ALL OUT TO WASHINGTON DC!

MARCH AND RALLY TO DEFEND

PUBLIC EDUCATION
DEMAND THAT ARNE DUNCAN STOP TOYING WITH OUR STUDENTS’ LIVES!
END THE “RACE TO THE TOP” SCHEME NOW
RELEASE ALL FEDERAL EDUCATION FUNDS TO THE STATES BASED ON NEED

FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2010, NOON

U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW
End the Attacks against Teachers, Black, Latina/o, and Poor,
Working-Class and Middle-Class Students of All Races
No Privatization of Public Education
No More Separate and Unequal
Restore Dr. King’s Vision for America
Our children are NOT for sale. For the last six
months, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has cynically and
dishonestly hidden behind the needs of poor, black and
Latina/o students to receive equal, quality educational
opportunities, to institute his controversial, unpopular and
educationally indefensible plan to create a national network
of 5,000 publicly-financed, privately-run, minimally-
regulated charter schools. Precious resources have already
been taken away from public schools and given to charter
schools to assure that charter schools win the “competition”
against resource-starved, inner-city urban public school
systems. His scheme, if successful, would end public
education as a right and would increase, not decrease,
educational inequality based on race and class.
Duncan has exploited the economic crisis to demand
that union officials, local school districts, public officials
and politicians unquestioningly and uncritically sign on to
his unpopular, reactionary, anti-union, anti-democratic, pro-
business policies in order to even stand a chance of
receiving “Race To The Top” money. The most
impoverished black and Latina/o communities with the
proudest history of support for civil rights, union rights and
public education are being asked to undertake a set of
draconian reforms and to abandon every progressive
principle they have stood on and believe in to get federal
money to prevent the decimation of their schools.
The mildest resistance by the unions, Latina/o, black,
immigrant or poor communities, students, parents, or
politicians to Duncan’s plan has led to whole states being
denied access to funds. Duncan has fanatically demanded
that unions abandon seniority protections, free-speech
rights, set pay rates, academic freedom, etc. to qualify for
federal money. Black and Latina/o parents, students and
communities that have opposed taking away precious public
resources from public schools and giving those same
resources to charters, or who object to Latina/o and black
students being asked to embrace separate and unequal,
segregated, stripped-down, vocational/technical education
instead of traditional broad-based education with art, music,
science, sports and a full array of AP classes and extra-
curricular activities—that succeeds in preparing wealthier
suburban students for success in college—are being
punished for even questioning Duncan’s advocacy of private
paternalistic offerings, reminiscent of the old Booker T.
Washington-Jim Crow era.
Detroit, Los Angeles, Houston and other majority
minority cities in Michigan, California and Texas that are
experiencing unemployment rates three times the national
average and record numbers of foreclosures, bankruptcies,
plant closings and job losses, are ineligible for “Race To
The Top,” because they resisted Duncan’s attempts to
scapegoat teachers, blame the students for the conditions
they did not create, and replace or marginalize
democratically-elected, publicly-accountable school boards
and superintendents with pro-charter mayoral school-take-
over administrators or state appointed “education czars,”
some of whom are paid in part by the charter companies
themselves.
Arne Duncan Must Go
The young people in states eliminated from
consideration for “Race To The Top” and those living in
states still in the running for “Race To The Top” are losing
ground every day. School closings, teacher lay-offs and
program cuts abound. The whole application process has
weakened public education everywhere and distorted all
reform efforts. The mad scramble to abandon all tried-and-
true reforms to get desperately needed federal funding and
the insane competition of school-against-school, state-
against-state, etc. consistent with Duncan’s free-market
maximum-competition ideology, has wreaked havoc and
encouraged divisiveness everywhere. We cannot allow this
to continue any longer. United we win, divided we fall. Now
is the time to stand together and fight. If Arne Duncan were
a Republican, every progressive force in America would be
demanding his resignation or firing. We cannot allow him to
destroy public education or give him a free pass because
he’s a Democrat. For any real pro-student educational
reforms to occur, Duncan must go now.
We can win our fight to stop the privatization of
public education by telling the truth and taking action.
While Duncan’s current efforts are focused on majority-
Latina/o and -black urban districts, his plan to convert 5,000
public schools into charters means that suburban districts—
increasingly resource-starved themselves—will be targeted
next. No one disagrees that public education needs to be
vastly improved or that the achievement gap between black
and Latina/o, and poor, working-class and middle-class
students of all races and more privileged students must be
closed.
Proven Ways to Improve Student Achievement
It is as true now as it was in 1954 when Brown v.
Board of Education was decided: the single most important
factor in closing the achievement gap and improving every
student’s educational outcomes is school integration.
Creating diverse student bodies, offering a variety of
traditional and non-traditional course offerings, giving
young people the right to explore and experiment with art,
music, athletics, different cultures, etc., produces the
greatest success rates. Giving resource-starved urban and
rural schools the funds for books, supplies and smaller class
sizes, supporting efforts to desegregate education through
the creation of magnet school programs, and uniting urban
and suburban districts to share services, prevent duplication
of efforts, provide an economy of scale that allows for more
experimentation with educational alternatives, and allows
Sponsored by: Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means
Necessary (BAMN), Defend Public Education/Save Our Students Caucus - Endorsed by the Detroit Federation of Teachers
for the creation of more diverse student populations, are all
reforms that work.
The Duncan reform plan is premised on the view that
human creativity, scientific discovery and social progress
are best furthered through purely individual competition for
personal, individual gain. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The greatest scientific breakthroughs, creative
endeavors and social progress have always been produced as
collective endeavors. When we have great minds focused on
our shared and common interests and working together,
human societies advance more rapidly. Educational reform
is not that daunting when there is the will to act.
Duncan’s educational policy begins from two false
political premises: first, that we cannot tax the corporations,
banks or the very rich to obtain the money needed to fund
public education; and second, that we cannot reorder our
social or political priorities so that education receives more
funds. Both premises are wrong. Presented with the actual
facts, there is no doubt that public education, which is the
most popular and universally-treasured achievement of the
great civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, would
easily beat out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as funding
priorities. Secondly, there is broadly felt and expressed
frustration and anger over how little the very people who
caused the economic crisis have had to pay to rectify the
conditions they created. Taxing the corporations, banks and
very rich might make them squeal, but it would hardly be an
unpopular policy.
Last fall, students in California, led by University of
California at Berkeley and UCLA students, gave birth to a
student movement. They stood up and successfully defended
public education. The student movement had the backing of
the unions and California’s powerful Latina/o, immigrant,
black, poor, working-class and middle-class communities.
The power of the movement is its independence and its
understanding that it speaks for the majority. The student
movement lifted all of us. The marches, sit-ins, occupations
and rallies reminded us that when we stand and fight
together, we can win and, maybe just as importantly, restore
our own sense of collective purpose, joy, hope and
optimism. To move this new movement forward and to
move forward the civil rights, immigrant rights, and labor
movements, we need to march on Washington. It is time for
us to deliver our demands to Arne Duncan directly,
massively and strongly.
Join us in Washington on April 9—make this spring
vacation one you will not forget. Get on the Bus!
www.BAMN.com; letters@bamn.com; 313 438-3748 or
313-575-9329. If you can’t come yourself, send a check to
sponsor a student!!! (make out checks to: Defend Public
Education, PO Box 24834, Detroit MI 48224)