Believe in public education? Democratic societies? Stand up and fight back!

You hear the right wing's ideas about education on a daily basis in the corporate media. A day doesn't go by without the Los Angeles Times cheerleading the corporate charter-voucher establishment. On television, the racist corporate vision of education is presented as the only way to "reform" an education system starved of resources though decades of massive tax cuts for the rich. Ultra-wealthy, nefarious right wing ideologues like the Waltons, Gates, Milkens, and Broads, who use their vast fortunes to accelerate the dismantling of public and democratic institutions to usher in their vision of a privatized and corporate controlled society, are lauded as "reformers" in the very media they or their peers own and control.

What then, is the left's vision of public education? Come to The Socialist Perspective on School Reform next week to find out.

Why is this important? Last week all of the following happened in Los Angeles:

• The LAUSD President and Vice President stood alongside highly paid NGO executives from the charter/voucher establishment, who through a series of outrageous lies, insinuation, and innuendo accused UTLA of serious, but baseless charges of lying to undocumented peoples.



• LAUSD Superintendent Cortines sent out a letter threatening up to 14,000 more lay offs, and is demanding even more concessions from the hard working women and men who educate children in our communities.



• Out of state, highly funded, corporate charter/voucher company Synesi Associates submitted letters of intent on all but one of the schools available under VP Yolie Flores-Aguilar's corporate charter choice give-away resolution.

Meanwhile the same budget cuts that are gutting K-12 are turning California's community college, CSU, and UC systems into a luxury for the well-to-do.

There's never been a more important time to stand with public school advocates and defend public education!

The Socialist Perspective on School Reform

"School reform" is one of the most overused phrases in the media these days. To the Obama administration and the corporate interests wanting to dismantle public education, "school reform" means attacking teachers' unions, increasing standardized testing, and handing schools over to unaccountable Charter Management Organizations.

But to us, truly reforming our schools would mean giving them all the funding they need for beautiful school buildings, small class sizes, educational materials, and engaging field trips. It would mean putting teachers and parents in control of running their schools in the best interests of students, and getting rid of the bureaucrats and mandates that try to control education from the top down.

"School reform" has a dual meaning because education itself has two sides under capitalism. It's used to reproduce class inequalities by training a few to be managers and the rest of us to work for them. But as people come together to be educated, we also begin to think about reaching our full potential and liberating ourselves. That's why education has always been a location of conflict and struggle in our society.

Come to this meeting to discuss how the fight for truly liberatory education is linked to the fight for a socialist society run democratically in the interests of the many rather than the few!

featuring speakers
Gillian Russom and David Rapkin, UTLA and ISO

This event is part of the
2009 Southern California Socialist Conference
Saturday, November 21, 2009 from 1:30—3:00pm
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198934026139

USC Taper Hall of Humanities (THH)
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90007

http://socalsocialism.org/
lacityiso@yahoo.com
(310) 404-1738