Local parents, teachers, students and community organizers won a victory for the students of Boston June 3 when the superintendent of the district, Dr. Carol Johnson, announced that the Boston School Committee would delay voting on the newest five-zone proposal. Many activists, community groups, and parent networks had mobilized in the last several weeks to fight this proposal, which would sharply increase segregation in an already deeply unequal school district.
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Over 200 members of USWA Local 8751, the Boston Bus Drivers’ Union, arrived in four chartered buses from all over the city and were among the most vocal presence at the rally. Other leading participants in the Coalition for Equal Quality Education were the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts; Work-4-Quality Schools; the Boston Parents Organizing Network; Councilors Chuck Turner, Charles Yancey and Sam Yoon; and many others.
The five-zone plan would further divide the school district and prevent thousands of students from attending their schools, under the pretext of saving money on transportation. In practice, the proposal would only further resegregate an already divided district.
Many students of color and low-income students would be included in zones with almost 50 percent of the schools labeled as “under performing.” Students in need of special education and English Language Learners classes would no longer be able to access the educational services and programs that they so desperately need.
Schools clearly are failing students in the city of Boston, but they are not merely “under performing” on their own—they are being actively under-funded as teachers are forced to focus on testing and assessments and not on genuine education. Classrooms are overcrowded and teachers are overworked. This five-zone proposal would only worsen the situation, and is simply a maneuver to give a failing school system political cover and legitimacy.
The rally took place at rush hour and its volume and energy brought countless passers-by to a standstill. Party for Socialism and Liberation members and ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) activists brought placards with slogans like “Say No To ‘Five Zone’ Segregation, Yes to Equal Equation—Justice First!” and distributed literature connecting the expansion of the prison systems and the police departments and the Pentagon’s wars in the Middle East to the lack of funds for education.
A little after 6 p.m., the huge group of demonstrators moved into the building and crowded the room where the school committee was meeting—the activists overpowered the room and took up every chair and every bit of aisle space, with dozens of people standing in the back.
As the meeting began, Dr. Johnson said that after the committee had “listened” to community members for six weeks since releasing the five-zone proposal, she felt that the school committee needed to go back and therefore not vote on the plan on June 24. Dr. Johnson did claim that the district cannot continue to spend $100 million on transportation and if that spending continues, she threatened, there will be further cuts to ELL programs, arts and music programming, and more. She claimed that if more money goes to transportation, they might need to close schools and lay off teachers.
Working people should no longer accept that billions and billions of dollars are going to the corrupt banks and the defense contractors while families in the inner city are being told to choose between buses and an adequate number of teachers in their schools. Progressive activists must continue to stand up and fight back against any plan that moves us backwards and that does not work to ensure an equal, high-quality education for every single child.
