| Nationwide, we are witnessing a wave of educators and students walking out of their schools to fight for more funding and for better working and learning conditions. As our public schools are still under threat, we will see the #redfored movement continue this coming school year. Here in Massachusetts, our public schools have been underfunded by over $1 billion for Prek-12 education, and by over $500 million for public higher education every year, and this underfunding of our schools disproportionately hurts communities of color, and poor and working class families.
Year after year, we are given false promises of better funding on the horizon—just last year the legislature failed to pass an updated education foundation budget bill, and despite the promise of 2019 being the year our students and educators would get the funding we desperately need and deserve, legislators have thus far failed to deliver. We have heard enough empty promises from legislators, and must build the broadest union-led, community-driven movement to demand our students and staff get the funding we deserve! As union members and members of our communities, we must call for strike action and work stoppages this coming school year, and must begin to discuss the most effective strategies to win fully funded schools for ourselves and our students.
In large part due to pressure from unions, students, and community members, the state legislature has just passed a recommendation to increase state funding of our pre-K through 12 public schools by $269 million in the current fiscal year (through an increase in Chapter 70 aid). The PROMISE and CHERISH acts have been pushed aside, and this stopgap of pre-k through 12 funding is a drop in the bucket given the decades of underfunding and cuts our public schools are faced with.
UMass Boston has just announced a projected deficit of $14 million, and is going through with a second round of faculty and staff buyouts. The legislative response was to provide measly budget increases for the UMass system, but allow for tuition increases—once again, working class students at UMass Boston are paying the tab for mismanagement of their higher education institution.
Join union and community members to discuss how to carry the fight for public education forward--we need to consider strike action this school year to show corporate education reformers and our legislators that our students and our educators need more than temporary funding solutions! RSVP on Facebook and invite your coworkers, friends and neighbors!
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