The continuing occupation at Sac State

Read the story on the blog link to the left. The Sacramento Progressive Alliance.

Bill Gates and the Soap of Education

                                 Bill Gates and Soap of Education

     Bill Gates recently claimed class-size doesn’t matter.

     Mr. Gates, I need to talk to you about soap.
    I teach fifth grade in Castroville, California, and a former fifth-grade student, Rojelio (Ro for short), sends me powerful and disturbing gifts. He is twenty-seven now and freshly released from prison.  His gifts, although welcomed because they represent an ongoing seventeen year teacher-student bond, also unnerve me. Ro says they are for “hanging with him all these years.” His gifts have included a newspaper belonging to Charles Manson (A Christian Science Monitor – go figure), and four Sudoku puzzles completed by Sirhan Sirhan. Today he gave me a bar of soap. Inscribed on it are three letters, PIA -- Prison Industries Authority.
     My student has been incarcerated for thirteen-plus years - since he was an eighth-grader. He got the newspaper and the Sudoku puzzles when he was on the same tier as Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. He played chess--a game I taught him in fifth-grade-- with both men. 

   Rojelio’s mom called me, “Mr. Karrer, Ro is coming home on Sunday. Can you straighten his ass out? We’re having a party for him. You wanna’ come?”
     Can I straighten him out? Probably not.  Will I keep on trying to help him? Yes.
So, today right after class, we met at Starbucks. He spotted me and walked to my car, big grin under his nose. He had put on lots of weight. Last time I saw him was in Salinas Valley State Prison, over two years ago. He was in ankle chains, waist chains, then chained from his waist to his ankles, and handcuffed.

      But today, we hugged and he passed me a paper cup with the soap in it.  He said, “Got a present for you, pretty rare. I’m surprised the correction officers let me take it out. It’s worth a couple bucks on E-bay.” He laughed and added, ”Plus, with the cutbacks we only get half a bar now.”

        He didn’t get an education in prison. I have sincere worries that he was in no way rehabilitated. He has little to show for thirteen years of incarceration. Basically he walked out of prison with one thing and he gave that to me - a prison issue bar of soap.
       Mr. Gates, you don’t get it. Those of us teaching in the urban areas see communities and children wallowing in pitiful, desperate poverty. You have no idea how distressed my students are. Nor how slim their margin of survival is.  Last year, fifty percent of my students had set foot in a jail or a prison to visit a family member. The many staggering deficiencies which accompany that reality are overwhelming and swirl around in a negative critical mass, pulling down students’ academics, motivation, and life’s bright shine. Rojelio is the end product of that wretched poverty. And unfortunately he’s not alone. Armies of kids are in line behind him waiting to join gangs.
     You say good teachers are the most important variable in a classroom. Well, you are wrong. It is home life or lack thereof. All teachers can do is assist. I’d like to think I do.  If you think we are so important, then aid us – by helping these kids who need the most. So many of my kids end up in jail or prison. Actually, in communities of raw despondence, smaller class size does matter. It’s one of the very few things that can impact the despondence of their daily lives.  But you think it doesn’t and you are a billionaire. I’m just a front line teacher.  What do I know?
   As for Ro, the odds are stacked against him. He’s never been in a plane, never held a meaningful job, didn’t finish school past eighth-grade. He’s a validated gang member and a felon with one strike. There’s a sixty percent recidivism rate waiting for him.
   As for me, I missed Ro’s coming back party, but I’m going over for dinner. I also hope I won’t be receiving any more presents from him.
   Class size matters Bill Gates, it matters big time. You need to clean up your thinking. And if you want to borrow some soap to do it I have some… unfortunately. 

Paul Karrer

Teacher

Students continue to hold the building at Sac State

Over 2,000 students walked out of their classes at Sacramento State  University today April 13,  in protest against the  state budget cuts and the rising tuition in the California State University  System – part of the largest university system in the world.  Student protesters expect that already passed budget cuts will lead to larger classes, fewer classes, eliminated programs,  and an increased time to graduate.

 History Professor Joe Palermo spoke to the crowd gathered in the Sac State Quad arguing,

 “What we've been witnessing in recent years is nothing short of the wholesale auctioning off, often to the lowest bidder of the public commons right under the feet of the majority of California's citizens who never signed on to this long-term project of destruction…

see stories below.

A series of student organizers from Students for Quality Education spoke of the costs of cuts to their lives.  Amanda Moores described the irresponsibility of the University Administration in producing a 66% increase in Executive Salaries paid for in part by   a 224 % increase in student fees.

After a loud  rally on the Quad, several hundred students marched across campus.  At this hour over 300 students, faculty and staff are occupying the offices of the University President.

There were rallies and marches on at least 10 of the CSU campuses today, ranging from 50 students to several hundred.

Sacramento State is the only one we know of where students have occupied the administration building.

At 8;30 PM. some 30 students continue to hold the Administration building and they plan to spend the night.
They ask that supporters join them inside or outside of the building when it opens on Thursday at 7 A.M.

HAYWARD, CA 4/13/11 --  Students and faculty at California State University, East Bay, marched to the administration building on the campus and then occupied the building in protest.  Organized by Students for a Quality Education and the California Faculty Association, the civil disobedience protested budget cuts and fee increases for students, and cutbacks on staff and benefits, while administrators' salaries are increased. 

The building occupation demanded the resignation of CSU Chancellor Chuck Reed, and a list of other demands discussed and adopted during the occupation.  Similar building occupations took place on other campuses.  Some students wore face paint with scars symbolizing the painful slashing impact of budget cuts.

Before the march and building occupation, students and faculty organized a "People's University."  Workshops talked about the attack on education and the rights of public workers, especially teachers, throughout the U.S., as well as campus issues that included lack of childcare, parking and student services.  Other SQE demands included democratizing the state university's board of trustees, budget transparency, fair treatment for unions and workers, and a recommitment to the California Master Plan for Higher Education.

According to the California Faculty Association, "the California State University has lost some $1 billion, let go more than 3000 faculty, slashed course offerings and tripled student fees. Tens of thousands of eligible students have been turned away or given up because of rising costs and inability to get necessary classes."

Hayward report above by David Bacon.

Capitol Protest by 8000 Today

California’s growing student led protests.

By Duane Campbell

Over 8000 students and their supporters rallied outside the California State Capitol  In Sacramento on March 22 to demand adequate funding for education.    Students brought buses of demonstrators from community colleges throughout  central and northern California.  This march ,organized primarily by community college groups and their allies, was the latest in a series of  demonstrations responding to proposals to dramatically cut funding for education in California. 

The March 22 rally followed a March 4 rally when  2000 faculty, students and their supporters rallied at the State Capitol while thousands rallied at campuses and cities around the state.    There were  more than 40 events across the state asking people to stand up for education. Faculty and students came to Sacramento  from UC Davis, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley, as well as CSU Sacramento, Chico, and community colleges. Rallies and protests also occurred on other CSU, UC and community colleges across the state.
Photos are here:

Capitol Monday. CDA signs and stickers were everywhere. We got lots of visibility and signatures.

 

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/22/2626105/capitol-rally-protests-budgets.html?mi_rss=Photo%20Galleries

Students face a class struggle

At 2:29 p.m. on Jan. 12, Juan Macias, 19, a sophomore at San Francisco State University, sat in a cafe near the engineering firm where he works part time as an office assistant, staring at a laptop computer screen.

In one minute he would get a crucial opportunity to register for classes for the spring semester. “This is so nerve-wracking," he said as he waited for the clock to signal that his assigned registration period had begun.

Hours earlier, scrutinizing the class schedule, he considered about 30 courses — then had to rule all of them out. They were full. The last slot on the waiting list for a 146-seat introductory physics class he has been trying to join for a year had disappeared minutes before, taken by another student with an earlier registration period.

“You’re trying to compete with all the other students, when we all want education,” said Mr. Macias, a business major. “It really makes me angry.” His classes — the ones that had an opening — begin on Monday.

Welcome to state-run higher education in California. Mr. Macias is just one of more than 26,000 students at San Francisco State, and now educational opportunities cost more and are harder to grasp and even harder to hold onto than ever before. Mr. Macias’s experience of truncated offerings, furloughed professors and crowded classrooms is typical.

In 1960, he added, the state created “the gold standard in high-quality, low-cost public higher education. This year, the California legislature abandoned the gold standard.”

Because of state budget cuts to higher education, San Francisco State is now offering 3,173 course sections, 12 percent fewer than two years ago. From the university administration’s point of view, that is not as bad as it might have been: over $1.5 million in federal stimulus money prevented more draconian cuts.

The cutbacks enraged students. On Dec. 9, Mr. Macias was among the student activists who occupied the campus’s Business Building for 24 hours, canceling the classes held inside, including one he was taking. With a red sweater partially obscuring his face, he took to the roof with 11 other protesters, wielding a megaphone and leading chants.

When police broke up the occupation early the next morning, Mr. Macias, who had never participated in a protest before he went to San Francisco State, was arrested. On Jan. 26 he will go to court.

The chaos of trying to get into classes last fall spurred Mr. Macias. After budget cuts forced class cancellations, he had to take a week off work to attend 20 classes, as he tried to scrounge up enough units to keep his full-time status and maintain his financial aid.

Mr. Macias also felt the cuts in the classroom. In the fall, Don Menn, a lecturer in the journalism department since 1999, had taken pity on many students who, like Mr. Macias, were seeking to join his introductory course, Journalism and Mass Media. He let them all in, teaching 190 in a lecture hall that seats 148. Some sat on the floor.

But with no budget for a teaching assistant to help with grading, Mr. Menn had to slash the syllabus, canceling the midterm exam and the 10-page research paper. While in the past he had frequently given essay tests, this year all quizzes and the final were multiple choice.

“This is supposed to be a critical-thinking type class,” Mr. Menn said, “and here it was rote learning.”

Next year, students like Mr. Macias may face a further increase in fees. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget for 2010-11 includes a 10 percent fee increase for students at the California State University’s 23 campuses. He also proposed restoring $305 million to the state university system.

Mr. Macias’s education has already suffered. “Just worrying about having enough units to stay in school made me lose focus on my schoolwork,” he said.

Read the entire piece at;

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/education/24sfstudent.html?ref=education
There will be protest demonstrations at Sac State on Monday and Tues,  8- 10 Am.