The Political Questions in the Fight to Defend Public Education in the United States: A New Booklet from Mehring Books

Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election Mehring books has published a brochure entitled The political questions in the fight to defend public education in the United States. Below we present the introduction. We encourage our readers to order the brochure Herealong with critical theoretical works including Sound the Alarm: Socialism Against War,” essential for the mobilization of the working class against capitalism.

The political questions in the fight to defend public education in the United States

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The three articles collected here were originally published on the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org), the most widely read online socialist publication in the world. They are part of the ongoing fight to unite teachers, school staff, parents and students worldwide against the destruction of one of the most basic social rights: the right to free, quality education.

Regardless of which capitalist candidate occupies the White House in 2025, the assault on social rights and public education will escalate alongside the U.S.'s rapid plunge into global war. Both Democrats and Republicans support Wall Street's agenda of prioritizing wars to achieve US hegemony and paying for it with the abolition of the few remaining social rights.

The first article, a statement from the Educators Rank-and-File Committee (USA), addresses the drastic cuts in public education funding. The Biden/Harris Administration's decision to allow the termination of federal support for schools under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) program is a major blow to every district. This fiscal cliff is projected to cost up to 380,000 teaching jobs over the next one to two years.

Since the statement was published, the attack has escalated:

1. Chicago Public Schools has reported a deficit of nearly $1 billion. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), in collaboration with Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson, is forcing teachers to work without contracts as the union and the city collude to determine the number of jobs, programs and schools to close. More than 600 paraprofessionals have already been laid off. The district has classified 293 of 497 schools as “underutilized,” potentially facing consolidation or closure.

2. Seattle Public Schools has announced its intention to close between 17 and 21 elementary schools next year. Pittsburgh plans to close 16 schools, Denver is embarking on a second round of closures and Philadelphia has described school closures as “likely.” This is just a very partial list and grows weekly. Districts that have not yet announced school closures are laying off staff, ending programs and discontinuing services.

These cuts are not due to a lack of resources. Rather, they arise from the diversion of the social wealth created by the working class into ever-escalating American wars of aggression. The Biden-Harris administration, with support from both major business parties in Congress, has committed about $1 trillion to military spending. As of September 2024, the United States had spent $175 billion on the war in Ukraine. At the same time, another $8.7 billion military package was approved to support Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which is now escalating into a horrific war in Lebanon and across the Middle East. The provocative expansion of US aggression against nuclear-armed Russia threatens the future of humanity itself.

The statement addresses the suppression of democratic rights among teachers and students and the government's continued refusal to combat the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne pathogens in America's aging school buildings. It promotes a program of working-class organizing independent of pro-capitalist unions, including the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

The second article marks the 70th anniversary since the US Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954). It assesses the historic and enduring significance of the landmark decision that ended legal segregation in schools and throughout the Jim Crow legal system. BrownHowever, nothing was said about requiring every child to receive a high-quality, adequately funded education. The article attempts to explain why this basic social right could not and cannot be realized under capitalism. It points the way forward against both capitalist politicians and racist identity politics.

The final article is a review of the book Bankers in the ivory tower by Charlie Eaton. The volume traces the financialization of higher education from the 1980s to the 2010s and shows the transformation of universities – ostensibly higher education institutions – into giant financial institutions. Among the conclusions that WSWS author Emma Arceneaux draws from Eaton's book is the role of these financial interests in explaining the failure of student protests to secure investment from military contractors who profited from the Gaza genocide.

The current state of public education is causing a new outbreak of struggle among educators.

None of us have forgotten the mass strike movement of educators from West Virginia to Washington State in 2018-2019. Thousands of teachers defied their unions, quit and fought against budget cuts. Educators strongly opposed anti-strike laws and rallied tens of thousands against the brutal austerity measures imposed on education in both red and blue states. However, union bureaucracies systematically isolated and crushed these Red for Ed strikes and imposed contracts that did not meet any of the teachers' demands.

AFT President Randi Weingarten and then-NEA President Lily Garcia traveled across the country to suppress a real mass movement. This terrible betrayal, in turn, paved the way for these same union bureaucrats to force educators back into unsafe, COVID-infested school buildings in 2020-21, costing the lives of thousands of educators, family members, and students. With new COVID-19 infections occurring annually, millions of teachers, school staff, and students are now likely to suffer the negative health effects of COVID-19, including long-COVID, which can affect cognition, learning, and virtually every organ of the body.

The most important lesson from these recent struggles is the urgent need for a political program to unite educators independent of the sold-out union bureaucracies and the crooked capitalist politicians, both Democrats and Republicans. A political struggle that insists on the right of all children to equal and quality education, full access to the culture of humanity and safe schools can only be realized through the mobilization of the working class through the formation of independent action committees. These committees must combine the fight against austerity with the fight against war.

Educators will find allies among the millions of workers fighting for their rights, from longshoremen to railroad workers to auto workers. Anger is simmering as workers in every country face social inequality, attacks on democratic rights, climate change and poverty. The task before us is to form a socialist leadership in this common struggle against capitalism.

We urge teachers to prepare for the coming class struggles by studying these articles, reading the World Socialist Web Site, and joining the Educators Rank-and-File Committee (US), affiliated with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File. File Committees is connected (IWA-RFC). Contact us at wsws.org/edsafety to get involved today and discuss next steps.

The Political Questions in the Fight to Defend Public Education in the United States: A New Booklet from Mehring Books

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