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Books, Not Bombs
California campuses have been rocked by protests this past week, provoked by massive student fee increases voted on by the University of California Board of Regents. After a year of sequential budget cuts, faculty and staff dismissals and furloughs, and the elimination of entire academic departments, the 32 percent fee increase proved to be the trigger for statewide actions of an unprecedented scale. With President Barack Obama's Afghanistan war strategy-which, according to one leak, will include a surge of 35,000 troops-soon to be announced, the juxtaposition of education cuts and military increases is incensing many, and helping to build a movement.
As I traveled throughout California this past week on a book tour, I was, coincidentally, in the midst of the regents' vote and the campus protests. At UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, Cal State Fresno, UC Davis and Cal State Chico, students approached me with stories of how the fee increases were going to price them out of school. Students were occupying buildings, marching and holding teach-ins. At UC Davis, several young women, among the 52 arrested, described to me how they had been attacked by campus police, shot with Tasers. Students there also protested the Saturday closure of the libraries, showing up at the president's university-provided house to study there, since the library was closed. He let them in to study rather than spark a confrontation that probably would have ended with police action and arrests.
Blanca Misse, a UC Berkeley graduate student and organizer with the Student Worker Action Team, was among those who've been organizing. She told me, "We are striking because we care a lot about public education, and we care about another kind of public education, maybe, than the one they offer, a real public education out of the corporate model."
Laura Nader (Ralph Nader's sister) is a professor of social cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley, where she has taught for nearly 50 years. Earlier this year she co-authored a measure approved by the UC Berkeley Academic Senate calling on the school's athletics program to become self-sufficient and stop receiving subsidies from student fees. She is a critic of the increasing power that corporations such as BP and Novartis have over the universities, and she has a long personal history fighting for public education. She teaches general-education classes that attract hundreds of students-noting that students these days, taught to take tests, "are great at choosing answers on a multiple-choice test, but have never heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Her focus on the basics reflects her concern of the attack on public education in this country: "It isn't something that just happened, and it isn't something that was unplanned," she told me. "People really do adhere to the model that this shouldn't be a public good. And if we continue in this direction, there's going to be a two-class system: those who go to college are going to be those who can afford it, and those who don't are going to be the middle class."
The movement's centerpiece is a strong coalition that includes students, workers and faculty. Bob Samuels is president of the University Council-American Federation of Teachers, the union representing non-senate faculty and librarians of the University of California. Although California is facing a serious budget crisis, Samuels told me the UC system has more than sufficient funds: "It doesn't have to raise student fees. It doesn't have to fire faculty. It doesn't have to cut courses. They're talking about eliminating minors and majors. They're talking about moving classes online. They're doing these drastic things. And what we're seeing is just basically undergraduate students are subsidizing research, they're subsidizing administrators, they're subsidizing things that have nothing to do with undergraduate instruction."
During the Bush administration, military recruiting faced an all-time low. Now, after the economic collapse of late 2008, recruiters are having no problems. President Obama seems committed to increasing the size, and thus necessarily the duration, of the war and occupation in Afghanistan. One of the most popular university professors in California, Anaya Roy of UC Berkeley, offers a summary that Obama should heed: "In this context of inequality, one doesn't need radical instruments of redistribution. One only needs a few things, like decent public education or access to health care or some sort of reasonable approach that says enough of this massive spending on war."
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
26 Comments so far
Show AllObama is on-board with Grover Norquist.
He's blowing up the budget so that it can then be shrunk and drowned in a bathtub.
Unless these students start organizing and take action it's only going to get worse.
More wars are being planned as we speak.
Californias problems are from decisions California and its citizens made over the years and is still making. There is a cost to everything and someone must pay it.
Taxes only go so far.
That's real helpful, thanks for contributing such brilliant insights.
The taxing system in CA is unfairly done thanks to economic libertarian policies. While TX and FL have no state income taxes, the property and sales taxes must really hurt.
Edit: I take it that you are concerned about how the tax money is used. Now that is a good point and that needs to be taken into consideration. We do want to make sure that the money going in is working where it's supposed to. If it isn't, then it would be like trying to fill up a tank that is continuously leaking. Either patch the tank or replace it. Maybe there's some non-monetary ways we can properly patch this education system or replace it.
There definitely is a cost to supporting militarism and militarists such as you.
Amy -- thanks for reporting this news!
Personally, I am inspired by the actions of the students, and the faculty members, as well, who are working with the students in California. And, I agree, the protests and rallies look like, and feel like, a real movement.
We should be funding education in this country, not vague-intentioned wars, against so-called enemies that are unrecognizable, in countless countries around the world. Does the U.S. really need 7 military bases in Columbia? Why haven't U.S. troops left Iraq? Why hasn't Guantanamo been closed? I could go on and on.
As for Afghanistan, from the beginning of Obama's campaign, his rhetoric about the "good war," and his intent to escalate that war was very clear! Should anyone really have expected him to change his mind? After all, Gates continues as Secretary of Defense. Anyone who is disappointed in his decisions about Afghanistan should have been paying attention! Wishing doesn't make it so!
I am reminded of the students at the New School here in NYC, who protested, and continued to protest the 2002 appointment of Bob Kerrey as the President of that school. From the beginning he supported the invasion of Afghanistan, etc. Students protested, speaking out loudly, arguing that Kerrey's beliefs did NOT support the principles of the founding of the school -- PEACE! Finally, after protests and occupations, etc., the students prevailed and he is soon to step down as president of the New School. It was a long fight, though.
Hats off to Amy Goodman.
How she still retains any hope for the future of this perishing republic is beyond me.
Republic? I believe Empire is more fitting. The symbolic Rubicon was crossed long ago.
On the K-12 front, our school district this year instituted something called "embedded assessments," along with a scope and sequence whose pace was controlled by central headquarters. Basically, this meant that teachers were told what to teach on what day. Teams from the school district came into classrooms to make sure teachers were following what had been scripted. Every three weeks, student took an "embedded assessment" in each of the four major academic areas. Since this whole effort was put together in one summer, without any pilot program, multitudes of problems quickly surfaced. Gifted students were being forced to re-learn material already learned. Students who learn at a slower pace were not able to have their questions answered if it meant falling behind the District's pre-set pace. The scope and sequence was often out of sequence. In social studies, for example, teachers were told to teach the U.S. Constitution before the Declaration of Independence. These embedded assessments were in addition to the regular scheduled diagnostic testing(two or three times a year) to prepare for the state's annual high-stakes standardized test. A culture of testing. Big Brother.
Teachers and students became stressed out. Parents became alarmed. They organized in conversations face to face and through an online meeting place to share thoughts, feelings and ideas. A thousand parents, teachers and community members started showing up at the monthly School Board meeting, which lasted five or six hours with 125 people speaking out, on one side or another.
This parent activism is not going to go away. Begun in October, it has grown and will continue at each monthly board meeting. It continues daily in other venues.
The School Superintendent, after the first show of activism in October, backed down in stages. From total centralized control of all classrooms, they first relented and said teachers of gifted students did not have to adhere to the scope and sequence mandated daily by the District. A few days later, after the turn out at the October board meeting, the Superintendent convened an emergency meeting with the district's chief academic officer and others, and changed his position, turning back control of schools to each principal to determine what is the best method for their own school, instead of having to follow a "one-size fits all" curriculum and pacing.
Driving all of this is increasingly stringent federal standards for education, being felt at the state level, which mandates high performance for all students, not just for those from economically advantaged neighborhoods. For the school District and other stakeholders, the question is how best to achieve that.
The bottom line though, is that community members got active, stirred things up, and policies changed.
andy: Thanks so much for the first-hand report from your school district. I am heartened to read that so many people -- parents, teachers and other citizens -- actively took part, protesting the educational issues you listed in your post. The term "embedded assessments" sounds eerie, along with your reference to "central headquearters" -- something out of George Orwell. Can I ask where you live? I'm just curious!
Kay:
All this is happening in Palm Beach County, FL.
andy: Thanks for answering my question about where you live!
I believe that more and more people are stepping up and speaking out on countless issues. However, M$M does not report the actions that are taking place around the country.
Maybe, if Amy Goodman knew about your story in Palm Beach, FL, she and her producers would give it some air time.
Sioux Rose
ANDY: A friend of mine teaches in North Florida and I remember how incensed she got when so much of the year's intended curriculum was directed ONLY at the expected standardized tests her students would be forced to take. In some places teacher's "merit" pay is tied in with these test scores.
Another friend is raising her grandson in the Florida Keys school system. He is VERY lucky to have a cool Grandmother who is intently interested in his developing to be a whole person. She gives this child enormous freedom to explore nature and learn about the ways his body responds to the foods he elects to eat. On the way to school she asks him about any dreams he had the night before, and they discuss the possible implications. When he gets to school it's like a separate reality, for like all the other children he is expected to completely control all of his movements, speech, reactions, appetites, and responses. He's the type of child who will call out or do something to break the monotony. (I was that child, myself and the class appreciated it. Of course in those days education was far more liberal and oriented towards inspiring genuine learning.) In any case, my friend goes through borderline anxiety attacks every time those ridiculous tests come up. She worries the child will not pass, will be left behind, questions herself about all the important things she is teaching him and how these challenge the constructs of much of the enforced education that's being forced on him through robotic protocols.
I worry about my grandchildren, as being a former teacher I prize a good education, but the question is whether such an item can now be had in the state of Florida at all? No doubt this trend extends to other states and was part of the Bush idiocy of "no child left behind," a program that saw one of his brothers (or was it a cousin?) benefit directly through the book publishing program associated with the new mandatory curricula.
Hitler would have loved such controls! Get 'em while they're young, stunt the capacity for critical thought, teach them to obey authority every step of the way and you fertilize the ground for a totalitarian society. And this is what now passes for education in the shining city on the hill?
Trillions for war and Empire, trillions for the Bankster Mafia. But we can't afford to fund public education.
As Goodman points out, this is good for military recruitment. No education? No jobs? Join the military, the budget is only increasing under Obama and the D Congress.
Unless students, workers, and unemployed join forces for masssive civil disobedience, this trend shall continue.
It would be great to see a general strike nationwide; If we did what folks in other countries did, we could shut down the country for a few days. That would get the attention of the ivory tower ruling class.
Indeed, book 'em ALL a flight home.
Funding our soon to be quagmire in Afghanistan rather than funding education, the homeless, job programs etc. is OBSCENE.
Sioux Rose
Well. Any questions that "Mars rules"? Throw money at killing others as the U.S. military under cover of a number of falacious excuses (resource acquisition and the empire's strategic positioning at the heart of each one) prepares to send more into battle, but nary a dime for education, health care, or rebuilding the nation's infrastructure in alignment with more energy efficient technologies. Could there be a greater recipe for disaster than this? Indeed, disaster caplitalism and make-war as product become ghastly profitable to those who only consider mammon on their balance sheets. What a sell-out!
As the noose gets tighter with fewer and fewer crumbs from the "let them eat cake" brigade reaching honest hard-working citizens (and those left behind, as per employment figures and/or housing), protests will escalate. I'm generally all for due process, but the murder, corruption, and mayhem that our self-selected leaders have indulged in for decades are such that one wonders if they deserve fair trials. The precedent? Denying likewise to those unfortunates gathered up like so many dolphin in the (tuna) foreign drift nets purportedly intended for "terrorists."
One could argue that a set of public policies that so shamelessly toss foreigners' lives into the bonfire of militaristic vanities while denying education, fair housing (costs), and health care to so many citizens (the same ones picking up the tab for these overseas "adventures) constitutes a homegrown version of domestic terrorism of the most dangerous sort.
Boy, that last statement, continuing huge monies for the war machine, and none for education -- this is not the Obama I was HOPEing for. Can't believe the libraries of UC closed on Saturday -- and those online classes, that's all they have here in our local satellite colleges, and the feedback I hear is pitiful -- can't ask questions, jump in to comment on lecture statement, no interaction and very robotic.
Anyone in E Tennessee wanna yell, I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore? Way to go UC!!
When California learns Vedic Studies, the path to peace and equality will no longer remain a pipedream.
It is not just the recruiting for the military that has gone up but so too have jobs associated with the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) directly or indirectly. Otherwise, this is an excellent article and so too are the comments that only prove the fact that it will take team work to slow down the militarist dominance that continues. As it stands now, the militarist attitude has already spread like cancer to where almost everything is tied to it. Getting rid of the MIC is as easy as trying to diffuse a bomb when the wiring is unknown. I don't see any one solution to getting rid of this cancer but multiple ideas that could tame the beast to the level of basic defense without going on the war offensive.
Andy, thank you for sharing your experience on parents, students, and schools. There is no doubt in my mind that it will take cooperation from all sides to solve the education crisis similar to health care crisis. Efforts like these will go a long ways towards solving the nation's problems of being hooked to the MIC.
One more thing to consider is that in states where military spending has a strong say or is the dominant factor, I notice an interesting pattern. The counties and cities near the military related areas lean liberal while places farther away are filled with people who are either careless about it or want war. I've wondered that perhaps it is theoretically possible that if every city and county had a military based, this nation would be thoroughly anti-war.
How about demanding free education for all children, with housing, food and a state stipend for schooling or training for any child who wishes to leave home?
How about demanding student-teacher-worker control of all schools and colleges?
Of course, this will only be possible when workers have taken control of the means of production and given the boot to capitalists of every color and stripe (from Wall Street bankers to the owners of businesses).
At first I rationalized Obama's tendency to surround himself with Wall Street and hawk advisors. With our escalation of war in Afghanistan and weak leadership on the public option in health care I wonder about "CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN".
So we're all about war all the time and seldom if ever about education. Notice the parallel? If we make education affordable only to the elites, which is already the case, then the disenfranchised won't be able to even think about decent jobs and will be forced to join the military, where they will be coerced to fight illegal wars in behalf of the very elites who've made it impossible for them to secure educations and lead interesting, productive, creative, life-affirming jobs and raise families in a society that values such quaint things as that.
Obama is our great imposter "progressive," or whatever he's mythically believed to be. He's a world-class fraud, and they always rise to the top. He got his Harvard education and now his job is to insure that only the class who put him in power (Ivy League millionaires, largely) is permitted to even be educated. Of course the only education that will be going on now will be about how to manage the peasantry, how to mollify them with empty consumerism, endless TV, sports and related entertainment, how to imprison them when they dare protest too much, and send as many of their ill-educated young into battle for capitalism and "freedom."
Thanks, Barack! What a breath of fresh air you're proving to be. Almost as fragrant as what issues from the sphincter of a broken down jackass.
The policy was no general left behind wasn't it? This all looks fine to me.
so it's not just exterminating the youth and the population of the occupied country that is a major part of the whole plot but also the removal of American youth!?
whatever became of the "Impeach Bush" slogan?
"He deserves a fair trial!"
We don't get much participation in the public discourse from academia or the judiciary. Do they support the oppression in their passive roles?