Hey Folks, please check out this perspective on how to save CCSF: How to Save City College -- By Rico Blanc socialistorganizer.org/how-to-save-city-college/ The ACCJC accreditation commission’s announcement that it plans on revoking City College of San Francisco’s accreditation in 2014 has been met with widespread outrage. On July 9, about 5,000 people marched on the Department of Education, calling on it to save CCSF by refusing to renew the ACCJC’s license to operate, which expires at the end of the year. (Sign the petition here.) Whether the ACCJC actually intends on closing CCSF or is simply using the threat of closure as “shock doctrine” blackmail to downsize our school is not clear -- the ACCJC itself has noted that its decision “is not final.” Either way, only organized resistance can put a stop to this illegitimate organization hell-bent on privatizing public education. Influential forces such as SF Mayor Ed Lee and Community College Chancellor Brice Harris say that the only way to save CCSF is to accept the imposition of Bob Agrella as the new dictator (“special trustee”) of CCSF, mandated to impose drastic cuts to our school and slash collective bargaining rights. But students, teachers, staff, and allies want to save CCSF as an affordable and accessible institution for the working class and communities of color in San Francisco. If we organize a massive movement we can save our school as we know and love it. To win, we must expose the illegitimacy of the ACCJC – a completely unaccountable and undemocratic rogue agency that receives funds from the pro-privatization Lumina Foundation. Of course, building such a movement is no easy task. It will require tremendous amounts of organization and mobilization. It will require uniting students with the teachers, staff, and the community across the city and the state. But the inspiring and victorious battles waged to defend public education in Quebec, Chile, Puerto Rico, and beyond show us that we can win. We can save CCSF. (In the immediate, all supporters of City College in the Bay Area should immediately enroll at CCSF to prevent trigger cuts caused by a drop in enrollment.) The labor unions in particular have tremendous, as-yet-untapped, power. On campus and across the city, they have the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of people and, if necessary, shut down San Francisco by striking. Indeed, such a citywide labor-student strike in defense of CCSF may be the only way to build the necessary pressure to force the Department of Education (which itself favors privatization) to step in. While the movement should call on all elected officials to side with CCSF against the ACCJC, it must not rely on – or subordinate itself to — the politicians. Moving in the direction of a city-wide strike will require breaking labor’s subordination to the Democratic Party, which is funded and controlled by the ruling rich. (Video of the July 9 protest) As the CTU strike in Chicago demonstrated, community support is key to winning. The movement must highlight the fact that these attacks on CCSF are structurally racist. They are manifestations of an offensive to push people of color out of higher education — and out of San Francisco. The state wants to funnel us straight into dead-end jobs and prisons. More than ever, students of color and Black and Latino community organizations must reclaim the militant traditions of the 1960′s and 70′s. Some politicians continue to tell us that there is no money, so we have to cut back or they will close our school. They are lying. There are many obvious solutions to CCSF’s and California’s financial woes: taxing the rich, taxing oil extraction, cutting prison and war funding, and/or amending Prop 13. Cuts are not inevitable. The school and the state is facing a priorities crisis — not a budget crisis. If they can bail out Wall Street and the banks, they can fund public education! This struggle has huge statewide and national implications. If we let them dismantle CCSF, they will move on to do the same to other schools. If we are able to beat back this unprecedented attack, we can help spark a wave of resistance across the state. The project to build a CA Student Union has the potential play a key role in organizing such a statewide movement. Through mass resistance we can move toward winning free, quality public education for all. We can transform education into an equitable, democratic, and liberatory tool to teach us our real history and train critical thinkers. But to achieve these goals ultimately requires eliminating capitalism and replacing it with a socialist society run by and for the working class majority. A society based on meeting human needs – instead of capitalist profits — is not only possible, it is absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity. -- Check out our website and share with friends - saveccsf.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Fight Back to Save CCSF Coalition" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fightback-saveCCSF+unsubscribe@googlegroups. To post to this group, send email to fightback-saveCCSF@googlegroups. Visit this group at groups.google/group/fightback-saveCCSF.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 18:48:05 +0000
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