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Philadelphia nurses lead fight against school cuts

Published Jan 16, 2012 4:52 PM

In response to recent education cutbacks, Philadelphia school nurses are demonstrating their anger by rallying on the steps of the School District Headquarters every Wednesday. They are demanding the return of recently furloughed nurses and other school staff members, who are the latest victims of budget cuts which could mean the additional layoffs of up to 1,400 district workers.


Jan. 4 nurses’ protest at School District
headquarters.
WW photo: Joseph Piette

In the middle of Hanukkah and just days before Christmas, 47 nurses, 28 secretaries, 20 supportive services assistants, 18 nonteaching assistants, 13 school operations officers, five library assistants and a handful of other support personnel were told by school administrators they were no longer needed. Officials have said the midyear cuts aren’t finished.

Roxborough High School nurse Eileen DiFranco said at a rally: “The mayor is saying that he wants high-quality schools. Well, you can’t have high-quality schools manned by skeleton crews, so I don’t understand. To me, he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

As the rally was taking place, Mayor Michael Nutter and members of the School Reform Commission were in Denver attending a conference by the Gates Foundation on how to privatize schools.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, in a statement to the press, said: “Surely the SRC has better options than to cut nurses who are the schools’ first-responders protecting children’s health; library assistants who provide literacy support and keep open the remaining school libraries; other school employees who support not only students, but assist teachers, staff and families; and non-teaching assistants, who are crucial to keeping children safe.” (Dec. 22)

The union plans to go to court to contend that it is illegal to disrupt children’s education by laying off school employees in the middle of the school year. These cuts are being made on top of more than 1,000 teachers who were laid off over the summer.

In addition, 276 building engineers, 126 custodial assistants, 503 general cleaners and 501 bus attendants received layoff notices the week of Jan. 2. The 1,406 layoffs are in addition to 848 pink slips sent in September. The newest blue-collar reductions are effective Dec. 31, 2012. By contract, union members require a full year’s notice of layoffs.

The average Service Employees Local 32BJ worker is paid $18.43 an hour (less than $40,000 annually) plus benefits. Local 32BJ International President George Ricchezza complained that his members have “been decimated” by layoffs over the last few years.

Underfunded public schools vs.
profitable charter schools

These outrageous cuts are part of a decades-long campaign to create a two-tier system of education in Philadelphia, as well as other big cities across the country. In Philadelphia, 46,000 students are now in charter schools, compared to 146,000 in public schools.

The closing of low-performing public schools, rather than fixing them — while opening more charter schools — is textbook union-busting. More significantly, it is guaranteeing a future of poverty, menial labor or prison to a whole generation of children in severely underfunded neighborhood schools, especially in communities of color.

Charter schools, which are given the opportunity to choose which students to accept, receive better funding than public schools. Yet, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found in a 2009 report that only “17% of charter schools outperformed their public school equivalents, while 37% of charter schools performed worse than regular local schools, and the rest were about the same.” (http://tinyurl.com/3cybfp3)

The mixing of education and profit-making has resulted in a scandalous report in which 19 out of 74 charter schools operating in Philadephia are under investigation for fraud, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest. (http://tinyurl.com/7wy3omb) As more and more of the city’s public schools are privatized into non-union charter schools, the pressure is increasing to eliminate the unionized workforce at the remaining public schools.

This education crisis is not limited to Philadelphia. President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program accelerated the ruling-class plans to restructure education — to make it consistent with the long-term effects of low-wage capitalism, in which millions of skilled workers will not be required as in the past.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett cut almost $1 billion for education in 2011, while at the same time increasing the budget for prisons by almost $1 billion for three new prisons. Just this week the state announced further cuts of between 2 percent and 5 percent for education and welfare.