YVETTE FELARCA must replace the current American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten

The representation of the nation’s teachers by AFT president Randi Weingarten has been dispicable.  Every opportunity she can, she is collaborating with the right-wing to sell-out teachers, their students and working parents during a time when all three are feeling the economic crisis and budgetary woes foisted on them by the banksters, Wall Street and their paid courtesans the coin operated politicians.

Weingarten is an admirer of Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and labors furiously with him and the Wall Street interests that support his policies to assure that Race to the Top becomes the new corporatist educational paradigm, locking teachers and their students into a hopeless if not a hapless educational dungeon of increasing regimentation, autocracy and non-stop testing.

Weingarten has said very little about the current massive teacher lay-offs or school closings.  She is verbally quiet when it comes to the privatization of education and of course supports charter schools both in actions and in words.

Weingarten is someone who the ruling class can work with as they mount a formidable challenge to decimate the entire union structure and open the flood gates to new Teach for America volunteers, “at-will” teacher hirees and the gentrification of urban cities.  From abdicating seniority rights for teachers to selling out on teacher tenure, Weingarten has been a willing partner in ‘hog tying’ both teachers and students to inauthentic assessments and turning education over to the bond holders and capital formation turnaround artists who seek only to commodify education, promote American exceptionalism, scrub the history of the struggles of working people of all races from text books and instruction and turn on the testing spigot that destroys both the profession of teaching and childhood itself, while assuring hefty profits for the new educational buccaneers.

Teachers, students and parents deserve better.  They deserve both a cufnning and able president who can organize the union rank and file around a vision of education not laced to the destructive practices shoveled into schools by the corporate test taking companies and the bond holders and hedge fund hogs.  Teachers deserve a leader who can appear nationally and locally and spell out a vision for education based on solidarity, equity in opportunity, an appreciation of diversity in thought, culture, race and gender; we need a fighter who comprehends the assault on teachers’ participation in power and decision making and one who understands the privatization attack being mounted by the billionaires, Gates, the Walton Family, The Fischer Family (The Gap), the Skillman Family, Reed Hastings, the new boy in town, (NetFlix) and of course, all the hand picked shills that Wall Street is fronting to the American people as politicians operating in working people’s best interests.

What is needed now, if the American Federation of Teachers does not go the way of the auto unions, is both direct action against the current wave of privatization through Race to the Top and a dialogue with the American people regarding the role of education in American life.  Randi Weingarten has shown she either has no stomach for any of this or as said, she supports the sordid plans of Race to the Top and the eventual gentrification of urban neighborhoods and the implementation of charter schools, which is closely tied to the Obama decision to privatize public housing.

The good news is that a formidable challenger faces Weingarten in this year’s in a bid to unseat the current president of the union.  Her name is Yvette Felarca and I want to introduce readers to Yvette. 

The following is a press release sent to me by Yvette. 

Please, if you are a teacher, student or a concerned parent who sees the privatization of education as the death knell for a citizenry that must be equipped with more than simple rudimentary skills to compete with Asia in a capitalist world economy that has been slashed and burned by the financial capitalist class, then find time to support Yvette by either contacting her to help on her campaign, spreading the message of her candidacy to others, attending the up-coming AFT national convention in July to make your voice heard, consider contributing funds to her campaign or all of the above.

This AFT election is important for not much time remains before the silk-stocking boyz from Wall Street form a financial Donner party to cannibalize on what is left of public education in America.  We can still win the battle to preserve public education for our children but we need leadership and a strong voice willing to make public appearances, work with rank and file members to ally and organize with other public working people also under attack, and fight the good fight against the Obama administration and Arne Duncan, both bent on corporatizing and thus crippling education in the name of helping kids.

Yvette Felarca

for AFT President

Education Must Be a Right – Our Children Are Not for SaleSave Dr. King’s Vision for America

• YVETTE FELARCA Yvette is an English and History teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, CA. She has served as a site representative at her school and as Middle School Area Vice President with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT). She is a founding member and national organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). She led successful campaigns in Berkeley to defend the District’s historic voluntary school integration plan as well as the movement that twice prevented proposed charters from opening up in the city. She organized K-12 and college students to unite with educators to defend public higher education and fight massive budget cuts and fee hikes in the community college, California State University (CSU), and University of California (UC) systems. Yvette Felarca has proven how she, all of us, and indeed, our whole union, can grow and change as teachers and leaders.

  Save Public Education: Stop Union Busting, Get Rid of Arne Duncan Now

• Organize Independent, Integrated, United Teacher/Student/Community Mass Actions to End Legislative Attacks Against Teachers and Public Education Pre-K through College
• Build the New Student-Led Civil Rights Movement to Defend Black, Latina/o, Immigrant, and Poor, Working-Class and Middle-Class Students of All Races
• Stop Relying on the Democrats to Save Us
• End “Race to the Top” Now – Release All Federal Funds to the States Based on Need
• All Our Students Can Learn and Excel – Reject High-Stakes Testing and Market-Economy-Based School Reform Plans
• No More Charters, No Vouchers
• Stop Teacher Bashing. Defend Our Union’s/ Teachers’ Dignity, Ability, and Character

WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT that, two years after America did what no one believed was possible—rise above its racist past and elect a black person to be President of the United States—we would be fighting the fight of our lives to defend public education as a right? Two years ago when we convened our last national convention, teachers’ unions were characterized as a “terrorist organizations” by Republican proponents of adopting a market economy mechanism as the commanding principle of school reform. We never backed down or apologized for being unabashed and proud defenders of public education, of Brown v. Board of Education and of all the great democratic, egalitarian and politically progressive ideals bound up with and furthered by public education. We relished the thought of being associated with opening up a new era of hope, increased equality, freedom, and much renewed prosperity for America’s increasingly impoverished middle-class, working-class and poor communities.

With “Friends” like Arne Duncan, Who Needs Enemies?

The thanks we received from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan for all our dedication and hard work is an unprecedented, coordinated, relentless, vicious and slanderous attack against us as teachers and professionals, the most concerted campaign to bust our union since 1981, when Ronald Reagan defeated PATCO, and a systematic, bi-partisan national campaign to dismantle public education and reverse the single greatest gain of the last fifty years: the right of every child who lives in our nation to receive a free, quality, public education.

We Must Reject the “Lesser of Two Evils” Philosophy at This Convention

The greatest danger our union faces now is that we will ignore the reality of what is occurring and simply continue to either openly or tacitly back the Democrats. If we leave this convention with our old leadership intact, and so fail to make unequivocally clear to Duncan and the other politicians we are prepared to stand on principle and act independently, we will be signing on to the death warrant of our union, and quite possibly the demise of public education in this country. If, however, we elect known leaders of the growing new direct-action movement to the AFT, we can get Duncan to back off of the “Race to the Top” scheme and release the federal funds to the states now, based on need.

Embrace the Joy and Optimism of Being Leaders of the New Movement

It has been surprisingly easy for us to defeat large-scale, coordinated, seemingly unstoppable campaigns to close down public schools and replace them with privately-controlled charter schools or to privatize public higher education. The new movement in defense of public education, led by students and youth last fall, most importantly by those at the UC-Berkeley and UCLA—that is, marching, demonstrating, sitting-in and standing up to defend public education from pre-K through college—has led the way.

Strengthening this new civil rights movement, which desperately needs our organizational know-how, financial and material support and co-leadership, is the only proven strategy we have to win. Every local victory we have won this year to defend public education, our union, our jobs, our dignity and our students’ futures and lives has come about when our union members and, on occasion, union locals have been prepared to assert our political independence and to build the new student-led, campus-based movement in defense of public education.

Public Education is Universally Popular – If We Tell The Truth We Will Have the Support of the Nation

Every time we have acceded to the politics of the Democratic Party or subordinated our principles and understanding to the political needs of the politicians, we have faltered or suffered a setback. Simply telling the truth about the character of the attack and what it will lead to has radically increased our popular support and power. However, when we have adapted to the racist and anti-poor prejudices of charter advocates, who claim that black, Latina/o and poor students of all races do not deserve or require the same learning environments as well-to-do suburban students, we have undercut our struggle to defend public education.

We know from 30 years of experience that creating integrated, racially- and socioeconomically-diverse schools (most-importantly, inter-district magnet schools), lowering class size, and providing health care, nutrition and other needed services for poor students are key to closing the achievement gap based on race and class. We just need to state the truth, even though it runs against the grain of the doctrine of white populism being pressed within the Democratic Party.

The biggest drawback of subordinating our union’s actions to the political policies of the Democrats has been our failure to fight for the simple and popular measures needed to stop school closings, program cuts, and lay-offs ascribed to the states’ budget crises. Calling for the federal government to tax the banks, corporations and super-rich who created the crisis and are growing wealthier through the crisis, would solve the funding crisis, disarm the Tea-Party right-wing populists and be enormously popular with most American voters. The whole Duncan plan of privatizing public education rests on the theory that we cannot tax the corporations, banks and rich to pay for both health-care reform and the maintenance of public education as a right. Duncan believes that if the Democrats pursue a policy of taxing the rich they will lose the financial backing they need to win future elections. Duncan is wrong, and we need to stop endorsing this wrong political calculation.

Building the new, independent, integrated student-led movement is the way to win. Unlike any other candidate in this election, we have carried out the policies we are advocating and we have won. In the last year in Oakland, Berkeley, Los Angeles, throughout California and in Florida, we have stood with our students, supported their walkouts, and supported their efforts and those of their peers and university students to build a new, independent movement in defense of public education.

Oakland, CA and Florida Demonstrate that the Independent United Mass Action of Students and Unions Can Win

Teachers’ biggest success in this regard occurred on March 4 in Oakland, California, when teachers led the district to organize a district-wide student walkout called an “Emergency Disaster Drill” that brought every student and teacher in the district out of the classroom and onto the streets to defend public education. Our action was coordinated with mass actions of students throughout the University of California system and other universities and colleges in the state, actions that made clear to the whole nation that a new movement, led by the youth, has emerged. Our union’s and Oakland students’ determination to fight inspired Berkeley students to march for miles from downtown Berkeley into Oakland. The courageous sit-ins of Berkeley students in November and December, sit-ins which were brutally attacked by the police and which led to numerous arrests and suspensions, gave the Oakland Education Association (OEA) and Oakland students the courage needed to fight in the first place.

In Florida, we got a Republican Governor to oppose Jeb Bush and his own party and veto an education bill that would have eliminated union protections, civil rights and First Amendment protections for teachers and students, rights attained over the last hundred years. We never would have won the fight in Florida, if students in Miami-Dade had not walked out repeatedly day after day and if United Teachers of Dade (UTD) teachers had not ignored the advice of our union officials who claimed we would discredit our union and weaken our cause if we staged an illegal sick-out, and called in sick by the thousands. When we joined our students’ peaceful but militant mass actions, we were on the road to victory.

Tens of thousands of Miami teachers acted in defiance of the law, our customs, our union leaders’ warnings, and surprised ourselves when we helped to lead the first progressive mass action in Miami-Dade that united our historically-divided and often mistrustful black, Cuban, Latina/o, immigrant and white progressive communities in a common united struggle for our shared futures. The bonds created between teachers and students, English and non-English speakers, longtime black and white Miami residents and more recent Miami immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Mexico and other nations, and among those of us who left our comfort zones and for the first time in our lives adopted the tactics of Dr. King, who we had always praised but never imagined we could become like ourselves, will shape and define the rest of our lives.

Don’t Be Afraid to Win

The only reason our union would not choose to build the new movement and organize our fight on an independent basis is because, as teachers and as older people, our fear of unleashing the dynamism and power of a new, youth-led movement could prove to be greater than what we know is the other choice—the destruction of our union and the end of public education as we have known it. If we conquer our fear and embrace the joy and the optimism of the new movement, we can win.

YVETTE FELARCA Yvette is an English and History teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, CA. She has served as a site representative at her school and as Middle School Area Vice President with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT). She is a founding member and national organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). She led successful campaigns in Berkeley to defend the District’s historic voluntary school integration plan as well as the movement that twice prevented proposed charters from opening up in the city. She organized K-12 and college students to unite with educators to defend public higher education and fight massive budget cuts and fee hikes in the community college, California State University (CSU), and University of California (UC) systems. Yvette Felarca has proven how she, all of us, and indeed, our whole union, can grow and change as teachers and leaders.

* The Equal Opportunity Now / Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary    BAMN.COM/DefendPublicEd   (510) 502-9072  EqualOppNow@aol.com

June 2010

Dear Union Sisters and Brothers and Supporters of Public Education,

I’m running for president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and I need your support!  As Area Vice President for my local union (Berkeley Federation of Teachers) and a national organizer for the civil rights organization, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), I know that when we fight and unite teachers and students in defense of public education, we can win so much of what we need. ere’s so much more that needs to be done to improve public education for our kids. A key part of the fight to defend public education needs to be made at the state and national level. With your help, I know I can lead our national union to make a stronger, more effective fight.

With 1.4 million members, the AFT is one of the most powerful unions in America. We have the potential to empower students and educators together to win the kind of education our students deserve. I’ve consistently organized teachers, students, and the community together to (among many other things): defend school integration programs and equal opportunity programs in higher education; prevent charter schools from encroaching on our local public schools; advocate for the right of undocumented immigrant students to receive public financial aid for higher education, including an institutional aid program at the University of California system which will be voted on in July.

I want to channel my energy into transforming the AFT into the kind of organization that can be a true voice, not only for our members, but for our students and their parents, too. We’re not doing enough of that right now—but I know we can!

As part of my campaign, I’m taking student organizers with me to the AFT convention in Seattle, Washington July 12-15. This experience be part of their Summer Leadership Project with BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights & Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary), and it will benefit them tremendously. They’ll learn how to advocate and organize around some of the most cutting edge issues regarding public education, civil, and immigrant rights. They will also learn how to strengthen their public advocacy skills, speak to various caucuses, small groups, and individuals. Most importantly, the experience could inspire them to run for office in the future—maybe even AFT president!

Please help build the new civil rights movement in defense of public education and train these young leaders by making a generous donation to my campaign. I need to raise $5,000. The majority of my budget is for the student organizers to cover travel, room, and board. I also need donations for essential campaign materials: brochures, t-shirts, and buttons.

*Donate* to my campaign online at : www.bamn.com. Click on the “donate” button on the left sidebar, and in the comments box, type “Yvette Felarca for AFT Presiden

You can also make checks out to: “Yvette Felarca for AFT President” and send them to:

Yvette Felarca

1985 Linden St.

Oakland, CA 94607

Forward this to any friends or family that you think would support me and my efforts to defend civil rights and public education. Facebook message or email me with your ideas, comments, questions, and challenges.

Thank you.

In Unity,

Yvette Felarca

510-502-9072

yfelarca@gmail.com