“There is an old saying that the course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education wins the race.”
–John F. Kennedy
A half dozen dawns before most of the world celebrates International Workers’ Day, Arizona teachers will walk the line instead of walking into their classrooms. They will not only join a growing national movement of teachers, students, and parents fed up with politicians who starve our schools for political gain, they will track the cairns of a trail blazed by known and unknown heroes who organized in pursuit of a higher cause.
The trail can be treacherous. International Workers’ Day was born from an event in Chicago in 1886 known as “The Haymarket Affair” when a peaceful protest turned violent. Workers were striking for what most of us take for granted: an eight-hour workday. The protest began peacefully on May 1st but took a dark turn on the 3rd when several strikers were killed in a clash with police. The next day somebody tossed a bomb into a group of police officers, who responded with gunfire. Several policeman and demonstrators were killed. Three years later, May 1st was declared an international holiday for labor.
In 1978, when my teacher wife and I were newlyweds and I was in my second year of law school, teachers walked out in the Tucson Unified School District, thanks to a disintegrating relationship between the union and a dysfunctional school board led by a new superintendent who was in over his head. It lasted a week – one of the longest weeks of our lives – but ended with a result generally favorable to the teachers. (You can read about the 1978 strike here.)
In 1966, the Typographical Union struck the local newspapers, despite a reasonable contract proposal. The union’s new president, finally elected after years of defeats, called a strike for the worst possible reason: ego. The strikers walked the line for weeks, joined by other unions, including teamsters and mine workers. I saw a teenage boy, about my age, roughed up when he tried to cross the line at the building’s front door. He wasn’t a strike-breaker; they didn’t use the front door. Maybe he was a paper boy, there to collect payment. He never made it into the building. (I filmed the entire episode. When the film returned from the lab the segment depicting the picketers roughing up the kid was blacked out.) The union lost the strike and the president left town. My Dad crossed the line, which was a major personal sacrifice since both he and my Grandfather were union organizers. That prompted a death threat; I took the call. The trail can be treacherous.
The labor movement gave us the American middle class and many things we take for granted, such as a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, an eight-hour work day, and sick leave. Today’s action is not just about economics. Teachers are not walking out in singular pursuit of a higher income; they also want a safe and effective learning environment that includes decent pay for support staff, and buildings with roofs that don’t leak, plumbing that works, air conditioning that doesn’t break down in August and textbooks that are current.
The teachers know a mass walkout is not for the faint of heart, but neither is teaching. The profession is challenging enough without low pay, large class sizes, outdated textbooks and crumbling facilities. Arizona is one of several states governed by a cult that opposes public education, derides public schools as “government schools,” demonizes teachers’ unions, and sells fanciful visions of a magic economy that will boost funding without increasing taxes. It’s “something for nothing” politics and school children pay the consequences when it fails – as it always does.
Kris and I have retired, but a new generation has taken our place and they’ll be walking the line with thousands of their colleagues throughout the state. That’s why I’m reminiscing; their decision triggered memories. Still, I’m optimistic about their chances for these reasons:
- They have numbers. In 1978, only TUSD teachers walked out, not the entire state. The vote to strike was not overwhelming – 57.6% voted in favor. By contrast, 78% of the 57,000 Arizona teachers who participated voted to walk out. They will shut down the State’s entire public-school system.
- Arizona voters support public education and have voted to raise taxes to pay for it. In Arizona the general population is more progressive than the Legislature – witness votes to increase taxes to pay for education, to legalize medical marijuana, and to establish a system of public funding for candidates for political office.
- Arizona is part of a national uprising against state failures to adequately fund public education. Being part of a national movement is empowering.
- Governor Doug Ducey is panicking. After digging in his heels, he reversed himself and called for a 20% raise for teachers – that he can’t pay for. He’s up for reelection and education is his vulnerability. Politicians act in their own self-interest and will support increased funding if they believe it will help them.
- Arizona schools don’t have the option to fire teachers who walk out. The state has 2,000 vacancies it can’t fill because of the lousy pay and working conditions. Any school district that fires striking teachers may find itself unable to function when it can’t replace them.
My heart is in my throat as I watch family members join the walkout. They’d rather be in the classroom but realize they belong elsewhere: outside, in the sunshine, walking the line.
© 2018 by Mike Tully
The White Rapper Chick of the AZ Leg
If you were looking for a hip-hop artist who quotes Kendrick Lamar you would probably not look in the Arizona Legislature. And you certainly wouldn’t look at Maria Syms (R-Paradise Valley), a conservative member of the Arizona House who represents a toney Phoenix suburb. Syms is a first-term legislator whose accomplishments include sponsorship of a bill to designate the State Dinosaur, with the help of 48 co-signers in the 60-member Arizona House. Perhaps it was in that spirit of comity that she quoted from Pulitzer Prize Winner Lamar in a guest opinion piece for AZCentral: “we hate Popo [police], wanna kill us dead in the street for sure, nigga.” (AZCentral almost immediately deleted the term “nigga” but you can read the uncensored Syms in the Blog for Arizona.)
Actually, there’s no comity in Syms’ piece, a denunciation of all things liberal – especially the young leaders of Arizona’s “Red for Ed” movement, which fought for a 20 percent pay raise for classroom teachers. While that should raise salaries from rock bottom to closer to the national average, the Republican-dominated Legislature rebuffed Democrats’ attempts to expand spending to include non-classroom teachers, like Special Education teachers, as well as librarians, nurses, counselors, monitors, clerical staff, bus drivers, maintenance workers and others without whom schools could not function. The Red for Ed movement is not disbanding. They know the Arizona Legislature has under-funded schools for years, frequently illegally, and intend to continue their campaign for adequate funding through November’s election.
Syms indulges herself in a tirade against two of the prominent members of the Red for Ed movement, Noah Karvelis and Derek Harris. “These two promise more harm than good by politicizing Arizona education in pursuit of their self-proclaimed agenda,” she wrote, “a national socialist revolution.”
Syms represents a segment of the Republican Party that conflates Democrats with socialists, revealing a lack of political fluency that questions her fitness for office. She submits no evidence to support her allegation of a “socialist revolution.” The closest she comes is to note “Karvelis … credits the teachings of long-distance Communist academic Noam Chomsky.” Chomsky is a member of the University of Arizona faculty and respected in the Tucson community. She criticizes Harris for a social media comment entitled, “Republicans Are the True Sodomites,” that included this quotation: “Now this was the sin of Sodom: They were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and detestable.” Sounds like modern Republicans, does it not? The quote is from Ezekiel.
Syms focuses most of her anger on Karvelis. She attacks him for quoting Angela Davis, whom Syms refers to as “virulently anti-American.” This is what Karvelis said in a guest opinion piece for Truth Out: “As Davis sees it, this struggle for freedom, if it is to truly deliver freedom, must be a global struggle, not an American struggle, not a Black or white struggle, not a male struggle, but a global struggle.” Is that “Anti-American?” What about this: “The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile. It is man’s eternal desire to be free and independent.” That quote from John F. Kennedy expresses Americans’ belief that the entire world should enjoy the freedoms we have. It is not Donald Trump’s belief – or Syms’.
As for Kendrick Lamar: Syms’ quote was from the song, “Alright,” which starts with the words, “Alls my life I has to fight” but actually strikes an optimistic tone with the repeated line, “We gon’ be all right.” I’m not a fan of rap music, my personal soundtrack influenced by the music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but I recognize the value of protest in song, as much of my music was a reaction to a government sending my generation off to die needlessly in Vietnam. And, while Lamar’s musical rhythms don’t resonate with me, his words do. They are poetry. Karvelis’ lessons, which include Lamar’s works, do not include lyrics with profanity.
Syms’ piece had an unintended consequence: it reminded us of the racism of Arizona’s Legislative Republicans. Just last year, a federal court overturned a law passed “with discriminatory intent.” Syms reopened the wound. After she publicized her piece in AZCentral, Rep. Reginald Bolding (D-Phoenix), an African-American whose district is near the school where Karvelis teaches – and who probably has a better understanding of Kendrick Lamar than Syms – objected to the piece. “The more I read the more I was disappointed that it appears to be OK to use a racial slur about black people in the article,” Bolding said on the House floor. “Let me be crystal clear: It’s not acceptable to use a racial slur even if that slur is used as a quote.” That was too much for Representative Mark Finchem (R-Milita), who could not abide a black man criticizing a white woman. He accused Bolding of violating House rules, whereupon Bolding asked for a vote on whether he should be silenced. He lost the vote and was silenced, along with Rep. Gerae Peten (D-Goodyear), the House’s only other African-American who spoke in Bolding’s defense. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to follow the rules,” an angry Speaker J.D. Mesnard told Bolding and Peten. “It doesn’t matter whether you are white or black or brown or whatever the color the color of your skin is, you follow the House rules.” In other words, don’t be “uppity.”
One more line from Lamar: “My rights, my wrongs; I write ’til I’m right with God”
Syms should try that. Or, better yet, say nothing at all. Sometimes the way to get to heaven is to shut the hell up.
© 2018 by Mike Tully
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