We are not about organizing for organizing’s sake. We are trying to organize a political force capable of changing our society in fundamental ways. And we understand that the only force capable of doin£ so are the masses of the people, people who are conscious of their fundamental interests, who are confident in their ability, who have learned how to see through the various tricks used by a clever enemy to keep them attached to the status quo. There are some basic understandings that must be acquired, whether in the general political struggle or any of its component streams; such as the struggle for democratic, quality education. One of these is that society is being run by Big Business, the corporations, the banks, and in urban areas particularly the real estate interests — including developers and landlords, and the banks that finance them. Another basic understanding required is that the media are themselves part of this ruling structure — are themselves huge corporations and derive the bulk of their income from other corporations in the form of commercial advertising. In protecting their power and their wealth, racism has been their most important weapon. Big Business and their media lapdogs have always been at war with the people but now they have embarked on a huge offensive to undermine the standard of living of working people, and to make still more difficult the conditions of life of those of modest means as well as those of no means at all. Taking advantage of the economic crisis, which they and particularly the biggest banks brought on themselves, they are bankrupting the state and then demand that the budget bo balanced on the backs of working people and particularly the poor. We are only seeing the opening shots in this offensive — with the slashing of vital social services, ever-larger layoffs and pay concessions by government workers — city, state and federal — and we can anticipate the major cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Public education is under severe attack in the form of cutbacks and privatization.
We need to draw out implications of such privatization, including union busting, for the charter schools are a source of a good deal of confusion among parents. In defending public education we of course must not become apologists for the status quo in public education, its tracking, its racism, its bureaucratic mentality, etc., teaching to tests, students to become robots and teachers drill sergeants, the driving out of teachers f and administrators of color. Nor should we avoid criticism of past and present policies of the UFT.
We must work to combat the servile mentality, encouraged in parents and the community to depend on- politicians to solve their problems. We need to combat focus on personalities and show how the political apparatus works as a whole, and how by politicians plugging into it they hopelessly compromise themselves, even where they are not personally corrupt. This is a vital part of our message that “We are the leaders we have been waiting for,” the message of bolstering the community’s and parents’ confidence in their ability — with the help of experts of their choosing — to run their own schools and to collectively run the NYC school system.
Summing up, political consciousness raising is an indispensable element of our organizing work.
We need to locate schools where there is a high level of discontent, as well as where there is at least one dynamic parent/leader whom we can support.
In high schools we need to locate a student leader or potential student leader, issues may transcend immediate school and include things like job ? opportunities, police harassment and brutality, etc.
The main point is that parent control, student control, community control of education will only be a pipedream unless it is backed by a powerful people’s movement. And our primary task is to build that movement. This means prioritizing organizing work in the schools and the communities, rather than prioritizing attending hearings and learned conferences. It means working on building our own —political bases, rather than manifesting a deferential, I would call it servile, attitude toward the politicians, the vast majority of whom are self-seeking careerists who understand very well on which side their bread is buttered. This does not preclude our cooperating with those politicians willing to advance our agenda. But we should do so without reinforcing illusions about the political apparatus and the political system. Building an independent people’s movement means encouraging the use of tactics that are not within the framework of that which is acceptable to the Establishment. It means taking advantage of every legal avenue open to us but not restricting ourselves to those avenues. It means encouraging demonstrations, boycotts, strikes, walk-outs.
