Class Struggle Education Workers at Bronx Hearing on Charter Co-Location

Class Struggle Education Workers at
Bronx Hearing on Charter Co-Location

This year the New York City Department of Education has published a list of 25 schools it plans to close, overwhelmingly in order to open charter schools in the same space, and 33 schools it intends to “rebrand,” giving them a new name, replacing the principal and up to half the teachers. (See our February 9 post,  “Occupy Closing Schools.”)

As part of this wrecking operation aimed at privatizing public education, the DOE is required to hold hearings of its puppet Panel on Educational Policy in the affected communities. At these hearings, students have movingly explained how these closures and “co-locations” of charters will undercut their education, parents voice their opposition, teachers explain in detailed presentations how the schools have made great strides in dealing with the challenges they face ... and then the PEP proceeds to rubber-stamp the DOE's plan, ignoring all the heart-felt pleas they have heard. 

Class Struggle Education Workers has attended several of these hearings (this year at Legacy HS in Manhattan and Bronx Regional HS) as well as the PEP meetings to explain that this is just a charade, and teachers, students, parents and workers need to mobilize our own power to defeat the privatizers. Below is a short (4 minute) video of Marjorie Stamberg of CSEW speaking at the Bronx hearing, and the tremendous response from the participants.