[Educationforall] Oct 30-31 conference report back

[marcos perez]

This last weekend the third conference to defend public education and social services was held at SFSU. On saturday, at its height there was about 200 people. The turnout on sunday was smaller at about 50 people. 
 
The overall conference was a big success. Blanca Misse from UC Berekley and S.W.A.T. gave the opening remarks basically making two points 1. the statewide conference regardless of its size absolutely matters because the attack on poor people are coming from the state, there has to be a statewide response she also suggested that individual fight backs on campuses will ultimately not have the same impact as statewide actions 2. regardless of the outcomes of the elections the cuts will continue and conference demonstrates the willingness of activists to go back to campuses and rebuild movement with coordinated days of actions.  Gamelyn Oduardo a student and organizer of the two month strike in Puerto Rico gave a 30 minute power point presentation that was well received by the attendees and cleared the way towards a less hostile and more friendly conference. The general structure and voting procedures ran as smooth as possible and basically any motion/challenge from the floor and proposals were voted on by the whole body. The facilitating team did an excellent job of maintaining a neutral position and keeping order when needed. 
 
It was decided that the next day of action is going to be 3/2 Strike and Day of Action encouraging direct actions, strikes, walkouts, ect. but each campus/organization plan what makes most sense on their campus and a next conference on 3/12. As far as structure it was decided to form a Continuations Committee(CC) of volunteers to basically implement conference plans, facilitate outreach, involve new people in active work, administer state wide logistics (websites, list serves, ect), build and nurture sector specific communications networks, also the CC does not make political decisions regarding statewide actions or strategies or issue commands instructing what local organizations should or shouldn't do. The following general demands were also voted upon the body:



 
1) No to privatization and austerity
2) Free, quality public education
from preK
to graduate school is
a fundamental human right.
3) End discrimination based upon race, gender,
sexual orientation and class. Immediate full
legalization of all immigrants, reverse the ban
on affirmative action, equal access to public
education.
4) Tax the rich and corporations
5)Democratic governance of the
educational system
6) no to war and incarceration, yes to public education
 
The following is the demographics, some estimated and some from the conference organizers:
 
Sector 
UC- 46 people
CSU- 27 people
CC- 69
K12- 37
Community/other- 32 people
public worker- 2 people
 
Role
students-134
faculty/teacher- 36
union- 6
workers/ staff- 38 
 
Geography
bay area- 176
so cal- 31
inland empire- 4
out of state- 6
 
My estimations
75%- caucasian
20%- latino
5%- black/ asian
  
 
Eric and myself will give more details and report back at EFA meeting tuesday (today) 5pm in room B-104. See you there.
 
-Marcos

 

__._,_.___

Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) 
Recent Activity: 

Visit Your Group 
 
Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use


. 

__,_._,___
 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/educationforall/attachments/20101102/97c42a8f/attachment.htm>