What else can we do?

I promised to offer alternatives to CTA’s historic pattern of defeatism and accommodation (discussed in the previous post).  So today I’ll list a few fairly general things I think CTA and its parent organization, the National Education Association (NEA), should do to pull out of this long downward spiral of political retreat and increasing weakness.

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The NEA RA: a bleak look back and and hopeful look ahead

My posts on the National Education Association’s 2009 Representative Assembly have focused so far on a new business item I introduced calling for a national strike for full funding a corporate expense. I should note, though, that aside from the brief time it took to squash that motion, a few other things happened during the four days of meetings attended by 9000 delegates from all over the country.

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“Educational Transformation, YES! (but…)”

About 9000 delegates participated in the NEA Representative Assembly.
About 9000 delegates attended the NEA RA.

I’m as willing to compromise as the next “wild-eyed” radical.  (“Wild-eyed” is what anti-teachers union blogger Mike Antonucci called several motions Oakland delegates brought to this year’s NEA Representative Assembly in San Diego.)

So after the California delegation voted on July 3 to oppose my proposal for a two-day nationwide strike for fully funded public schools I considered some options.

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California Caucus Says No

As last reported, the idea of a nationwide teachers walkout for full school funding at corporate expense was greeted by passionate cheers on July 2. That was at an NEA forum attended by several hundred delegates just one day before the organization’s four-day Representative Assembly opened in San Diego. And it was after the famous, charismatic, and eloquent author Michael Eric Dyson endorsed the proposal as “beautiful” and the potential impact “extraordinary.” I’m no Michael Eric Dyson.  But maybe a few other factors also account for the very different reception given the idea just down the hall the next morning by most of the nearly 900 delegates in the California Caucus.

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Political Strike for Equal, Quality Public Schools… A crazy notion?

Dyson
Michael Eric Dyson speaking 7/2/09

Getting fifty signatures to qualify New Business Item 11 for a vote by the NEA Representative Assembly was slow going at first. (The text of NBI 11, calling for a  48-hour nationwide strike  for full funding of public education at corporate expense, is in the previous post.)

When I passed the form for the NBI down the row at our early-morning meeting of the California delegation, most looked at the proposal and passed it on to the next person. After getting a “critical mass” (20 or so) signatures, mostly by talking with people one-on-one about it, the signatures came much more easily. That was interesting in itself. One reason many people initially dismiss the idea of an unprecedented mass action such as this is the assumption that nobody else will support it, so it seems ridiculous.

In fact, author Michael Eric Dyson pointed precisely to that fear, when I asked what he thought about this proposal.

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