Category Archives: K-12 issues

French teachers strike over hours

BBC: French teachers strike over hours

Up to half of France’s secondary school teachers have staged a one-day strike in protest at plans to scrap their right to shorter teaching hours.

Milwaukee police to be stationed inside some schools

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police to be stationed inside some schools

Milwaukee police officers will be assigned for the first time to full-time duty inside city public schools under an agreement between police and Milwaukee Public Schools leaders.

LEFT TO DECAY

The Times-Picayune: LEFT TO DECAY

Nearly half of New Orleans’ public schools sit virtually untouched since Hurricane Katrina. Rather than try to salvage anything, the state says it likely will toss out everything — damaged or not.

Charge is dismissed against Detroit teachers union

Detroit News: Charge is dismissed against teachers union
A judge on Friday dismissed a contempt charge against the Detroit Federation of Teachers, saying the union followed a court order she issued even though its membership did not.
Judge Susan Borman ruled that the union cannot be fined because it obeyed an order when it told the striking membership during a meeting at Cobo Hall that they should return to work.

Greece: Sellout of teachers’ strike paves way for massive government attacks

Indymedia.org: Greece: Sellout of teachers’ strike paves way for massive government attacks

On October 30, the unions ordered back to work high school and primary school teachers who started their six-week-long strike on September 18, disrupting the start of the new academic year. As part of winding down the campaign, two one-day strikes were held on November 3 and 9, and general meetings are to be held to “assess” the next stage.

Barbados teachers wildcat strike against pay docking

libcom.org: Barbados teachers wildcat strike against pay docking

Teachers at the Alexandra School in Barbados launched a wildcat strike after bosses attempted to deduct a day’s pay for their attendance at a union event.
Amanda Lynch-Foster reported on nationnews.com that teachers, saying they were “fed up” with the behaviour of principal Jeffrey Broomes, took industrial action yesterday morning.

The ‘Battle of Oaxaca’ Intensifies

Green Left Weekly: The ‘Battle of Oaxaca’ Intensifies
A five-kilometer-long “mega-march” of hundreds of thousands of protesters took place in the state of Oaxaca on Nov. 5. It demanded the resignation of the hated state governor, Ulises Ruíz Ortíz (known as URO). Only a few days earlier, on Nov. 2, there was a battle to keep control of Benito Juárez University from federal troops that occupied the city of Oaxaca, the state’s capital, on Oct. 29. These were just the latest events in a popular revolt in the southern Mexican state aimed at ousting the governor after he used savage repression to curb a teachers’ strike in July.

Oaxaca: Ruiz and APPO both reconsider strategy

World War 4 Report: Oaxaca: Ruiz and APPO both reconsider strategy
The Oaxaca People’s Assembly (APPO) resumed their organizational congress on Saturday in Oaxaca City, while the state’s embattled governor announced the beginning of a massive Cabinet overhaul in hopes of preserving his job.

The APPO congress suffered fits and starts during Friday’s session as participants awaited the arrival of delegates and guest observers from across the country.

In Detroit, schools and union dispute money again

Detroit Free Press: In Detroit, schools and union dispute money again

Schools and the Detroit Federation of Teachers that was touted by both sides last month as the Detroit teachers strike was settled apparently has fallen apart — over money, again.
This time, the two sides disagree over state funding for Last Chance, a DPS program for students in danger of dropping out that is run by for-profit companies. The district has asked the teachers union for a waiver for the program’s teachers, which so far this year the DFT has not granted.

The Oaxaca teachers union suspended an assembly on Saturday and criticized allied protesters for “generating a tense environment.”

El Universal: The Oaxaca teachers union suspended an assembly on Saturday and criticized allied protesters for “generating a tense environment.”

The Oaxaca teachers union suspended an assembly on Saturday and criticized allied protesters for “generating a tense environment.”

A visibly upset Enrique Rueda Pacheco, the teachers union leader, told reporters the assembly was canceled after Radio Universidad, controlled by the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO), began summoning people to the assembly and using inflammatory language.

Que Pasa en Oaxaca?

The Nation‘s Michael McCaughan on the state of seige in Oaxaca:

Que Pasa en Oaxaca?

A virtual state of siege prevails in Oaxaca City where thousands of military police have occupied the central square and surrounding streets, clearing barricades and detaining dozens of opposition activists. The city’s emergency services are idle while banks and schools remain closed and the city center, usually bustling with tourists, has the air of a ghost town. The hub of activity has shifted to the Santo Domingo church where thousands of activists gather daily to swap news, make plans and denounce police brutality.

Sixth Megamarch Organized by APPO Underway in Oaxaca

NarcoNews: Sixth Megamarch Organized by APPO Underway in Oaxaca

During the night helicopters brought military troops into the city. According to “La Doctora,” impeccably
calm and intelligent as ever on Radio Universidad, the people must remain non-violent. She mentioned Mahatma Ghandi and to avoid the provocations the military and PRI will attempt. The people must remain organized and dignified, she said.

Protesters turn Mexican university into stronghold in Oaxaca rebellion

USA Today: Protesters turn Mexican university into stronghold in Oaxaca rebellion

Masked men patrol the gates, armed with bats and gasoline bombs, and barbed wire and booby traps defile the campus lawns. Since protesters took over the state university in Mexico’s besieged Oaxaca City, there have been no classes, only talk of revolution.

The university of 30,000 students has become a stronghold for leftists trying to oust the Oaxaca state governor in a five-month-old conflict that has left at least nine people dead.

Mexico: Oaxaca Tense and Only Relative Calm after Police Crackdown

IPS News: Tense and Only Relative Calm after Police Crackdow

The Mexican government justified on Monday the violent storming by federal police of social protests in the capital of the southern state of Oaxaca, saying it had restored peace and order. But the evidence tells a different story.

“The situation has got worse. We have been subjected to violent and unacceptable attacks (on Sunday) which left three dead, more than 50 under arrest, several ‘disappeared’ and some cases of torture,” Florentino López, spokesman for the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), told IPS.

Flavio Sosa, another of the organisation’s leaders, said negotiations with the government would be shut down as long as federal police forces — who he described as “criminals and rapists” — remained in Oaxaca.
But President Vicente Fox, whose six-year term is due to finish in December, sees things from a different angle. “Today, social harmony has returned to Oaxaca,” he said on Monday.

In Oaxaca “we were able to combine dialogue and the search for agreements with establishing order and respect for the law. Dialogue was essential to restoring peace and calm,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, thousands of police in armoured trucks entered Oaxaca, the state capital. By dint of shoving, truncheon blows, tear gas and water cannon, the police evicted the APPO encampments and barricades that the protesters set up five months ago in the city streets and parks.

The demonstrators, most of whom offered no resistance and instead bunkered down in the buildings of the public Benito Juárez Autonomous University, held protest marches Monday through the city of Oaxaca, demanding withdrawal of the police and the immediate resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz.

The conflict in Oaxaca began on May 22 when teachers went on strike for higher wages. They were joined by 350 social organisations that came together in APPO in June, after Ruiz called in the police to break up the teachers’ protest.

The conflict escalated to the present level amid failed negotiations between the federal government and APPO.

The protesters’ main demand is the removal of Ruiz, who they accuse of corruption and authoritarianism. But the governor, who belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), refuses to go, in spite of pressure by his own party and by the Fox administration to do so.

This Monday, legislators of the governing National Action Party (PAN) and the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) approved, without PRI support, an agreement in which they publicly called on Ruiz to resign.

Meanwhile, Emilio Gamboa, leader of the PRI in the Chamber of Deputies, asked the governor to “examine his conscience” as to whether he should remain in office.

According to APPO activist López, the protesters who are missing may have been taken to military installations and are probably being subjected to torture. He also said three people were killed.

Government spokespersons have denied these reports. They say 23 people were arrested and that there was one death, a youth hit by a firecracker that he had set off himself.

The governmental but independent National Human Rights Commission, which sent 18 observers to Oaxaca, said that it had recorded one death as a result of the police crackdown, the same young man mentioned by the government. According to the Commission, he died after he was hit by a tear gas canister.

Dialogue with APPO remains open, and the unionised teachers of Oaxaca, who are at the heart of the uprising, will suspend their strike and return to their classrooms Monday, said Rubén Aguilar, Fox’s spokesman.

But APPO says it will not resume talks with the government unless the police pull out of Oaxaca, and classes have not started.

Police stood guard on the main streets and parks of Oaxaca Monday, but elsewhere APPO supporters were rebuilding their barricades. Meanwhile, commercial and tourist activity in the city remained low-key.

The minister for Security, Eduardo Medina, explained that the decision to use force in Oaxaca was based on the premise that violence and disorder could not be allowed to continue in the state.

“Use of force is not the way to solve a social and political conflict. But it had to be done, and now there will be dialogue and negotiation through institutional channels,” he said.

Medina denied APPO’s suggestion that sending the police into Oaxaca was a move in support of the controversial state governor. He insisted that the purpose of the action was solely to restore order.

The police were sent in the day after violent clashes between APPO members and men in civilian dress who have been identified as local police officers and municipal officials linked to the PRI. The violence was the worst since the social and political conflict began in May.

The shootout involved the use of firearms by both sides, as confirmed by film images and photographs. Four people were killed, including Bradley Will, an independent U.S. journalist who was working for the alternative on-line news agency Indymedia. His death drew a protest from the U.S. embassy in Mexico.

Human rights groups have reported that APPO members have been repeatedly attacked by paramilitary groups and hired killers. Most of the 15 people who have died so far in the Oaxaca conflict belonged to APPO.

According to Sergio Aguayo, an academic and political scientist at El Colegio de México, the police raid in Oaxaca did not solve the conflict and, in fact, might make things worse.

Historian Lorenzo Meyer felt much the same way. He believed that the decision to use force in Oaxaca may have been a response to pressure from the U.S. embassy after the death of reporter Bradley Will. (END/2006)

Showdown looms as Mexican riot police move in on city occupied by protesters

The Guardian: Showdown looms as Mexican riot police move in on city occupied by protesters

Thousands of federal riot police backed by armoured trucks and helicopters pushed into the Mexican city of Oaxaca yesterday as a protest that began over teachers’ pay spiralled into a major confrontation.

Police wearing body armour and carrying riot shields and submachine guns were accompanied by water cannon and helicopters as they moved from the outskirts of the city towards the central plaza that has been occupied by a leftwing movement for months.

The Teacher’s Strike in Oaxaca: A primer

Pine Magazine: The Teacher’s Strike in Oaxaca: A primer

A little while back we ran a story about the teacher’s strike in Oaxaca. The entire story can be found here, though we’ve excerpted it below to fully focus on Mexico’s Oaxaca, which has been under police siege after a massive teachers’ protest. The protest has been going on for about five months, with a recent violent peak that left one person dead.

Here are some news stories written by people on the scene: Reuters, Forbes and the AP/USA Today. We are trying to hunt down more independently written articles for you.

Alberta: Parkland teachers reject deal: board

Edmonton Journal: Parkland teachers reject deal: board

Parkland School Division says its teachers’ union rejected a contract proposal today that would have seen them get a 9.5 per cent pay raise over three years.

Drayton Valley Western Review: No strike for now
There is some relief from the tension of a looming teachers’ strike in the Parkland School District.
Robert Twerdoclib, president of the Parkland teachers’ local of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said that a decision had been made at last Wednesday night’s general meeting to “calm the waters,” by not taking immediate strike action.

“It was resolved not to call any strike at this point and time,” said Twerdoclib.
However, emotion is still running high between the two parties of the dispute.

From Oaxaca to the Zócalo: Uprisings and Repression in Mexico

gibler2.jpg
Upside Down World: From Oaxaca to the Zócalo: Uprisings and Repression in Mexico

Jose Santiago sits in front of the radio station’s guarded door with a box of bread rolls in his lap. To his left, soda crates filled with Molotov cocktails line the wall. To his right two women with a club stretched between them block the door. A 62 year-old elementary school principal in Oaxaca City, Santiago was supposed to retire this year, but when state police brutally repressed a teachers’ strike on June 14, sparking an unprecedented civil uprising from all sectors of society, he thought, “I’d rather jump in.”

Oaxacan Teachers Reject Return to School: SNTE Still on Strike!

Sant Cruz IMC: Oaxacan Teachers Reject Return to School: SNTE Still on Strike!

Questions about the process and manner in which Union leadership initiated a controversial referendum to return to work led to a rejection of the ‘consulta’ and the continuation of the five-months-and-running teachers strike.

Prensa Latina: Mexico: Oaxaca School Year Unknown

Mexico, Oct 23 (Prensa Latina) Three days of consultations, a general assembly plus clashes with the teacher s union surround the teachers strike in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Detroit Free Press: MEXICO CITY: Teachers refuse to return

MEXICO CITY: Teachers refuse to return
The teachers union in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca rejected a plan Sunday to return to classes today and end a five-month strike. Delegates representing 70,000 workers decided to throw out a vote held last week showing that most teachers wished to return. Teachers will vote again this week, officials said. The conflict began as a teachers’ strike over pay and working conditions in May. It has since broadened into a coalition of more than a dozen groups. Some objected that union leader Enrique Rueda had failed to make the resignation of the state’s governor, Ulises Ruiz, a condition for returning to class. Ruiz is accused of rigging the 2004 election to win office and sending armed thugs against his opponents.

Greece: Gov’t again appeals to teachers

Athens News Agency: Gov’t again appeals to teachers

The government on Monday repeated its call to teachers to end their strike and return to classrooms. Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos stressed that, while everyone respected the important work that they did, state finances made it impossible to meet their demands.