APRIL 2010

VOICE OF AFT 2121

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7Marketing educationWhy people have bought into privatization in schools

6Underground undergradsPassage of the Dream Act would give hope to undocumented students

San FranciscoCommunity College Federation of Teachers

AFT Local 2121311 Miramar AvenueSan Francisco, CA 94112

Tel: 415.585.2121Fax: 415.585.4305www.aft2121.com

Momentum for change in CaliforniaMarches and rallies for progressive taxation 4-5

Diversity in union leadershipBuilding community and creating unity

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unionmessage

Grievance Officers

Cliff LieheRon Bixler

Office Staff

Wendy Leung Gwynnd Maestre

Union Action

Emily Wilson, EditorGwynnd Maestre, Production/layoutNancy Husari, Cartoonist Contributors: Gus Goldstein, Chris Hanzo, Alisa Messer, Ed Murray, Carmen Roman-Murray, John Robinson, Kovak Williamson

American Federation of Teachers, Local 2121311 Miramar Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112T: 415-585-2121 F: 415-585-4305 E: aft@aft2121.com

Executive Board

Gus Goldstein, PresidentEd Murray, Vice-PresidentKovak Williamson, TreasurerStephen Goldston, SecretaryAllan Fisher, Labor Council DelegateChris Hanzo, Executive Director (staff)Ron BixlerRosemary BrinsonJim McKinneyAlisa MesserPablo Rodriguez Rodger Scott

Budget Analyst

Marc Kitchel

On the cover:In Stockton, members of the California Nurses’ Association, as well as other unions, join the March for California’s Future.

Photo by Chris Hanzo

By Carmen Roman-Murray AFT 2121 Part-timers Committee Chair

City College of San Francisco part-time faculty members will be vot-ing this May whether or not to join the State Disability Insurance (SDI)plan.

The election will be decided by a simple majority of part-timers cast-ing ballots. If the result is a YES, all part-timers will join the plan and have a deduction of 1.1% taken from each CCSF paycheck. Part-timers will not be able to opt out of the plan on an individual basis. If the result is a NO, individual part-timers cannot opt in to the plan.

AFT 2121 as the bargaining unit representative of CCSF part-timers will administer a secret ballot election, and all part-time faculty members will receive a ballot in campus mailboxes.

AB 381 became law this January, allowing part-time faculty to decide as a separate unit if they want to partici-pate in SDI. Before AB 381, full-timers and part-timers had to vote as one unit. Since full-timers already receive short-term benefits through the State Ed. Code, they have less need for SDI in comparison to part-timers, who presently have no such safety net.

All CCSF faculty are invited to attend the AFT 2121 Part-timers Committee meeting about SDI on Friday, April 16 at 3 p.m. at the Ocean Campus in Arts 302. The meeting will feature a presentation by SDI Educa-tion and Outreach representatives Ali-cia Oldfield and Danna Stapleton, who will be happy to answer any questions. After the presentation, we will discuss the pros and cons of joining SDI. (cro-man@ccsf.edu)

Part-timers to decide on SDI

CorrectionIn the March issue of Union

Action, the picture caption on page 4 incorrectly identified Iris Chen as Mo Awobo. Our apologies.

By Gus Goldstein AFT 2121 President

Heading for Sacramento again

Still marching…. The intrepid Marchers for California’s Future will keep on truckin’ right on to April 21, when they will be joined by hundreds of others for a finale at the Capitol. Will you be able to be there, too? With money left over from the pledges for buses on March 22, AFT 2121 and others are subsidizing train tickets (Amtrak Capitol Corridor #530) for students and faculty to join the very last leg of the march on that last day. We will march from South-side Park to the Capitol, arriving at 4 to hear the core marchers and Randi Weingarten send the message home to the legislators that we need progres-

sive taxation to support the programs in education and public services that once made this state great. If you can join us, please do! Keep checking your Groupwise email for updates at the logistics of this event are worked out. (Read more about this amazing 48-day event as it has developed on pages 4 and 5 of this issue.)

Conventions-more than golf

Since the previous Union Action 19 of us have attended the annual CFT Convention, some of the fruits of which you will see in articles in this issue. While at the convention I kept thinking: This is NOTHING like conventions in the movies. Perhaps because of the sort of conventions held by other professionals such as doctors and lawyers, conventions have gotten the reputation for being occasions for networking and kick-ing back. We hear about attendees listening to a speech, attending a workshop, and then heading out for a round of golf around 2:30 to be followed by parties all evening. CFT Conventions are virtually noth-ing like that: The meetings begin at breakfast and extend past dinner. Between the workshops and speeches, there is work in the convention hall —this year decorated with our own Nadereh Degani’s students’ picket signs—listening to and voting on the resolutions that will become CFT policy and the basis for CFT’s politi-cal agenda; it’s grassroots. If you can find time to get out and take a walk, you are lucky. The articles on pages 3, 6, 7, and 8 result from our attendance at the convention.

Collegiality under pressure

There has been a good deal of furor—gnashing of teeth and raising of tempers—over the recent attempts of the Board of Trustees, in the persons of Chris Jackson and Steven Ngo, to shape CCSF policy on Student Equity. They clearly overstepped their bounds with their recent resolution, and faculty have felt both threatened and outraged.

Bottom line: The Union sup-ports faculty efforts to address student equity through the fully-developed and established shared governance process. We are willing to hear from the Board of Trustees that they would like faculty to make student equity the number one priority. It’s debatable how practical that is, given that simply getting back to where we were before the budget crisis is really foremost for most of us. Regardless, curriculum planning, course sequencing, and course development are the purview of faculty and cannot be accomplished with the flourish of a reference to “shared governance” in a document that pays no attention to the reality of shared governance time lines.

Faculty do take these issues seri-ously. We struggle with student success every day. We may not always agree on how best to address the achieve-ment gaps, but we are committed to working together through shared governance. To the extent that the Board would like to work with us, we welcome their concern and input. We can work towards improving student equity without sacrificing collegiality. Let’s take a collective deep breath and start again. (ggoldstein@aft2121.com)

Marching for California’s futureCFT takes the lead in LA and Sacto

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Kovak C. Williamson AFT 2121 Treasurer

March gladness

March was a phenomenal month for our Union and for City College of San Francisco. We took it to the street with rallies, marches and mobiliza-tions. Students, staff, administrators, faculty and community united for education. The Aztec student group sunrise ceremony at the Mission Cam-pus on March 12 was an incredible display of talent and culture bringing the community together in a mean-ingful and uplifting way. The student governments at John Adams campus and Southeast campus held spirited pep rallies. These and other activities fed directly into the citywide March 4th rally and the statewide March in March mobilization on March 22nd to Sacramento.

When we fight together, we win

There’s more. At the California Federation of Teacher’s (CFT) annual convention in Los Angeles, the follow-ing resolution submitted by the Socio-Political Committee was adopted:

Ethnic Minority Development and Leadership

Whereas, the CFT represents a wide diversity of ethnic groups within its membership; and

Whereas, the CFT is committed to fully represent all its members and their interest; and

Whereas, there is no program within CFT that promotes participa-tion and leadership development of people of color;

Leadership, diversity and unity: A little bit about a lot of things

Therefore, it be resolved, that the CFT create a committee to study the issue of ethnic minority participation and leadership at the local, state and national level; and

Be it further resolved, that this committee make recommendations to increase ethnic minority participation and development at the local, state and national level; and

Be it finally resolved that the CFT report its findings at the CFT 2011 convention.

The Diversity Caucus of AFT 2121 has been holding flex day workshops on building diversity in the union leadership for the past two years. These efforts will continue. Our local should take the lead in imple-menting strategies and programs to work on the challenges put forth in this resolution. Union democracy is at its best when we take turns leading and sharing our talents and capa-bilities. Our work represents the best years of our life, our toil, our hopes, our happiness. We can all be great

because we can all serve.Currently I am attending the

C.L.Dellums African American Union Leadership School. This is a series of workshops sponsored by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education (the Labor Center). The broad themes of the sessions are developing leaders, building power, and changing our community. Union activists, women and men, educators, health care workers, transportation workers, and the trades meet and strategize. The goal of the Dellums School is to develop the leadership skills of union activists in order to strengthen the labor movement and promote the interests of all workers within their unions and communi-ties. The vision of the working class defending jobs, building coalitions and community, and promoting fairness and equality throughout the society—a true democracy—is an inspiration The strength of this vision is in clear focus in the current mobilization by CFT—the March for California’s Future. This historic effort follows the path taken by the United Farm Workers under the leadership of Cesar Chavez walking and talking and organizing on the road to Sacramento. The caravan came through Merced on Wednesday, March 31st and members of Local 2121 were there along with students from CCSF. The United Domestic Workers of America (UDW) local 3930, the Homecare Providers Union, was our host. The political director for this

local, Pablo Rodriguez is also attend-ing the Dellums Leadership School and later said that the March for Califor-nia’s Future provides fertile ground for strong union solidarity to be harvested across a broad spectrum of the work-ing class.

At the River I Stand

The on-going struggle for worker, civil and human rights can be seen in the documentary, At The River I Stand. This piece of storytelling re-constructs the two eventful months in Memphis in 1968 leading to the tragic death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the climax of the Civil Rights Movement. It demonstrates the inte-gral connection between the struggle for civic and economic rights. The film shows how Memphis’ Black commu-nity rallied behind a strike by grossly underpaid sanitation workers. Dr. King saw an opportunity to link this struggle to his growing, nationwide Poor People’s Campaign and challenge the economic power structure of the South.

The Diversity Caucus, AFT invites you to a showing of this great film (53 minutes) on Friday, April 23 at 12:00pm at the remodeled John Ad-ams Campus third floor auditorium. Come and be moved to action. See you there! (kwill@aft2121.com)

Please note: photos and videos of events cited here can be viewed at www.facebook.com/diversitycaucus and www.aft2121.com.

In the past year, children of three AFT 2121 members have been awarded Raoul Teilhet Scholarships. In fall 2009 a continuing college scholarship was awarded to Karin Drucker, daughter of Ronald P. Drucker of the Chemistry Deparment. This spring high school seniors Paul Moran, son of Rita E. Moran of the Instensive English Program for international students and Rachel Schwager-Datz, daughter of Allison Datz of the ESL Department received scholarships for their fall studies. Congratulations to these winners! Continuing college students are encouraged to apply now for the July 1, 2010 deadline. Applications are available at www.cft.org or by calling the AFT 2121 office 415-585-2121.

The Raoul Teilhet Scholarship Program was established in 1997 to help the children and dependents of members achieve their higher education goals. The program was named after long-time CFT leader Raoul Teilhet, who served the organization as president from 1968 to 1985. Students enrolled in four-year courses of study are eligible for $3000 scholarships; those enrolled in two-year courses of study are eligible for $1000.

Raoul Teilhet

Scholarship winners

The Aztec student group performs a sunrise ceremony in front of Mission Campus.

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“The Legislature and the governor both publicly speak to the vital role that education will play in California’s future. They appear to understand that educa-tion and support of parents from birth to age 5 are critical to the development of children and their later success in school. And still they vote to cut education fund-ing at all levels. It is not a policy difference—it is a budget and political issue.”

“We are building momentum to tax the wealthy at higher rates than the poor - that such a move is both a moral and pragmatic approach to meeting the needs of the people of California.”

“The March 4 events and our March have helped to transform a movement of students and faculty protesting cuts and increased fees into a social movement . . . U.S. politics hasn’t seen the emergence of a social movement like that in a very long time, and it is long overdue. And we are helping to lead the way.”

“I believe that we, in the union movement, are the major force in the cre-ation of a civilized society.”

Excerpts from David Bacon’s Nation article, “Californians March into the Heartland”

“Today Valley Republicans are a primary obstacle to the passage of a bud-get that would continue to fund basic services for Californians, especially schools and healthcare. The state has a requirement that two-thirds of the legislature ap-prove any budget. Even more important, any tax increase takes a two-thirds vote as well. So even though urban Democrats have had a majority for years in both chambers, a solid Republican block can keep the state in a continual economic crisis until Democrats agree to slash spending.”

“Doug Moore, another marcher, is executive director of United Domestic Workers Local 3930. He emphasizes that in small San Joaquin Valley towns, the budget cuts on the table in Sacramento could even lead to the elimination of home care itself. ‘Statewide there are 127,000 nursing home beds, but only 20,000 available. So where are people going to go? In California we have record unemployment already. Now you’re talking about another 350,000 people going on benefits. The governor’s budget solution is not a solution. It’s a disaster.’”

“The UDW intends to use the march to strengthen its relationships with voters in an area of California with a very conservative image. ‘People in the communities we’re walking through will be supportive if we build relationships,’ Moore predicts. ‘Whether you’re conservative or not, you’re hurting because of the decisions the governor and some of the legislators are making. As we walk through, if we’re registering people to vote, educating them on the issues at hand, organizing town hall meetings to hold elected officials accountable, we’ll have an impact.’”

Groups from the Downtown Campus (above) and John Adams (below) show their signs and their support in Sacramento on March 22.

Above: Crossing the bridge on the way to the Capitol.

Left: It’s a bird, it’s a plane . . . it’s Galina Gerasimova, Ryan Vanderpol and Pablo Rodriguez gearing up for the March in March.

Excerpts from CFT President Marty Hittleman’s speech at the convention:

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Jim Miller, who teaches English and Labor Studies at San Diego City Col-lege, is on his way to Sacramento on the 48-day March for California’s Future, in support of public education and public services. Union Action spoke to Miller by phone during a stop in Chowchilla.

Why did you decide to do this? We wanted to have a direct action component, and one of the things we

were thinking of was everybody does rallies, right? We wanted to try and do something that was a little extra ordinary, and do something to address the nar-rative about taxes and budgets in a way that we hoped would capture people’s imagination. But it was really just looking around the landscape of labor and activism and seeing a lot of other people not doing much other than rear guard action to protect you own thing.

Whatever the result of the march is, the thing I’m most proud of is the fact we tried to do something big and tried to take on the whole question. So in my case not just save community colleges and screw K-12 or save community col-leges but forget about UC or domestic workers. In my view the crisis is unprec-edented, and we all hang together or we hang separately.

What’s the reaction been? Even in the most desolate spots we’ve had people pulling over at the side of

the road, offering us water, offering us food. We had a woman whose husband saw the march on Noticias. She pulls over in a pickup truck I think outside of MacFarland and stops, waves. It was her and her sister and her baby. She had a whole bowl of melon pre-cut for us and oranges she had cut into slices for us. She offered to take us back to her house and cook us chile rellenos for dinner. We had to keep marching, but it was touching, particularly from a working person.

What do people respond to the most? I think clearly the education message is the most resonant. I was talking to

a woman who is a reporter for the Madera Tribune, who did a front page article on us, and she said, “Why should somebody in Madera relate to you coming from San Diego?” and I said “Well, I think everybody wants their kid to have a good future. They want their kids to be able to go to college and the state to be in the kind of shape where we don’t throw poor people out in the street or deny poor children health care.”

That kind of basic message is resonant because that’s kind of where we are. Basically we’ve got a choice. We can take a social Darwinist tact and solve everything through cuts and continue the kind of two-tiering of the state or we’re going to try and find some way to raise revenue.

How do people respond to talking about taxes? The thing I find more than negative responses is people having no clue what

to do. Like things are awful, but what can we do? And that’s happened more than ‘Oh, it’s terrible to raise taxes.’ When you point out to people that the top brackets have nearly doubled their income while other people have been suffer-ing, people nod vigorously. I think the bank situation and all those corporate bailouts still resonate with people. So I say, “Well, maybe instead of laying off teachers and cutting vital services, people could pay their fair share.” That’s a way to the message and you can talk about putting the tax brackets back to where they were during Pete Wilson’s administration or that we’re the only state out of 21 that doesn’t have an oil severance tax. So I generally start with the first principle and then kind of unpack it from there.

Jim Miller, community college teacher and a core marcher in the March for California’s Future

Marching in Merced on Cesar Chavez Day.

Left: Morning Prayer in Planada before the march.

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By Alisa Messer AFT 2121 member

On the eve of an extraordinary gathering for immigrant rights in Washington, D.C.,

delegates to the CFT Convention received an important reminder of the power of higher education. Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA, provided an overview of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (or DREAM) Act.

Introduced in 2001, the bill could impact 2.5 million young people in the United States today, offering access to higher education and also a path toward citizenship. If passed, students who come to the U.S. as children and complete two years of higher education or military service could gain permanent resident status.

The DREAM Act goes a step beyond California’s Assembly Bill 540 (2001), which allows California stu-

dents with three years of high school in the state and a diploma or G.E.D. to enroll in our institutions of higher education for in-state tuition and fees. AB 540 students represent an estimat-ed 35,000 in the state’s community college system, according to a recent Sacramento Bee article.

Founding president of the AFL-CIO’s Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Wong has spent the last several years traveling the nation with some of UCLA’s undocumented students, making sure their extraordi-nary stories are heard. Students in his course on “Immigrant Rights, Labor, and Higher Education” wrote, edited, and published Underground Under-grads: UCLA Undocumented Immi-grant Students Speak Out.

“I’ve been teaching at UCLA for 20 years, and these are the most extraordinary students of my career,” Wong says. “They care so much about their education. They have to endure tremendous opposition, yet they are succeeding. It’s been a privi-lege to work with them.”

“Now is a crucial time for the DREAM Act,” Wong told CFT conventioneers. “President Obama has said he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk.” Introduced repeat-edly since 2001, the DREAM Act has gained bipartisan support.

It is also a crucial time for AB 540 in California. Wong noted that both major Republican gubernatorial candidates, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, have pledged to undo AB 540. Wong warns that Poizner will run a harsh anti-immigrant campaign and wants to throw undocumented students—in elementary as well as higher ed—out of public school.

Even with the help of AB 540, these students face significant ob-stacles, including their inability to apply for financial aid, work legally, or drive to campus. When they do overcome the odds and obtain de-grees, they cannot use them to get legal jobs. The DREAM Act would change that.

Wong introduced CFT conven-tion-goers to Nancy (last name omit-ted for her protection), whose story parallels those of many undocument-ed students. Not only did Nancy not have any say in her parents’ decision to bring her from Mexico, she grew up under the impression that she was a full U.S. citizen. It wasn’t until her senior year in high school, as she dis-cussed college, voter registration, and future plans, that she learned she was undocumented.

Nancy described the initial an-ger—and later the gratitude—she felt towards her mother for her in-limbo status. “My mom’s choice was always to give me a better life. I can’t be mad at her for that.”

Nancy said many don’t under-stand her situation and admitted that at first she also assumed there was an easy fix. Her mother had gained legal status some years before, but due to an error on the part of the immigra-tion attorney, Nancy’s own status had never been settled. She had grown up thinking of herself as an American and a U.S. citizen, and now she can’t even get a driver’s license—and might never be able to.

Though discouraged, Nancy en-rolled at community college under AB 540. She later found IDEAS, a net-work of UCLA students and staff for undocumented students. Through the

group she met others in her situation and found mentors who supported her to transfer to UCLA and get her B.A. in Sociology and Education.

With no access to financial aid or a solid support network, Nancy turned down Harvard for graduate school and entered a Master’s pro-gram in education at UCLA, where she is now a teaching associate in Wong’s course, helping others learn about the issues that undocumented students face. She’ll begin doctoral work this fall.

Having a Ph.D. in her sights gives her a feeling of hope. “I want to feel like all this hard work is going to be useful and is going to go back to my community,” she said, adding that unless the DREAM Act passes, she still won’t be able to work legally.

Just after the CFT Convention, tens of thousands of immigrant rights activists converged on Washington, D.C. to highlight the need for com-prehensive immigration reform. Sadly, most of this historic event — includ-ing the coalitions between labor, community, religious, and civil rights groups — was overshadowed by “tea party” rallies as the Health Care Act passed.

“Our children are paying the price for Congress’ inability to move. We’re now a country that is denying thousands of children an education,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on March 23. “There is nothing more American than the ide-als that the DREAM Act embodies: hope, hard work, and self-determi-nation. While the DREAM Act is not a substitute for broad immigration reform, it’s a very important compo-nent.” (amesser@ccsf.edu)

Visit aft2121.com for links to more information, including: an exceptional video profile by one undocumented UCLA student about one of her classmates’ experiences as an undocumented student under AB 540; video footage of the recent labor, student, and community press conference on the DREAM Act in D.C.; where to order “Underground Undergrads: UCLA Undocumented Immigrant Students Speak Out” from the UCLA Labor Center; more about IDEAS, the DREAM Act, and AB 540.

Hope for undocumented students

Above:Kent Wong, the director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

Right:Nancy(left) and her

mother celebrate Nancy’s graduation from UCLA.

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By John Robinson AFT 2121 member

At the CFT Convention in Los Angeles, March 19-21, I at-tended a workshop, “How

Privatization is Stealing the Promise of Public Education,” about charter schools, the corporate model, pro-grams like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, and their role in diminishing the quality of public education.

How have supporters of privati-zation promoted the idea that public schools are bureaucracies, full of inefficiency and incompetence? Why is there so much hype about privati-zation?

The first presenter on the panel, Dr. George Wright, a history profes-sor at Skyline College in San Bruno, tried to explain the answers to these questions and to put the privatiza-tion issue in a historical context. He showed how what he calls neoliberal-ism has become almost an article of religious faith, with both liberals and conservatives swearing by it.

By the term neoliberalism Dr. Wright means a revival of the eco-nomic liberalism or free market ideol-ogy espoused by Adam Smith in his 1776 work, The Wealth of Nations. The Great Depression of the 1930s demonstrated the dangers of that eco-nomic liberalism, and then president Franklin Roosevelt, with the help of powerful labor unions, asserted government’s role in managing and placing checks on capitalism’s damag-ing excesses. But since Roosevelt’s presidency, some corporate interests have tried to soften or eliminate con-trols, which they say are inconvenient

and restrictive. In 1944, the Hungarian political

economist Karl Polyani published The Great Transformation, which hailed the New Deal. In it, Polyani made a stunning prediction: “To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, would result in the demolition of society.”

Then, economist and philosopher Frederick Von Hayek and his protégé at the University of Chicago, Milton Friedman, developed the neoliberal-ism philosophy which stipulated that only free markets can create rational society and will be able to do so if government steps aside by removing the controls that have been in place since the New Deal. Armed with a co-gent economic ideology, conservatives managed to push it with conviction and coherence, such that any opposi-tion to that idea could be branded socialist or communist. Leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan employed these ideas and made them the basis of their policies.

The ideology makes societies into laboratories of social Darwin-ism, the survival of the fittest. If you don’t make it, it’s your problem. Or, if you are lucky, a small portion of the largesse will trickle down to you.

Former President William Clin-ton applied these ideas throughout his presidency. Clinton instituted the free trade agreement, NAFTA, in 1994. Free market economics decides the winners and losers based on Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory. So local businesses in Mexico failed while outsourced factories’ wages were set as low as possible, causing profits of the multinational corporations to

soar. The Financial Services Moderniza-tion Act of 1999 did away with restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Get-ting rid of these restrictions led to the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, according to Dr. Wright.

George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind brought this survival of the fit-test idea into education. Schools that can’t give proof of high test scores can lose funding and might be shut down. Now President Barack Obama’s Secre-tary of Education, Arne Duncan, has put forward a Race to the Top com-petition, which has schools vying for four billion dollars of federal money.

These methods of dealing with education seem destructive and far from the original intent of public education, which was to give each individual the opportunity to learn, develop as a human being, and find his/her place in society. But these privatization concepts fit perfectly into the ideology hailed by Hayek and Friedman. And again, they have been so effectively promoted since the early

eighties that by now, one feels they are laws of nature and thus unquestion-able, the recent financial meltdown notwithstanding.

What might be the course of action to reverse this trend towards privatization, based on the universally accepted bias that free markets are the best solutions to problems, the best answer to educational needs? Dr. Wright suggests to respond to this argument, teachers need to first understand the neoliberalism philoso-phy. Then we must mount a counter argument. There needs to be a defense of the public domain, a defense of the role of government in supporting pub-lic education, and a refutation based on good arguments and good data to show that privatization is not a pana-cea and that it based on questionable assumptions. (jrobinso@ccsf.edu)

Kaplan University

Apparently, the for-profit online Kaplan University has made a deal with the California Community College Chancellor’s office. This deal was signed in December and only made public on February 8th in Inside Higher Ed. Students from California’s community colleges would be able to make up classes they missed at their local colleges because of budget cuts, through Kaplan University. Kaplan would award discounts to these students and they would also be able to complete their BA degrees through Kaplan with 42 percent discounted tuitions. This agreement was made without any consultation or notice to the state’s academic senate or to the unions. The agreement benefits a private college based in Davenport, Iowa, at a time when California’s college faculty is enduring unprecedented layoffs and pay freezes. Making a secretive deal like this indicates that state officials consider cuts to higher education acceptable since privatization is there to take up the slack. See the following website for some stories by students who have gone to Kaplan University:

http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/online-reviews/kaplan-university

Dr. George Wright, history professor at Skyline College.

The history behind privatizing education

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Tuesday, April 27Delegate AssemblyJAD, Room 139, 3:00-5:00 pm

Friday, May 7Ballots due in AFT 2121 office forOfficers/Precinct Rep Election

Tuesday, May 11Executive Board MeetingUnion Office, 3:00-5:00 pm

Tuesday, May 25Delegate AssemblyOcean, Arts Room 302, 3:00-5:00 pm

AFT Calendar

By Emily Wilson Editor, Union Action

Why tax rich people?” asked David Rives, the presi-dent of the AFT, Oregon.

“It’s like that question about why rob banks: Because that’s where the money is.”

Rives, along with Rep. Michael Dembrow, an English teacher at Portland Community College and legislator who fought to pass two progressive taxation ballots in Or-egon, presented a workshop at the California Federation of Teachers convention, “Talking Taxes: Oregon, the Promised Land.”

Fred Glass, the CFT’s com-munications director, moderated the workshop. What happened in Oregon

through the passage of Mea-sures 66 and 67—increasing the state’s corporate mini-mum tax, raising taxes on the state’s high-income indi-viduals and raising income taxes on businesses—needs to happen in California as well, Glass said.

“This is life and death for us now in California, “ Glass said. “The only way for us to move forward is to restore some of the taxes eliminated in the last 15 years. That is about $12 bil-lion a year we are no longer getting.”

In their workshop, Rives and Dembrow emphasized what made their campaign successful—be-ing strategic and keeping their mes-sage positive and focused.

“We asked specific questions,” Rives said. “For example, ‘Should class sizes increase?’ Most people say no. We talked about seniors and nurs-ing homes and how education is the key to the economic future. We didn’t talk about how there is a big budget hole and we need to fill it.”

It was this unified message and emphasizing that the campaign was about people’s lives, not about policies and politicians, that worked, Rives and Dembrow said.

“We framed the conversation,” Dembrow said. “Make sure you’re not put into a reactive position.”

So when a group called Or-egonians Against Job-Killing Taxes formed, the campaign leaders ignored the group and their claims that busi-nesses would be driven out of the state

if the measures passed. “We didn’t even respond to it,”

Rives said. “We just kept talking about how this is about people and how this affects your grandma and grandpa and your kids.”

Sixty-two percent of voters turned out to vote for the measures (Oregonians vote by mail) and both measures won by a little less than 54 percent, in spite of only having about three weeks to actively campaign for the measures.

Part of what drove the yes vote was anger with Wall Street banks, credit card companies and bonuses for CEOs, Dembrow and Rives said. One of the messages of the campaign was that the middle class can’t bear the whole burden, and some people aren’t paying their fair share.

Dembrow said the campaign also capitalized on the energy of people who had been swept up in the ideal-ism of Barack Obama’s campaign, and were looking for a place to direct that energy and idealism. Having student groups involved in passing the mea-sure was key, he said.

“Teachers’ unions have a pri-mary responsibility,” he said. “It was teachers’ union members who led the mobilization of the students on every single campus.” (exj@speakeasy.net)

Oregon: The promised land

Rep. Michael Dembrow, community college teacher, talking about how he helped passed progressive taxation measures in Oregon.

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Late last semester, our Local was in sudden need of a communications coordinator when that position, which includes 30% released time, became vacant. Emily Wilson graciously agreed to step in as interim coordinator for this Spring 2010. We are now advertising the position to give any AFT member the opportunity to be considered for the position beginning Fall 2010 along with Emily. Responsibilities include editing our Union Action newsletter and other publications, chairing our communications planning committee, and working on the AFT website and related social media. Anyone interested in being considered for the position should contact AFT 2121 by Friday May 7, 2010.

Opening for AFT 2121 Communications Coordinator

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