve our students better than the misleaders ever could and began to create a plan.
One teacher got us all linked in on a communication app to make planning easier. Another teacher created a survey to get information from students about how they were feeling, what they or their families needed, what workload they felt they could balance with other family responsibilities, and what access to technology they had. A third teacher created a spreadsheet where we could enter this school-wide data. Departments collaborated on what streamlined learning plans could look like and everything was consolidated to one sheet where students would have easy access to assignments and Zoom links for obtaining support from their teachers.
We did this in a matter of one week! By week two, teachers were on Zoom connecting with students.  Meanwhile, we started to receive emails from management bragging about giving students breakfast and lunch. They were sure to note though, this would take place only during regular school days. For the 2-week spring break, students would have to find food elsewhere. Not only were they not nourishing students’ brains, now they were cutting off nourishment to their bodies as well.
By week three of the school closures, it became clear that schools would not reopen after four weeks as initially thought. Now suddenly, the phonies that run Green Dot decided to create a plan for distance learning. This plan was made without any consultation with students, their families, teachers or even the administrators at the school sites. It was completely top down and of course did not consider any of the real concerns that people are facing during this crisis.
Green Dot is at the forefront of liberal talk on education. They have colonized the language of the left like “equity” and “systemic racism” and use it to fool our class sisters and brothers into thinking that they are invested in educating working class youth. A small peak under the surface shows otherwise. I have spent the last five years raising that veil for teachers, students and parents around the district and that effort is making inroads for the growth of Progressive Labor Party and the fight for communism.
Green Dot claims to have opened in order to provide technology access to youth in South Central, but 20 years later they are still not one-to-one with Chromebooks, and the hypocrisy shines through. Every year class sizes have increased and students fall further behind because of the lack of needed support. Then teachers are blamed instead of poorer conditions, and mandated curricula are rolled in to fix all the “horrible teachers”.
But students, parents and teachers are not fooled. They understand that no matter the game Green Dot talks, neither they nor any other school district intends to fully educate the working class. Party members must be there to offer an alternative  or else that realization just turns to cynicism. When invested in long term organizing in a school district, we can expose the liberal administrators and politicians as the main danger to our class and fight for communist consciousness among our base.
Organizing a distance-learning plan at one school might seem like a small step.  But it demonstrates to the working class that our class can run society, from the schools to other workplaces to the government.  We can’t rely on the Democrat misleaders. We know what our class needs, and we can truly provide it. This builds confidence in ourselves and in our class, and that is a step towards communism!