Response Post on Alternatives

Revised Pages

20 global edUc ator MoveMents Teacher Struggles against Neoliberalism and for Democracy and Justice

Lauren Ware Stark and Carol Anne Spreen

Over the last thirty years, neoliberal reformers have devel- oped policies that frame education as a private investment instead of a public good. Across the world, these policies have undermined public edu- cation systems by imposing austerity measures and market-based reforms that exacerbate economic and racial inequalities in education and soci- ety.1 Rather than improving education, privatization has decimated public schools, diverting much-needed funds to the private sector and chipping away at teacher salaries, benefts, and classroom resources.2

Previous chapters in this volume have focused on 2018 as a tipping point for teacher resistance against austerity and the privatization of public edu- cation, detailing major struggles for public education in the United States. In this chapter, we look at these struggles within the broader context of edu- cator social movements outside of the mainland United States. Teachers across the world have led signifcant struggles against the neoliberal proj- ects that have starved and decimated public education since the early 1980s. Teir struggles are taking diferent forms in diferent countries, but they all have at their core a shared critique of neoliberalism: worldwide, teachers are arguing that without properly resourced, high-quality education for all, society itself will be fundamentally damaged, and they are taking this argu- ment to the streets.

Te “global education reform movement”3 is led by multinational cor- porations, billionaire venture philanthropists, and neoliberal policymakers, all of whom stand to beneft from the transfer of public education funds to the private education sector,4 a growing industry estimated to be worth over US$6 trillion.5 While many of the key actors, including philanthropists and corporations promoting the for-proft education industry, come from the United States, their ideas have global resonance and are positioned as

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 2 1 . U n i v e r s i t y o f M i c h i g a n P r e s s .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY AN: 2613028 ; Rebecca Kolins Givan, Amy Schrager Lang.; Strike for the Common Good : Fighting for the Future of Public Education Account: s9001366.main.allehost

Global Educator Movements 235

Revised Pages

ofering “solutions” to educational crises worldwide.6 Tese global actors increasingly control education systems, incentivizing austerity, deregula- tion, competition, and the purchase of assessments, curriculum, and soft- ware packages that promise to improve educational outcomes.7

International fnancial institutions like the World Bank and the Interna- tional Monetary Fund (IMF) similarly drive international education policy, determining what good schooling should look like. Tese institutions have advised countries to pursue public-private partnerships and adopt changes that reduce teacher autonomy, loosen regulations, cut public sector educa- tion spending, and incentivize the growth of private “education markets.” Tey have also increased their direct support to commercial private edu- cation providers, including fee-charging, for-proft school chains, such as Bridge International, which clearly undermine state obligations to provide free and compulsory public education.8

Each of these global actors has advanced what Ball and Youdell refer to as privatization of education (transforming the education sector into a market that includes for-proft actors) as well as privatization in education (adopting business ideologies from the private sector that make educa- tion function more like a market).9 Examples of the former include charter schools in the United States, academies in the United Kingdom, and “low- fee” private school chains in the global South, putative reforms that sidestep education and labor regulations and undermine the right to high-quality education.10 Examples of the latter include the redesign of schools as sites of experimentation with technology-focused products and services designed to meet standardized external benchmarks, using a proft and efciency logic. Tis commercialization has reshaped the structures of schooling with “teacher-proof” standardized curriculum and assessment.11

Educators recognize the growing infuence of both forms of privatization as a “global assault” on public schooling that reduces teacher autonomy and deprofessionalizes their work; they feel frsthand the devastating impact of shifts in funding and resources away from public schools.12 Teacher strikes and campaigns around the world have taken action against the austerity measures mandated by global policymakers and fnancial institutions as well as against the proliferation of market-based reforms, such as charters, low-fee private schools, and assessment packages. From Argentina to Zim- babwe, teachers are taking on their own governments and the international fnancial institutions for their eforts to divert public funds to the private sector and away from public education. At stake in their struggle against privatization is the promise of public education as a public good.

Te social movement unions13 and grassroots networks featured in this

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

236 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

volume demonstrate the potential for educators to organize alongside their communities to challenge both neoliberalism and multiple forms of oppres- sion, including racism. In our discussion of recent educator struggles across the world, we suggest that educators outside of the United States have sim- ilarly challenged neoliberalism and oppression by building powerful collec- tive movements. In many cases, educators in these movements have shown solidarity with other education workers, including the lowest-paid and most vulnerable education workers, as well as with organizers in economic and racial justice struggles outside of education.

In our discussion of key struggles in the constellation of educator move- ments on multiple continents, we highlight the ways that these struggles build on longstanding movements for justice. We likewise discuss the shared “repertoires of contention”14 within these struggles: a “contemporary logic of resistance”15 that includes engaging in broad global coalitions and international networks, using democratic and horizontalist—that is, non- hierarchical—processes to develop grassroots campaigns, employing new and traditional organizing tools, and articulating visionary political analyses that challenge multiple forms of oppression in their local contexts.16

Several of the most signifcant education struggles of the past decade have been led by educators and students in Latin America. Neoliberal educa- tion reforms were implemented throughout the region beginning in the early 1980s, accelerating in the 1990s, and continuing into the 2010s. Tese included the implementation of new educational laws decentralizing the public education system in each country, the introduction of managerial school-based institutional education projects (proyectos educativos insti- tucionales) and the initiation of national standardized tests that could be used to evaluate and rank schools.17 While these policies were promoted by the IMF, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNESCO, the World Bank, and other nongovernmental agencies as equalizing forces, in practice these reforms resulted in more socioeco- nomically segregated educational systems.18

In the face of these policies, educators in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and elsewhere have led major movements against austerity, repression, and market-based reforms over several decades. Educators have organized alongside students and community members to demand democratic, fully-funded, and universal public education, con- fronting neoliberal education networks and putting forward an alternative vision for education and society as a whole. In many cases, these move-

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 237

Revised Pages

ments had roots in earlier struggles, including radical agrarian and popu- lar education movements.19 Troughout each of these struggles, educators faced signifcant risks in challenging major political powers in their govern- ment, union, and communities, in some cases risking and losing their lives for their organizing.

Beginning in 1980, the Pinochet regime empowered the “Chicago Boys”— Chilean economists who had studied “free market” policies at the University of Chicago—to use the nation’s public sector as a laboratory for neoliberal social reforms.20 While the publication of A Nation at Risk: Te Imperative for Educational Reform, the 1983 report of Ronald Reagan’s National Com- mission on Excellence in Education, is often cited as a watershed moment for the rollout of neoliberal education reforms, these reforms were exported to Chile before they were implemented in the United States.21 In a series of poli- cies that privatized the state educational system in 1980, the Pinochet regime cut education funding while establishing a voucher system for primary and secondary schools, resulting in a privatized system with the highest levels of socioeconomic segregation of any country taking the OECD Program for International Student Assessment.22 Tis restructuring aligned with the rollout of high-stakes tests to measure and compare schools, including the Education Quality Measurement System (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación), which was used to justify the restructuring of the state edu- cational system as a market.23 Similar policies reshaped higher education in the country, with the Pinochet regime cutting funding for public universities in half and creating private institutos in 1981.24

Chilean students and teachers have led several waves of militant demon- strations for democratically governed quality public education and against neoliberalism. Beginning with the “Penguin Revolution” (so-called because of the students’ black and white uniforms) of 2006 and culminating in coor- dinated nationwide mobilizations in 2011, Chilean students through hunger strikes and mass demonstrations protested the market-based reforms that had segregated and starved their schools.25 Tis movement was primarily led by student organizations, whose focus shifted from protesting educa- tional inequalities to calling for democratic and equitable social institutions, and it was supported by both educators and their unions.26

More recently, in May and June 2019 over eighty thousand members of the union representing Chile’s public school teachers (Colegio de Profesores de Chile, or CPC) led a multiweek strike calling for full education fund- ing and democratic governance.27 Tis strike can be seen as a continuation of the student movement’s focus on demanding alternatives to neoliberal

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

238 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

education governance: many teachers in the CPC had participated in these earlier struggles. Likewise, it can be seen in relation to the development of new leftist coalitions and networks in Chile, including the counterhege- monic Broad Front (Frente Amplio) coalition, which formed in 2017 to bring together leftists, including insurgent rank-and-fle members of the CPC.

Like Chile, Argentina was governed under a dictatorship during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and this dictatorship brought a combination of increased social repression and rapid “free market” reforms.28 Te educa- tion system was decentralized under the junta beginning in 1978, but neo- liberal policies did not fully take root until President Menem’s reforms in the 1990s, including the 1994 Federal Law of Education (Ley Federal de Educación).29 Tese reforms decentralized school administration to the nation’s provinces, which faced vast funding disparities. Without the ideo- logical commitment or comprehensive reform plans of Chile’s “Chicago Boys” directing policy reforms, however, neoliberal reforms did not take as strong a hold in Argentina as in Chile.30 Despite the uneven implementation of market-based reforms in Argentina, the nation’s system remains socio- economically segregated, with some students attending the state-run public education system and an increasing number of students leaving this system to attend the more-desirable state-sponsored private schools.31Te growth of the private school system in Argentina fueled several decades of unrest among educators.32

In recent years, educators and communities faced a new wave of corpo- ratist attacks on the public sector. In 2017, newly elected President Macri decided to ignore the federally mandated National Joint Negotiation with teachers’ unions, leading to a multiweek general strike by Argentinian educators that brought together the nation’s teachers’ unions, numbering more than ffty. Tese strikes challenged leading rank-and-fle educators to demand both a return to national negotiations and a 35 percent raise for educators in all provinces. In response to the president’s anti-public- education policies and discourse, educators likewise organized a Federal March for Education in 2017.33 After winning a 32 percent raise in 2018, educators in Argentina began the 2019 school year with another strike, demanding an increase of another 16 percent before they would negotiate their 2019 contract.34

Mexico has a long tradition of educator organizing, beginning over a century ago, well before the implementation of neoliberal reforms, and continuing to this day as educators organize for democracy and equity in schools and broader society. Building on successful and, in many cases,

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 239

Revised Pages

 

indigenous women-led struggles for democracy and higher wages in Chi- apas and Mexico City, educators developed the National Coordination of Education Workers (Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Edu- cación, or CNTE), a caucus within the National Union of Education Work- ers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación) teachers’ union, in 1979.35

But it was not until the late 1980s that the Mexican government began implementing neoliberal education policies, including austerity budgets and national standardized assessments for both students and teachers.36 Educators led several major strikes and social movements against austerity and for democracy in this period. Te most signifcant of these struggles was arguably the organizing of educators in the disproportionately poor and indigenous state of Oaxaca, who gained international attention in 2006 for leading a strike for education funding that transformed into a major social movement for democratic reforms in all social sectors.37

Later, educator organizing across Mexico intensifed in the face of the market-based reforms in schools advanced by President Peña Nieto from 2012 to 2018. Tese reforms used international test scores to frame a crisis in public education that, it was claimed, could only be addressed through increased standardization, assessment, and market-based reforms in the education sector, not by increased spending or more equitable social poli- cies. Using this framing, the Peña Nieto administration pushed policies that undermined the autonomy, expertise, and organizing power of educators, including policies that tied teacher evaluations to test scores and limited collective bargaining rights.38 Te CNTE led several coordinated national struggles against these reforms, successfully challenging a mandated teach- ers’ exam with actions that began in 2013 and led to a series of successful work stoppages and demonstrations that intensifed in 2016, when eleven protesters were murdered by police at a demonstration in Nochixtlán, Oax- aca.39 Tese protests garnered international attention, including statements of solidarity from educators across Mexico, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. While the CNTE has not succeeded in stopping every element of Peña Nieto’s neoliberal reforms, it has limited the use of educator exams in the country. Tis victory owes much to the movement’s growth in less-organized regions over the course of Mexican educators’ fghts against neoliberal reforms in 2016, as well as to the development of international solidarity networks supporting their organizing.40

Brazil has a similarly rich history of educator organizing, predating responses to neoliberal reforms and rooted particularly in rural workers’

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

240 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

struggles. As Brazil redeveloped at the end of a military dictatorship, the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST) formed; it has advanced both economic and educational justice in rural Brazil for over three decades now. While the MST initially focused on leading popular education programs, in the late 1980s, the movement began urging pedagogical initiatives within public schools, developing a series of “movement schools” that train teachers in the MST’s particular form of critical pedagogy.41 Trough its agrarian and pedagogical organizing, the MST has directly confronted neoliberal ideolo- gies, advancing alternative forms of social reform.42

Despite the work of the MST and other movements, neoliberal social and educational policies were implemented in Brazil throughout this period, including both austerity budgets and market-based reforms. Since the mid-1990s, the nation has moved toward increasing privatization, most notably through the 1997 Law of Orientation and Foundations of Education (Ley de Directrices y Bases de la Educación), which states that the educa- tion sector is open to private enterprise. According to this policy and others established during this period, the federal government shares responsibility over education with the nation’s states. While the federal government con- trols the use of tests, such as the National System for the Evaluation of Basic Education (Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de la Educación Básica), states have the power to develop public-private partnerships and implement other neoliberal reforms.43

In the face of ongoing cuts and market-based reforms that have worsened teaching and learning conditions in schools, Brazil’s students and teachers have organized strikes and protests. In 2015, teachers in São Paulo organized a three-month strike against austerity measures in the city, building on pro- tests against their government’s disproportionate spending on the World Cup amid cuts to public institutions the previous year.44 Later that year, stu- dents in the city developed horizontalist—or democratic, nonhierarchical— organizing against school closures, occupying the majority of schools slated to be closed.45 Te following year, the federal government enacted a crip- pling set of cuts that were estimated to reduce per-pupil education spending by nearly a third.46 Teachers in Rio de Janeiro then went on strike as part of their eforts toward “resisting privatization, demanding an end to cuts in the school budget, better maintenance of the buildings, an increase in wages, and improvement in the students’ breakfasts and lunches.”47

Since then, teachers and students have led a series of protests and strikes against austerity and for equitable school spending throughout sev-

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 241

Revised Pages

eral states in Brazil. Tese protests have gained additional momentum in the context of the election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who has furthered his predecessor Michel Temer’s attacks on workers’ rights, cuts to public institutions, and governmental repression. In June 2019, educa- tors in Brazil collaborated with organizers in other sectors to lead a gen- eral strike against cuts to public employees’ pensions and education fund- ing.48 Te Brazilian National Student Union similarly called for students to lead a national strike against a governmental plan to further privatize the nation’s higher-education system, building on the struggle against neolib- eral reforms and for quality education across Latin America and many other parts of the world.49

Puerto Rico has a similarly storied tradition of organizing against colonialism and racism. In recent years, workers in the unincorporated US territory have focused much of their organizing on fghting the neo- liberal reforms that have reshaped their social institutions since the 1980s, often with the encouragement of US ofcials. In 2008, Puerto Rico’s mili- tant teachers’ union, the Puerto Rico Teachers’ Federation (Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, or FMPR) led a two-week strike for democratic, high-quality schools, refusing to concede on their demands for reasonable class sizes and educator representation on school boards. In advance of the strike, teachers developed horizontalist coalitions with student, com- munity, and labor organizations, and they extended this solidarity network to include educators in the United States as the strike continued.50 Public condemnation of neoliberalism grew even louder in 2009, when right-wing leaders fred thousands of public employees. Beginning the following year and continuing into 2011, students at the University of Puerto Rico (Univer- sidad de Puerto Rico) led an ambitious strike against neoliberal cuts, which led to the resignation of the university’s president, José Ramón de la Torre.51

After Hurricane María struck the island in September 2017, policymakers followed a close-and-privatize model characteristic of the practices of “disas- ter capitalism”52 enacted in New Orleans, Chicago, and other US contexts.53 Policymakers intent on reinforcing Puerto Rico’s colonial status, including Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, declared that they would keep several hundred schools closed the year after the hurricane, citing low enrollment and fnancial crisis.54 Educators and leaders in the FMPR such as Mercedes Martínez led a one-day strike against closures, charterization, and other proposed neoliberal reforms in March 2018, which helped to galvanize the largest general strike in the history of the island the following summer. Tis uprising was democratically organized by students, teachers, unionists, fem-

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

242 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

inists, and community members, building on decades of struggle and leading to the resignation of Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Roselló.55

Like these other countries or territories, Canada, too, has a strong tra- dition of labor and educator organizing, centered primarily on struggles at the provincial level. Canadian organizing has become more militant in recent years, often in response to neoliberal reforms, which included cuts to education spending throughout the 1990s and new governance policies in the 2000s.56 As the Canadian Teachers’ Federation documents in its recent report on educational privatization in Canada, neoliberal reforms vary widely across the country. At the provincial level, they include both privatization in and privatization of education: charterization, initiatives to publicly fund private schools, corporate data management, standardized testing to rank schools, the development of fee-based schools for interna- tional students, public-private partnerships, cyber schools, and e-learning initiatives.57 Because these reforms and related resistance vary widely by province, here we focus primarily on one illustrative example: organizing in British Columbia, the site of infuential resistance for almost two decades.

In British Columbia, neoliberal policies were rolled out in the early 2000s under Premier Gordon Campbell, whose government coupled tax cuts with the deregulation and privatization of public services. Like neolib- eral governments in the United States and other places, policymakers in the Campbell administration used their own underfunding of schools to justify closures and other cuts as well as the development of school district busi- ness companies.58 Tey similarly shifted toward market-based reforms, such as using standardized test scores to rank schools. Te administration vil- lainized teachers’ unions, limiting the right of public educators to strike by designating education an essential service in 2005.59 In 2011, the 2002 leg- islation limiting educators’ bargaining rights was deemed unconstitutional, but the following year, the provincial government introduced a new version of the earlier legislation.

In response to these policies, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has resisted neoliberal reforms and both promoted and enacted a more socially just vision for public education, ofering inspiration to devel- oping educator movements in the United States through the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education and other networks.60 Te BCTF has led public education campaigns urging the full funding of schools and resist- ing privatization as well as engaging in a series of strikes and other public contestations against neoliberalism, including a one-day walkout in 2002, a ten-day strike in 2005, and a three-day strike in 2011. Beginning in June 2014,

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 243

Revised Pages

BC teachers led a multimonth strike for public education, successfully nego- tiating a contract without concessions as well as remediating some of the neoliberal government’s underfunding of educator compensation and basic services in schools. Troughout its work to challenge neoliberal reforms, the BCTF has participated in a range of local and international solidarity net- works, including the BC Federation of Labour, community coalitions that include students, parents, teachers, organizers, and other stakeholders,61 and international solidarity networks, such as the Trinational Coalition.62

Europe has not been exempt from these struggles, as the example of England demonstrates. Te English education system has long been criti- cized for its role in reproducing class inequalities. While the 1944 Education Act aimed to provide universal access to state-sponsored comprehensive education, this promise was never fully realized, with Margaret Tatcher ending the requirement for local authority community schools to convert to comprehensive schools in 1970 provision.63 Te shift away from demo- cratically governed, comprehensive schools culminated in the 1988 Educa- tion Act, which established a neoliberal, market-based education system. Trough this act, the education system was deregulated and reimagined as a market, with standardized tests used to rank schools and determine educator compensation. Reforms in 2010 and 2016 opened the system to further privatization, laying the groundwork for the academization of so- called underperforming schools.64 Tis process is comparable to charteriza- tion eforts in portfolio-based reform models—that is, the restructuring of public school systems into markets with schools ranked and reformed based on test data–-in Chicago and other US contexts.65

English educators led a series of strikes against austerity. In 2008, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) held a one-day strike for fully-funded schools, demanding fair educator compensation as well as challenging large class sizes and cuts to pension reforms.66 NUT educators held another one- day strike in the summer of 2016, again demanding better working condi- tions, an end to austerity cuts, and fair educator compensation.67 In 2017, NUT joined the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to form a new edu- cator union—the National Education Union (NEU). And in April 2018, NEU members voted to boycott high-stakes testing in primary schools, signaling a new strategy to English schools.68

Educators in other countries have also led major strikes that suggest new or evolving struggles against neoliberalism. In many cases, these actions are still in progress or have not been fully documented in the media or aca-

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

244 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

demic literature. In the frst three months of 2018, for example, teachers in Guinea in collaboration with unions in other sectors led a strike calling for higher educator salaries and lower fuel and food prices.69 Slovenian teach- ers likewise led two major strikes in the spring of 2018, protesting austerity and calling for educator compensation that aligns with other public sector unions.70 Beginning on September 10, 2018, educators in three major unions representing the education sector in Costa Rica led a three-month strike, in collaboration with other public sector workers, to protest tax reforms that would disproportionately afect the working class.71 Likewise, in October 2018, Iranian educators led a nationwide strike, calling for “educational jus- tice” and condemning the privatization of public education, the imprison- ment of teacher unionists, discrimination in the school system, poor work- ing and learning conditions, the poor quality of education materials, and the misuse of public funds.72

Tese are hardly the only examples. Beginning in late 2018 and con- tinuing into early 2019, teachers in Tunisia’s secondary education union led several mass protests in the capital city of Tunis, calling for Minister of Education Hatem Ben Salem to resign. Tese mobilizations built toward a multimonth strike that coincided with several others led by public sector workers protesting the austerity measures encouraged by the IMF. Many participating educators refused to administer exams, calling for improved working and learning conditions, fair compensation, and a lower retirement age.73 Later, beginning in February 2019, Moroccan educators with short- term contracts in decentralized regional academies for education and train- ing led a wave of strikes against the government, calling for more stable employment agreements that ofered the same benefts as those of public sector educators.

And there is more. Education unions across three continents led joint strikes that brought together teachers from across the education sector in the winter and spring of 2019. In February 2019, two unions representing Zimbabwe’s educators, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Pro- gressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, voted to lead a national one-day strike on February 5, calling for equitable public education and educator wages.74 Te following month, on March 15, educators in two of the major unions in the Dutch education sector, representing primary and secondary educators as well as university lecturers, led a joint one-day strike.75 Inspired by the teacher strike wave in the United States, they collectively challenged austerity policies and market-based reforms in schools in the Netherlands.76

In April 2019, educators in Poland began a general strike that brought

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 245

Revised Pages

together educators from two of the nation’s major educator unions, Polish Teachers’ Union (ZNP) and the Trade Union Forum (FZZ). Polish educa- tors organized in response to neoliberal reforms, including the elimination of the junior high program, cuts to housing benefts and pay, as well as the implementation of merit pay reforms.77 And a month later, on May 29, the two unions representing New Zealand’s primary and secondary educators, respectively, voted to lead another remarkable joint one-day strike calling for improved working and learning conditions.78

Educator struggles continued into the fall of 2019. In late August and early September 2019, at the start of the new term, the Guyana Teachers’ Union went on strike to call for fair educator wages and better working conditions.79 In September, Jordan’s educators in the Jordanian Teachers’ Association began a national strike calling for a 50 percent increase in teacher compensation, following protests against IMF-incentivized auster- ity policies.

As this brief review illustrates, educators across the globe systematically challenged neoliberal austerity policies in 2018 and 2019, calling for fair wages, better working and learning conditions, and equitable funding for schools. While most of these struggles focused on “rollback” neoliberal reforms, such as austerity policies implemented by neoliberal governments under the infuence of international debt management agencies like the IMF, it is worth noting that many governments in these countries have already begun implementing “rollout” neoliberal reforms as well. As privatization eforts continue to grow worldwide, international educator networks have the potential to support educators by sharing both solidarity and strategies for fghting these reforms.

In the organizing of students in Brazil and militant educators in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Iran, we can see the potential for hor- izontalist, democratic organizing. In the women-led organizing of Mexi- can teachers, in the antidiscrimination organizing of Iranian teachers, and in the antiracist organizing of Los Angeles and Oakland teachers, we can see the potential for visionary labor demands that integrate the politics of redistribution and representation, often into “common good” demands. In the campaigns of educators from Argentina to Zimbabwe, we can also see the power of traditional and new organizing strategies—most notably those exploiting social media, just as teachers in West Virginia and Arizona did—to coordinate actions and build international solidarity. Moreover, in the many cross-sector education strikes, public sector worker collabora-

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

246 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

tions, and community-labor coalitions throughout each of these struggles, we can see the potential for local and national networks to directly confront those neoliberal networks starving and privatizing their public institutions.

We can also see the potential for international networks to build solidar- ity, share knowledge, and collaborate to confront privatization on local and global scales. A particularly powerful example of this potential is the Tri- national Coalition to Defend Public Education, which has facilitated policy mobility between teachers’ unions in Canada, Mexico, and the United States since 1993. Tis network proved especially infuential in the development of social justice caucuses in the United States, as well as in the development of solidarity campaigns supporting strikes in these and other countries.80 Social justice unions, like the Chicago Teachers Union, the BC Teachers’ Federation, and the Puerto Rico Teachers’ Federation (FMPR), have simi- larly engaged in international solidarity work. A group of organizers rep- resenting the Chicago Teachers Union and allied community organizations led a delegation to Chile to share information about how educators have experienced and challenged privatization in their respective contexts, for example.81

Other initiatives have provided spaces for educators to come together— whether in person or virtually—to share their experiences and challenge neoliberal reforms. Te Teacher Solidarity site ofers news and resources related to educator struggles around the world. Likewise, the US-based Labor Notes organization highlights international struggles led by the rank and fle in both news stories and at their biannual conference. Moreover, Educational International’s “Global Response to the Commercialisation and Privatisation of Education” campaigns ofer research and labor forums for union leaders and rank-and-fle educators. A recent campaign, for exam- ple, focused on challenging the low-fee private schools operated by Bridge International in Uganda and Kenya. Organizing alongside teachers’ unions in both countries, campaign organizers brought together parents, educa- tors, students, labor leaders, community organizers, and other stakehold- ers to challenge Bridge, leading the corporation to end operations in both Kenya and Uganda.82

Te struggles outlined in this chapter demonstrate the power of solidar- ity networks at the local, national, and international levels to successfully contest neoliberal reforms. Educators across the world are already develop- ing and building these networks and using them to share experiences and strategies. We join them in arguing that such networks are fundamental to the struggle to defend public education from neoliberal attacks and likewise

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 247

Revised Pages

see them as able to blossom into global movements capable of defending and transforming not only public education but other social institutions.

As groundbreaking strikes continue to spread, the potential for global educator movements seems greater than ever. While this volume goes to press, French educators are organizing alongside health care, law, and transportation workers against the pension reforms proposed by the neo- liberal Emmanuel Macron government.83 Students and unionists in India are leading a general strike against the Hindu nationalist Narenda Modi government’s “antipeople” policies, which include the privatization of sev- eral industries and a discriminatory citizenship law that targets Muslims.84 While their struggles have received little press coverage, they have been widely shared and discussed by teacher organizers and activist scholars in our networks. We anticipate that these struggles and the many others doc- umented in this volume will serve as inspiration for educator organizers across the world in the years to come.

Notes

1. Carol Anne Spreen and Lauren Stark, “Privatization Nation: How the US Became the Land of Edu-preneurs,” OurSchools/OurSelves, Canadian Center for Education Policy Alternatives, Summer 2014.

2. Carol Anne Spreen and Sangeeta Kamat, “Profting from the Poor: Te Emer- gence of Multinational Edu‐businesses in Hyderabad, India,” in Te Wiley Hand- book of Global Educational Reform, ed. Kenneth J. Saltman and Alexander J. Means (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), 199–230.

3. Pasi Sahlberg, “Te Global Educational Reform Movement and Its Impact on Schooling,” in Te Handbook of Global Education Policy, ed. Karen Mundy, Andy Green, Bob Lingard, and Antoni Verger (Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 128–144. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118468005.ch7

4. Anna Hogan, Sam Sellar, and Bob Lingard, “Network Restructuring of Global Edu-Business,” in Mapping Corporate Education Reform: Power and Policy Networks in the Neoliberal State ed. Wayne Au and Joseph J. Ferrare (New York: Routledge, 2015), 43–64; Fazal Rizvi, “Privatization in Education: Trends and Consequences,” UNESCO Education and Research Working Paper, October 2016. DOI: http://repositorio.minedu.gob.pe/handle/123456789/5066; Susan Robertson and Roger Dale, “Te social justice implications of privatisation in education gov- ernance frameworks: A relational account,” Oxford Review of Education 39.4 (2013): 426–445.

5. William Smith and Tony Baker, “From Free to Fee: Are For-Proft, Fee Charging Private Schools the Solution for the World’s Poor?,” RESULTS Educa- tional Fund, 2017. bit.ly/2kuWm5q.

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

248 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

6. See also Marachi and Carpenter, chapter 19, this volume. 7. Carolina Junemann and Stephen J. Ball, “Pearson and PALF: Te Mutat-

ing Giant,” 2015; Hogan, Sellar, and Lingard, “Network Restructuring”; Sahlberg, “Global Education Reform Movement”; Education International, 2016.

8. Curtis Riep and Mark Machacek, “Schooling the Poor Proftably: Te Inno- vations and Deprivations of Bridge International Academies in Uganda,” Education International, 2016, https://www.right-to-education.org/sites/right-to-education. org/fles/resource-attachments/EI_Schooling_the_poor_proftably_2016_En.pdf.

9. Stephen J. Ball and Deborah Youdell, Hidden Privatisation in Public Educa- tion (Brussels: Education International, 2008); Rizvi “Privatization in Education”; Robertson and Dale “Te Social Justice Implications of Privatisation.” 10. Spreen and Stark, “Privatization Nation.” 11. Spreen and Kamat, “Profting from the Poor.” Also see Russom, chapter 14 in

this volume, on a nineteenth-century version of this. 12. Mary F. Compton and Lois Weiner, Te Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers,

and Teir Unions: Stories for Resistance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Spreen and Stark, “Privatization Nation.” 13. Lois Weiner, Te Future of Our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice

(Chicago: Haymarket, 2012). 14. Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2006).  15. Todd Wolfson, Emiliano Treré, Paulo Gerbaudo, and Peter N. Funke, “From

Global Justice to Occupy and Podemos: Mapping Tree Stages of Contempo- rary Activism,” TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 15, no. 2 (2017): 390–542.  16. Lauren Stark, “‘We’re Trying to Create a Diferent World’: Educator Organiz-

ing in Social Justice Caucuses,” PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2019. 17. Gustavo Fischman, Stephen Ball, and Silvina Gvortz, “Introduction: Toward a

Neoliberal Education? Tension and Change in Latin America,” in Crisis and Hope: Te Educational Hopscotch of Latin America, ed. Gustavo Fischman, Stephen Ball, and Silvina Gvortz (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2003), 1–18. 18. Fischman, Ball, and Gvortz, “Introduction.” 19. Paul Bocking, “Te Mexican Teachers’ Movement in the Context of Neo-

liberal Education Policy and Strategies for Resistance,” Labor and Society 22 (March 2019): 61–76; Dan La Botz, “Te Long Struggle of Mexican Teachers,” Jacobin, August 2016, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/mexico-teach- er-union-strikes-oaxaca/; Rebecca Tarlau, “How Do New Critical Pedagogies Develop? Public Education, Social Change, and Landless Workers in Brazil,” Teach- ers College Record 117, no. 11 (2015): 1–36. 20. Orlando Letelier, “Te ‘Chicago Boys’ in Chile: Economic Freedom’s Awful

Toll,” Te Nation, September 21, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/ the-chicago-boys-in-chile-economic-freedoms-awful-toll/

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 249

Revised Pages

21. M. Beatriz Fernández, “Framing Teacher Education: Conceptions of Teach- ing, Teacher Education, and Justice in Chilean National Policies,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 26 (March 12, 2018). 22. Te Global Initiative, “Education Privatization and its Impact on the Right

to Education,” 2014, http://globalinitiative-escr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ Chile.pdf. 23. Javier Campos-Martínez, Francisca Corbalán, and Jorge Inzunza, “Mapping

Neoliberal Reform in Chile: Following the Development and Legitimation of the Chilean System of School Quality Measurement (SIMCE),” in Au and Ferrar, Map- ping Corporate Education Reform, 106–125. 24. Fernández, “Framing Teacher Education.” 25. Nelly P. Stromquist and Anita Sanyal, “Student Resistance to Neoliberalism

in Chile,” International Studies in Sociology of Education 23, no. 2 (2013): 152–178; Alan Taylor, “Student Protests in Chile,” Te Atlantic, August 10, 2011, https://www. theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/student-protests-in-chile/100125/ 26. Donna M. Chovanec and Alexandra Benitez, “Te Penguin Revolution in

Chile: Exploring Intergenerational Learning in Social Movements,” Journal of Con- temporary Issues in Education 3, no. 1 (2008): 39–57. 27. Sebastián Uchida Chávez, “Chile’s Nationwide Teacher Strike Has Tousands

Taking to the Streets,” Jacobin, November 7, 2019. 28. Tomás Undurraga, Divergencias: Trayectorias del neoliberalismo en Argentina

y Chile (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, 2014). 29. Fischman, Ball, and Gvortz, “Introduction.” 30. Undurraga, Divergencias. 31. Mariano Narodowski, Mauro Moschetti, and Silvina Alegre, “Teacher Strikes

and Private Education in Argentina,” Revista Colombiana de Educación, no. 70 (2016): 27–45. 32. Narodowski, Moschetti, and Alegre, “Teacher Strikes.” 33. Martin Samartin, “Argentina’s Teachers Strike, with Fate of Country’s

Workers in Balance,” Labor Notes, April 6, 2017, https://www.labornotes.org/ blogs/2017/04/argentinas-teachers-strike-fate-countrys-workers-balance. 34. “Start of Argentina School Year Postponed by Teachers’ Strike,” Reuters,

March 6, 2019. 35. Bocking, “Mexican Teachers’ Movement”; La Botz, “Te Long Struggle.” 36. Bocking, “Mexican Teachers’ Movement.” 37. Diane Denham, Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization

in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2008). 38. Jef Abbott, “Oaxaca Teachers Fight to Protect Students and Community

from Reforms,” In Tese Times, August 15, 2014. 39. Bocking, “Mexican Teachers’ Movement.” 40. Bocking, “Mexican Teachers’ Movement.” 41. Tarlau, “New Critical Pedagogies.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

250 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

42. Monica Dias Martins, “Te MST Challenge to Neoliberalism,” Latin Ameri- can Perspectives 27, no. 5 (2000): 33–45, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2634156 43. Marina Avelar and Stephen Ball, “Mapping New Philanthropy and the Het-

erarchical State: Te Mobilization for the National Learning Standards in Brazil,” International Journal of Educational Development 64 (2017): 65–73; Fischman, Ball, and Gvortz, “Introduction.” 44. “Brazil Teacher Strike in Sao Paulo State Ends,” BBC, June 13, 2015. 45. Biju Belinky, “Brazil Students Take Over Schools and Fight Of Police,” Dazed,

November 19, 2015, https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/28495/1/ brazilian-students-takeover-schools-fghting-of-police. 46. J. Watts, “Brazil’s Austerity Package Decried by UN as Attack on Poor Peo-

ple,” Te Guardian, December 6, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ dec/09/brazil-austerity-cuts-un-ofcial 47. Dan La Botz, “Rio de Janeiro: Teachers on Strike, Students Occupy 76

Schools, New Politics, May 9, 2016, https://newpol.org/rio-de-janeiro-teachers- strike-students-occupy-76-schools/. 48. “Brazil Hit by General Strike against Pension Reform,” BBC, June 14, 2019. 49. Marcos Hermanson, “National Strike: Brasilian Students Fight against

Privatization,” Brasil Wire, August 10, 2019, http://www.brasilwire.com/ national-strike-brasilian-students-fght-against-privatization/. 50. Jose A. Laguarta Ramírez, “Teachers Strike Stops Classes in Puerto

Rico,” Labor Notes, March 27, 2008, https://labornotes.org/2008/03/ teachers-strike-stops-classes-puerto-rico. 51. Jose A. Laguarta Ramírez, “Struggling to Learn, Learning to Struggle: Strategy

and Structure in the 2010–11 University of Puerto Rico Student Strike,” PhD diss., CUNY, 2016, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1359. 52. Naomi Klein, Te Shock Doctrine: Te Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York:

Macmillan, 2007). 53. Kenneth J. Saltman, Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public

Schools (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007). 54. Monique Dols, “Standing against Privatization: Puerto Rico’s Teachers Strike,”

Truthout, August 15, 2018. 55. Mercedes Martinez and Monique Dols, “Teachers Fighting for Public Schools

Were Key to the Uprising in Puerto Rico,” Labor Notes, August 15, 2019, https://www.labornotes.org/2019/08/teachers-fghting-public-schools-were- key-uprising-puerto-rico 56. Adam Davidson-Harden and Suzanne Majhanovich, “Privatisation of Educa-

tion in Canada: A Survey of Trends,” International Review of Education / Interna- tionale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue internationale de l’education 50, nos. 3–4 (2004): 263–287. 57. Bernie Froese-Germain, “Public Education: A Public Good: CTF Report on

Privatization of K-12 Education in Canada,” Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2015.

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Global Educator Movements 251

Revised Pages

58. Tobey Steeves, “British Columbia Obstructs the Shock Doctrine: Struggle, Solidarity, and Popular Resistance,” Workplace 25 (2014): 37–52. 59. Wendy Poole, “Neo-liberalism in British Columbia Education and Teachers’

Union Resistance.” International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning 11 (2007): 1–13. 60. Educators in Chicago and Los Angeles drew inspiration from BCTF in their

development of social justice caucuses, building on relationships they had devel- oped at the Trinational Coalition and in other international organizing spaces. See Jackson Potter, “International Solidarity from Below: Te Trinational’s History,” Teacher Solidarity, July 26, 2018, https://teachersolidarity.com/blog/interna- tional-solidarity-from-below-the-trinationals-history. See also Stark, “Trying to Create.” 61. Steeves, “British Columbia Obstructs.” 62. Potter, “International Solidarity from Below.” 63. Stephen J. Ball, “Te Tragedy of State Education in England: Reluctance,

Compromise, and Muddle—a System in Disarray,” Journal of the British Academy 6 (2018): 207–238. 64. Ball, “Tragedy of State Education.” 65. Saltman, Capitalizing on Disaster. 66. Anethea Lipsett, “Q&A: NUT Strike,” Te Guardian, April 24, 2008, https://

www.theguardian.com/education/2008/apr/24/schools.uk7. 67. Richard Adams, “Teachers in England to Hold One-Day Strike,” Te Guard-

ian, June 23, 2016. 68. Eleanor Busby, “Teachers Back Plans for Possible Boycott of Primary School

Tests.” Te Independent, April 15, 2019. 69. Victoria Gatenby, “Guinea Pressured to Meet Demands of Striking Teachers,”

Al Jazeera, March 2018. 70. Marja Novak, “Slovenian Schools Closed as Teachers Strike for Wage Hikes,”

Reuters, March 14, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-slovenia-strike/ slovenian-schools-closed-as-teachers-strike-for-wage-hikes-idUSKCN1GQ12A 71. Daniela Araya, “In Just Seven Months in Power, Costa Rica’s New Govern-

ment Has Experienced Tree Months of Confrontation with Public Sector Unions,” Equal Times, December 14, 2018. 72. Omid Shams, “Iran: National Teachers’ Strike Could Herald New Era

of Dissent,” Te Conversation, October 19, 2018, https://theconversation.com/ iran-national-teachers-strike-could-herald-new-era-of-dissent-105084. 73. “Tunisia Govt, Teachers Reach Deal to End Strike,” Yahoo! News, February 9,

2019. 74. Xolisani Ncube, “Civil Servants Strike: Teachers Decide to Go It

Alone,” Newsday, January 31, 2019, https://www.newsday.co.zw/2019/01/ civil-servants-strike-teachers-decide-to-go-it-alone/. 75. Enzo Rossi and Nicholas Vrousalis, “Why We Strike: On the Education Strike

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

252 Strike for the Common Good

Revised Pages

in the Netherlands,” Open Democracy, March 13, 2019, https://www.opendemoc racy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/why-we-strike-education-strike-netherlands/. 76. Ncube, “Civil Servants Strike.” 77. Jakub Grzegorczyk, “Teachers’ Strike Sweeps Poland,” Labor Notes, April 23,

2019. https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/04/teachers-strike-sweeps-poland 78. Eleanor Ainge Roy, “New Zealand Schools Hit by ‘Mega-strike’ as 50,000

teachers Walk Out,” Te Guardian, May 28, 2019, https://www.theguardian .com/world/2019/may/29/new-zealand-schools-hit-by-mega-strike-as- 50000-teachers-walk-out. 79. “Teachers’ Strike in Guyana Is Over,” Caribbean360, September 7, 2018. 80. Jackson Potter, “Chile and Chicago Breaking the Chains—Together! Report

by Jackson Potter, Chicago Teachers Union,” Teacher Solidarity, January 21, 2018. https://teachersolidarity.com/blog/chile-and-chicago-breaking-the-chains-togeth er-report-by-jackson-potter-chicago-teachers-union 81. Potter, “Chile and Chicago.” 82. Education International“), Privatisation,” August 3, 2017. 83. Angelique Chisafs, “French Strikes: Nurses, Teachers, and Lawyers Join

Pension Protests,” Te Guardian, January 9, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2020/jan/09/france-strikes-nurses-teachers-and-lawyers-join-pension- protests 84. Amrit Dhillon and Luke Harding, “Indian Towns and Cities Grind to a Halt as

Workers Stage 24-hour Strike,” Te Guardian, January 8, 2020, https://www .theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/08/india-towns-and-cities-grind-to- halt-as-workers-stage-24-hour-strike

EBSCOhost - printed on 10/25/2020 5:20 AM via CORNELL UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use