The Teachers’ Strike, The Exiles’ Revival, The MLK Memorial
This Week: Red for Ed — with Dana Goldstein, Jennifer Berkshire, Jon Shelton, Steve Fraser and teachers from Oklahoma. Listen today at 2pm on WBUR or anytime on our website.
Another week in Trumplandia, another protest. But notice — these things are getting to be less about Trump and more about our craven crumbling country owned and operated by the Koch Brothers and the gun lobby. When a deep red state like Oklahoma passes a tax on oil and gas to pay for a teacher salary increase, something’s going on. And it’s still going on. As of Friday, the fifth day of the Oklahoma protests, teachers still had overwhelming public support for their demands.
The edupolitics around this are fascinating; yes, it’s about a growing backlash to the austerity regimes in states like Oklahoma, but the democrats have been exposed too — like the edutechnocrats in the Obama and Clinton orbit who bought into reform and ate their own (teachers and unions) in service to their incredibly short-sighted political campaigns over many years. Our favorite edupunditshyster Jennifer Berkshire helped dope it out along with Jon Shelton at the University of Wisconsin, author of Teacher Strike! And labor historian Steve Fraser pulled the frame back even further, with the red banner labor history in red states like Oklahoma, Arizona and West Virginia.
Jennifer shared this piece with us from law prof Derek Black, which puts the strikes in a bigger perspective, showing how states have been gutting public education for a decade while increasing funding for vouchers and charters exponentially. The most recent struggles in these states are still rooted in the post-2008 austerity regime. As Black writes:
The biggest cuts to public education began during the Great Recession. Early on, teachers and families accepted that states had to make hard economic choices. But states soon did more than just balance their budgets. They increased funding for charter schools and vouchers at the same time that they were cutting public school funding. Between 2008 and 2012, Florida, for instance, increased voucher funding every year. During that same period, the state cut public school funding by 23%.
States also fundamentally changed how they treat teachers. Wisconsin restricted the influence of teacher unions. At least seven states passed legislation to eliminate teacher tenure. Dozens of other states imposed high-stakes evaluation systems on teachers. New laws required districts to hire, fire, and promote teachers — largely based on statistics. They scared so many teachers away that it eventually created a national shortage.
States have done little since the Recession to repair the damage. By 2012, tax revenues rebounded and are substantially up now. But thirty-one states are still funding education at a lower level than before the recession began. The worst offenders are more than 20% below pre-recession levels. Even states that modestly increased funding in recent years have done very little to help the neediest districts. In Pennsylvania, the poorest districts receive 33 percent less funding than wealthier districts. Some poor districts began the 2015–2016 school year by asking teachers to work for free. By 2016, Erie considered closing its school district permanently.
More good reading on the teachers strikes: Dana Goldstein—“It Really is a Wildfire”; Jedediah Purdy—”A New Struggle Coming”; Corey Robin —Liberals and the Strike.”
One fun eduthing this week: How ‘bout the teachers’ battle cry? We started the show with it — music teachers in Oklahoma playing “We’re Not Gonna Take It;” it’s become the anthem for the movement.
Dee Snyder, frontman for the band Twisted Sister who recorded the original song in 1984, tweeted this out:
And for the authentic pissed off version
As of Sunday morning, the walkouts in Oklahoma are expected to continue into next week—so we’ll keep singing as long as they’re still marching.
Listen: Sound Opinions on Exile on Main St.
We got a big, enthusiastic response to our last episode on Van Morrison—many thanks to everyone who’s written in! For more on Van, you can also listen to Jake Brennan’s own investigation into the mystic on his great true-crime music podcast, Disgraceland.
If you’re looking for more classic album content, check out this recent dissection of the Rolling Stone’s magnum opus Exile on Main St. on WBEZ’s Sound Opinions. The story behind Exile, which was recorded in 1972, is in some ways the antithesis of Morrison’s Astral Weeks. While Van was hiding out in a dingy Green Street apartment in Cambridge because he was broke and in debt to the mob, the Rolling Stones exited England because they had too much money and fled to a villa France in order to protect their wealth at a lower tax rate (the album’s title is a winking reference to the band’s own status as “tax exiles”). While Van was still making music in relative obscurity, The Stones—following the breakup of The Beatles—had become the most popular rock band in the world. And while Van’s album was a relatively sober tribute to the divine realm, the strung-out songs recorded by Jagger and Richards made idols out of distinctly earthy forms of human vice.
My favorite song of Exile is “Sweet Virginia”—a shambolic country music tribute track which also creates a strange sense of displacement. Only The Stones (with a little help from country rock legend / junkie-svengali Gram Parsons) could make a drunken jam session in the basement of a French villa sound like an organic, homegrown product of the American south. Similarly, only Van Morrison could sing the words “Cambridgeport” and “Hyannis” and make them sound like pilgrimage sites in County Clare, as Ryan Walsh describes in his book.
In Case You Missed It during MLK Week…
Our MLK show also got a lot of positive feedback—and speaking of MLK and his Boston roots, Chris told us that local entrepreneur Paul English is behind a project to create a memorial in Boston to Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
On Our Desk: Barbara Ehrenreich—Natural Causes
We’re trying to think through another health care show at the moment. Luckily, we also have lots of great things to read. In addition to Barbara Ehrenreich’s great new book on aging and end-of-life care, there’s also this spring health care issue of Dissent Magazine—edited by past OS guest & local pulmonary doc, Adam Gaffney. Some of us also just received this nice-looking DSA pamphlet in the mail—highlighted here by another past guest, Molly Crabapple:
If you’ve got health care qs and/or show ideas, send them our way: info@radioopensource.org
This n’ That
Jeff Sachs and Pat Buchanan, both unlikely supporters of Trump in his war with his generals over U.S. Syria policy. Aziz Rana on the left’s missing foreign policy. Sam Wetherell on Cambridge Analytica and the death of the voter. Rana Dasgupta on the demise of the nation state. Randy Bryce wants to abolish ICE. The People’s Policy Project’s plan to solve the housing crisis through social housing + Somerville residents fight over a real estate transfer fee. Matthew Desmond’s latest work on evictions. Cambridge could soon lose another music hub.
Til next week,
The OS Educators
