Harvard Sit-in

From April 18 to May 8, nearly forty students from Harvard's Progressive Labor Movement occupied Massachusetts Hall where the president and provost have their offices. These students represented the Harvard Living Wage Campaign which demanded a living wage of at least $10.25 per hour plus benefits to all of Harvard's employees, especially the janitors, kitchen staff, guards and others who keep students, faculty and administrators comfortable, clean and safe. While Harvard is America's greatest and richest university, with an endowment of $20 billion, it pays unconscionably low wages to these more than 1000 workers. The three-week occupation was supported throughout the Boston community and attracted national media attention to how the world's richest university exploits its most poorly paid workers. At the end of the sit-in, Harvard agreed to a settlement making substantive concessions to the student demands, especially instituting a moratorium on sub-contracting, addressing the issue of health benefits, and negotiating with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees (HERE, Local 26) and the Service Employees International Union (SIEU, Local 254).

For additional information, see the following brief bibliography on the Harvard sit-in:

Arnove, Anthony. "Sit-in Win." In These Times. June 11, 2001.

Bivens, Matt. "Harvard's 'Fitting Choice'." The Nation. June 25, 2001.

Engler, Mark. "With Harvard Sit-in Victory, A Movement Continues." engler@eurdoramial.com

Gourevitch, Alexander. "Awakening the Giant: How the Living Wage Movement Can Revive Progressive Politics." The American Prospect. http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/05/gourevitch-a-05-30.html

Herbert, Bob. "In America: Disparities at Harvard." The New York Times, April 30, 2001."Living Wage Sit-in at Harvard."

The Harvard Living Wage Campaign. www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage www.livingwagenow.com

McKean, Benjamin L. "Harvard's Shame." The Nation. May 21, 2001.
 
 

"Teaching About Stocks &endash; For Fun and Propaganda" (dollars and sense, March/April 2001) describes how more than a million U.S. primary, middle, and high school students play a simulated stock market each year. These games are fun and keep students in class but present a highly unrealistic approach to the politics of the stock market. Students follow a common script. They are "given" a tidy sum, around $100,000, but without reference to its source, so "the games perpetuate the idea that individual effort is the reason that some people get rich and others do not." Students do not learn that fewer than one out of ten households owns $100,000 in total financial assets, that 10% of shareholders own 90% of all stock, and that the top 1% owns more than half of all shares. Students who lose stocks may feel an undeserved sense of personal failure, while students who profit from the stock market will become more receptive to privatizing such public means of support as Social Security. However, teachers could also use the games to teach economics and show the actual workings of corporate America. Reading the stock pages, students would understand the corporate ownership behind popular name brands , the corporate power over food marketing, and the problems of continuing corporate mergers.

For a review of Edison Schools, Inc. recent failures, see "Edison's Red Ink Schoolhouse" (The Nation, June 25, 2001). The San Francisco school board voted to break Edison's five-year contract and New York City will not give Edison the right to run five city schools. In the Midwest and South, however, Edison continues to offer a panacea for schools with poor and minority children.

Some public school officials are becoming addicted to the sugar money brought to their school districts through contracts with Coke and Pepsi. Schools are raising as much as $100,000 a year for field trips, band uniforms, team sports and computer installation. In exchange, schools become indentured to the corporations through contracts requiring the sale of a set quota of soft drinks per year, making the schools active sales agents for soda. No end to this commercialization of public education is in sight until public schools have adequate and equitable funding. (The Nation, June 25, 2001)
 
 

Rethinking Schools: An Urban Education Journal (Spring 2001, Vol. 15, No. 3) celebrates 15 years of fighting for better schools in a special 16-page supplement reflecting on the first decade and a half and the struggles ahead. To order, contact Subscriptions/Business e-mail: RSBusiness@aol.com.
 
 

Protest

Sixteen area residents of Little Village, a largely industrial neighborhood of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans on the South Side of Chicago, were on a hunger strike to remind the Board of Education that it promised in 1998 to build a school in the neighborhood. Instead, the BOE built two magnet schools in largely white, affluent areas (The Washington Post, May 28, 2001 portside@yahoogroups.com ). For more first-hand information on this hunger strike, its tactics and demands, go to abyala01@hotmail.com.

Recently, several universities have tried to right wrongs committed over the past sixty years. New York University and Princeton University have apologized for past racial injustices and Brooklyn College bestowed an honorary degree on a civil rights lawyer previously deemed unfit for public office. Dealing with historic wrongs, however, comes easier than dealing with more high-profile issues on which college students have begged their universities to take a stand: The Vietnam War, investments in South Africa, or more recently, better wages for janitors and other campus workers. (The New York Times, June 10, 2001)

The Ruckus Society trains activists in non-violent civil disobedience to help environmental and human rights organizations achieve their goals. Contact Ruckus Society, 2108A Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA 94704; telephone: 510-848-9565; fax: 510-848-9541; http://ruckus.org. For an account of "Camp Ruckus: Basic Training for the New New Left," see In These Times, April 30, 2001.

After legislators refused to implement fully plans to reduce class sizes and increase pay for teachers that were overwhelmingly endorsed by voters in statewide referendums, Washington Education Association members, including more than 5,000 teachers, classroom aides, bus drivers and custodians, walked out for a one-day strike at the Puget Sound schools in protest. This one-day strike, followed by walkouts in school districts across Washington State, could escalate to statewide action. (The Nation, May 28, 2001)

The program formerly known as YouthPeace has changed its name to ROOTS&emdash;Revolution Out of Truth & Struggle. ROOTS will continue to be a part of the War Resisters League and reach out to young people to meet them at the roots of their activism. (The Nonviolent Activist, March/April 2001)
 
 

Unions

"Yale Bites Unions: For God, Country and the Ruling Class" (The Nation, July 2, 2001) describes Yale University's history of hostility to unions and how the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) has joined with GESO, the Graduate Employees and Students Organization and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This mixture of custodial, academic, and hospital workers challenges the very premise upon which Yale's elitism and wealth is built. Graduate students now see their exploitation as no different from that of the service workers. "About 40 percent of Yale's teaching is now done by graduate students&emdash;paid $13,700 a year&emdash;and 30 percent by adjunct faculty."

This underclass of part-time instructors and teaching assistants pervades academia across the country. According to a November 2000 report from the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), a group of 25 academic associations and societies, more than 72% of historians who work on a per-course basis get $2,500 or less for a one-semester course and more than 77 % receive no benefits. Tenured professors now occupy only 44 % of college teaching positions and 20 % of undergraduate survey courses are now taught by teaching assistants. (dollars and sense, March/April 2001)

New York University averted a possible teaching assistant strike by agreeing to become the first private university in the country to bargain with a teaching assistant union. Aside from ending the long and acrimonious battle over the recognition of a graduate school teacher union, this agreement also set a precedent for other private universities like Yale where graduate students are trying to organize as well. (Yale Daily News, March 2,2001 ben.begleiter@yale.edu )
 
 

Testing

Impervious to attacks over the years, the SAT recently suffered a setback when the president of the University of California system proposed eliminating the exam. The SAT has always been a weak indicator of a student's performance in the first year of college and, more importantly, the SAT can discriminate against students by sorting them according to class and race. The College Board, the SAT's sponsor, shows that "a test taker can expect an extra shot of fifteen to fifty points on his or her total SAT 1 score for every $10,000 that Mom and Dad bring home." Furthermore, "being white, on average, confers an extra 200-point advantage over a black test-taker." (The Nation, April 2, 2001)

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council's bimonthly newsletter journal, Poverty & Race (September/October 2000, Vol. 9, Number 5), carries a lead article examining graduation and promotion testing, the effects of high-stakes testing, the effects of testing on low achievers, and the failure rates for minority students and English-language learners. For a sample copy of this newsletter journal, call 202-387-9887 or email: info@orrac.org.

Test scoring errors made by NCS Pearson, the nation's biggest test scorer, have thrown the validity of standardization into even greater turmoil. Recently, 47,000 Minnesota students received lower scores than they deserved. Over the last three problematic years, scoring errors have affected millions of students taking standardized proficiency tests in at least 20 states. These recent mistakes, along with interviews with over 120 of the people involved in the testing and scoring process, indicate that the testing industry can in no way guarantee quick and error-free testing that so much of the belief in standardization is based on. And President Bush is now proposing a 50 percent workload increase on this already tiny and highly fallible testing industry. (The New York Times, May 20, 2001)

The current issue of Rethinking Schools (Summer 2001, Vol. 15, No. 4) contains four articles on testing:

• "Nationwide Protest Target Tests"
• "Resisting High-Stakes Tests"
• "Ohio Teachers Give Tests an 'F'"
• "Race and the Achievement Gap"

Workplace Website

Workplace: the Journal for Academic Labor is an online journal published by a collective of 50 scholars in critical higher education. Go to http://www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/index.html for information about the collective, back issues, calls for papers, and the current issue, which includes:

• "Citizenship and Literacy Work: Thoughts Without a Conclusion" by Richard Ohmann
• "Making a Place for Labor: Composition and Unions" by Bill Hendricks
• "Toward a New Labor Movement in Higher Education: Contingent Labor and Organizing for Change" by Eileen E. Schell

Gay and Lesbian Students

The first National Summit of the State of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender(LGBT) People and Issues in Higher Education met on March 17, 2001. The purposes of the Summit were to discuss issues pertaining to LGBT students, faculty, and staff; to determine where campuses currently stand on issues and policies pertaining to the LGBT population; to explore the standards and guidelines for LGBT programs and services for student affairs; and to develop a national strategic action plan to address the needs of and services for this population. (QUEERPLANET majordomo@abacus.oxy.edu)

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Hilleary amendment to the education funding bill that would forbid a school district from banning any group on the basis of that group discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. For the text of the amendment and a record of the discussion on the House floor, go to qfrej@yahoogroups.com

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network envisions a future in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. GLSEN's magazine Respect chronicles the fight to end anti-gay bias in America's schools. Spring 2001, Issue 5, has the lead article, "Should Public Schools Promote the Scouts?" Summer 2001, Issue 6, focuses on prom night for LGBT students. To join GLSEN, call 212-727-0135 or visit www.glsen.org.
 
 

Education and Latin America

On December 15, 2000, Army officials closed the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, a target of human rights activists because its military graduates went on to become some of Latin America's most infamous war criminals. On January 17, 2001, the Army opened the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which is nothing more than a revamped School of the Americas under a different charter and a new name. (The Nation, February 12, 2001)

The U.S./Labor Education in the Americas Project (formerly the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project) is a 14-year old independent, non-profit, low-budget organization funded by foundations, religious groups, and labor. US/LEAP supports workers in Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador, especially those who are organizing and are employed directly or indirectly by U.S. companies. For further information, call 773-262-6502 or e-mail usglep@igc.org.

In Columbia, South America, the ideological battle between left and right in the classroom has changed from an intellectual debate to a violent campaign against students, professors and administrators. The country's 32 public universities have long been recruiting sources for leftist guerrilla armies who have found receptive audiences in the middle to lower-class student bodies. As part of an effort to seize not only territorial but ideological control from the guerrillas, the rightist paramilitary forces have arrived on the campuses of at least eight of Columbia's public universities. (Washinton Post Foreign Service, May 30, 2001 portside@yahoogroups.com)
 
 

African Americans and Education

David Horowitz's new conservative campaign attacking reparations for African Americans took its latest turn on February 28, 2001, the last day of Black History Month, when he asked the University of California at Berkeley's newsletter to run his ad headlined "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea&emdash;and Racist Too." The ad was also sent to 57 college papers with 34 rejecting the ad, 14 printing it, and 9 undecided. (In These Times, April 30, 2001)

A Hubert Harrison Reader contains critical writings by "the father of Harlem radicalism" and a leading Socialist party speaker who advocated that socialists champion the cause of the Negro as a revolutionary doctrine. The reader is organized thematically to highlight Harrison's contributions to the debates on race, class, culture, and politics of his time. University Press of New England. To order toll-free: 800-421-1561.

Manning Marable's "Public Education and Black Empowerment," Parts 1 and 2, are available on the Internet at www.manningmarable.net.
 
 

Books

The Feminist Classroom: Dynamics of Gender, Race, and Privilege by Frances A. Maher and Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001) has been reissued as an expanded edition. For orders and information call 800-462-6420. Constructivist Strategies: Meeting Standards and Engaging Adolescent Minds demonstrates how student-centered learning activities can help middle and high school students meet curriculum standards. To order, call 914-833-0761 or go to www.eyeoneducation.com.

Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2, the new, companion volume to the bestselling Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, presents a new collection of from-the-classroom articles, curriculum ideas, lesson plans, poetry, and resources, all grounded in the realities of school life. Save 10% when ordering online: www.rethinkingschools.org; or call toll-free: 800-669-4192.
 
 

Resources

The editors of Working Papers in Cultural Studies, Ethnicity, and Race Relations invite interested persons, academic programs, and community organizations to participate in this new publishing venture. Working Papers would like to focus on ideas dealing with ethnic conflict, new forms of racism and sexism, transnational migrant labor, nationalism, sovereignty struggles of indigenous peoples, cultural hybridization, postcoloniality, and the political economy of the contemporary world system. Department of Comparative American Culture at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington. Web page address: http://libarts.wsu.edu/cac.

The Left Bank Distribution Spring & Summer 2001 Catalog can be received by calling 206-622-0195 or visiting http://www.leftbankbooks.com.

The catalog for Labyrinth Books, specializing in scholarly and university press books, can be received by faxing 914-963-1156 or emailing catalog@labyrinthbooks,com.

"Changing the Way We Think About Education" is a catalog of recent titles on democratic, holistic, and learner-focused approaches from The Foundation for Educational Renewal. Order the catalog by phone: 800-639-4122; or online: http://www.great-ideas.org.

The Spring 2001 Teachers College Press Books catalog focuses on social justice/multicultural issues and a new interactive multimedia teaching resource, "Culture, Difference and Power." To receive the catalog, call 800-575-6566.

"Teaching for Change: Multicultural Education Resources" (Spring/Summer 2000) is a catalog that can be received by calling 800-763-9131 or emailing necadc@aol.com.

The Resource Center of the Americas has a catalog of books for Spring 2001 which contains "perennial favorites" and "emergent titles." The catalog covers books about Latinos and Latinas, Immigration and Migrant Workers, Native American Indians, and Latin America and the Caribbean. To receive the catalog, call 800-452-8382 or go to www.americas.org.

A Place at the Table: Struggles for Equality in America is a comprehensive video-and-text kit that explores intolerance and discrimination as ongoing themes in American history. To order this free teaching package, send a request on school letterhead to A Place at the Table, Teaching Tolerance, 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery AL 36104; or fax: 334-264-7310.

Science & Society, Volume 65, Number 1, Spring 2001, has a special issue on "Color, Culture and Gender in the 1960s." For subscription and ordering information, go to http://www.scienceandsociety.com/guilfordpage.html.

Bullfrog Films, Inc. is an educational video publisher with titles of interest for teachers concerned with addressing social issues in the classroom. Titles include "Abandoned: The Betrayal of America's Immigrants" and "Paying the Price: The Killing of the Children of Iraq." For a catalog, phone 800-543-3764; or email: lori@bullfrogfilms.com; or go to www.bullfrogfilms.com.