J.Kozol's manifesto

[Marilyn Langlois <langlois-rine@comcast.net>]

Dear resisters,
Rog Lucido of EPATA (CalCARE affiliate) in Fresno, circulated the message
below from Jonthan Kozol.

Rich, Susan, Pete, Kathy, George and others--  do you think Kozol's group
will get to the crux of the matter or end up watered down?  I ask in light
of Rich's recent analysis of NEA.

Do you know if Monty and Bob at Fairtest are in on this, as it's based in
Cambridge??

Marilyn
--------

From: Horace B Lucido <hbl04@csufresno.edu>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:17:52 -0700

FROM JONATHAN KOZOL:
An Update, Bulletin, and Manifesto to the Education Activists who have asked
me: Where do we go next?
June 16, 2006
Dear

This is to report that, at long last, the network of activists in education
that I've been assembling from the thousands of teachers and advocates for
children who turned out for massive rallies while I was on that grueling
six-month book-tour for The Shame of the Nation as well as the many local
groups of teachers organized to fight racism and inequality and the
murderous impact of the NCLB legislation is now up and running.

We're using the name Education Action and will soon set up a website but,
for now, I hope that you'll feel free to contact us at our e-mail,
EducationActionInfo@gmail.com
<javascript:main.compose('new','t=EducationActionInfo@gmail.com')>

By the start of August, we'll be operating out of a house we've purchased
for this purpose (16 Lowell St, Cambridge, MA 02138) in which we hope to
gather groups of teachers, activists, especially the leaders of these
groups, for strategy sessions in which we can link our efforts with the goal
of mobilizing educators to resist the testing mania and directly challenge
Congress, possibly by a march on Washington, at the time when NCLB comes up
for reauthorization in 2007.

We are already in contact with our close friends at Rethinking Schools, with
dozens of local action groups like Teachers for Social Justice in San
Francisco, with dynamic African-American religious groups that share our
goals, with activist white denominations, and with some of the NEA and AFT
affiliates in particular, the activist caucuses within both unions such as
those in Oakland, Miami, and Los Angeles. But we want to extend these
contacts rapidly in order to create what one of our friends who is the
leader of a major union local calls a massive wave of noncompliance?

My close co-worker, Nayad Abrahamian, who is based in Cambridge, will be the
contact person for this mobilizing effort, along with Rachel Becker, Erin
Osborne, and a group of other activists and educators who are determined
that we turn the growing, but too often muted and frustrated discontent with
NCLB and the racist policies and privatizing forces that are threatening the
very soul of public education into a series of national actions that are
explicitly political in the same tradition as the civil rights upheavals of
the early 1960s. 

We want to pull in youth affiliates as well and are working with high school
kids and countless college groups that are burning with a sense of shame and
indignation at the stupid and destructive education policies of state and
federal autocrats. We want the passionate voices of these young folks to be
heard. College students tell us they are tired of so many feel-good
conferences where everyone wrings their hands about injustice but offers
them nothing more than risk-free service projects? that cannot affect the
sources of injustice. They've asked us for a mobilizing focus that can unify
their isolated efforts. We are writing to you now to ask for your
suggestions as to how we ought to give a realistic answer to these students.

IMPORTANT: When I say we're 'up and running,' I mean that Education Action,
as a framework and an organizing structure for our efforts, is in place. I
do not mean that our goals and strategies are set in stone. We are still
wide-open to proposals from you, and other organizational leaders we're in
touch with, to rethink our plans according to your own experience and
judgment. We'd also like to broaden our initial organizing structure by
asking if you'll serve, to the degree that's possible for you, as part of
our national board of organizers and advisors. We don't want to duplicate
the efforts strong groups are already making. And the last thing on our
minds is to compete with any group already in existence.? (Political
struggles ever since the 1960s have been plagued with problems based on turf
mentality. We want to be certain to avoid this.)

Tell us how you feel about our plans and how you think they ought to be
expanded or improved. How closely can we link our efforts with your own? Do
you believe that NCLB can be stopped, or at least dramatically contested, by
the methods we propose?

Let us hear from you! We want to be in touch.

In the struggle,
Jonathan Kozol for Education Action