Thousands protest Boston school cuts
Published Apr 1, 2010 9:22 PM
By Steve Gillis, Peter Cook & Frank Neisser
Boston
In response to Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s announced massive defunding of
and charter privatization program for Boston’s public schools, over 2,000
people shut down the streets surrounding a building where Menino’s
hand-picked Boston School Committee was voting on March 24 to approve nearly
$60 million in budget cuts. The boisterous protest was organized by the Boston
Teachers Union, the Coalition for Equal Quality Education, Boston Public
Schools Custodians, and the Boston School Bus Drivers Union to demand,
“Full Funding for Public Education, No Budget Cuts!”
Andre Francois of school bus drivers’ union addresses rally as Boston
police block door to School Committee public hearing.
WW photo: Maureen Skehan
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The militant outpouring of parents, students, teachers, custodians, bus drivers
and monitors and other community activists and supporters took over the School
Department plaza, with noisemakers and loudspeakers broadcasting their anger.
For the first time in years, unity and solidarity of the entire school
workforce and communities confronted Menino’s and city bondholders’
plan.
Denouncing the layoffs and program cuts were Richard Stutman, Boston Teachers
Union president; Robert Haynes, Massachusetts AFL-CIO president; Rich Rogers of
the Greater Boston Labor Council; Dave Jelley, Custodians Union president;
Steve Gillis, Boston School Bus Drivers Union vice president; Sandra McIntosh,
Coalition for Equal Quality Education; City Councilors Felix Arroyo and Charles
Yancey; as well as a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union,
students, Bail Out the People Movement, Women’s Fightback Network, Fight
Imperialism, Stand Together , and many others. The Women’s Fightback
Network led an
International Women’s Day march that began at the State House and ended
outside the School Committee meeting to join the rally.
The multigenerational and multinational crowd, including many immigrant
workers, cheered as many speakers raised the slogans, “Money for Schools,
Not for War!” and “Bail Out the Schools, Not the Banks!”
Placards condemned privatization of education through charter schools and plans
to resegregate “neighborhood” schools. Flyers for the Bail Out the
People Movement’s May 8th National Jobs Protest in Washington, D.C., were
well received.
Several times people surrounded the building and climbed up into the windows to
hang signs and chant into the chamber where the School Committee was
cloistered, hearing testimony for even more massive cuts to school
workers’ health care insurance from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau,
the city’s business mouthpiece.
The Bureau had recently succeeded in writing massive cuts into Menino’s
general 2011 budget, slashing public services from libraries to housing to snow
removal, while increasing payments to bondholders and establishing new police
outstations in all the city’s public housing developments.
The school committee chamber holds only 167 people, so protesters loudly raised
the issue of the legitimacy of the vote to approve the new budget, arguing that
the meeting should have taken place in a larger hall so that those who are most
impacted by the cuts have the opportunity to express their outrage over the
bondholders’ budget.
Police Special Forces surrounded the building’s perimeter and blockaded
the doors, calling in motorcycle reinforcements and wagons, effectively turning
the school’s public headquarters into an armed camp. A determined
contingent led by members of the Boston School Bus Drivers Union and the
Custodians Union attempted to enter the building, but cops jamming with sharp
batons and school administrators frantically tugging on doors engaged the
workers, students and community leaders in a 10-minute scuffle, forcibly
preventing the public from entering on the phony pretext of fire codes.
Despite the overwhelming show of force by the cops the demonstration was a
strong step in building the unity necessary for the struggles ahead. Some
victories were also secured, including School Superintendent Dr. Carol R.
Johnson’s withdrawal of her plan to kick middle school students off
school buses, citing public protest to the clearly unsafe proposal. However,
School Committee members took turns wringing their hands about future school
closings, program eliminations, layoffs and the gutting of student rights, like
transportation and nutrition, and then promptly and unanimously passed the
cuts.
The next stage of the struggle goes to the Boston City Council, which must
approve the school budget. Today’s newly energized community, labor and
education advocates are already planning stepped up protests.
Gillis is vice president of the Boston School Bus Drivers union. Cook is a
member of the Boston Teachers Union.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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