UPDATED: Lakeview Sit-In Raided in Late-Night Police Action

THE ED DEFORM PLAGUE, SUPPORTED BY THE POLICE, RUNS RAMPANT. IS OBAMA BRINGING TROOPS HOME TO USE AGAINST THE RISING RESISTANCE TO ED DEFORM? WHAT NEXT, DRONES?

Oakland, CA—At 4am on Tuesday, July 3rd,

At 4:00am more than ten Oakland Unified School District police arrived at Lakeview Elementary and a few minutes later ordered the group of parents, teachers, and community organizers there to leave. The group had been sitting in there for 17 days, while conducting a popular People's School for Public Education at Lakeview Elementary to protest elementary school closures in Oakland. Lakeview Elementary is located at 746 Grand Ave. Oakland, across from the Grand Lake Theater. Please come down now if you are in Oakland and awake.

CONTACT:
Joel Velazquez 510 473 5635
Jack Gerson 510 682 4381
Nick Palmquist 650 384 5581
Rebecca Rozo-Marsh 51073549

Visit our blog at saveoaklandschools.org

I posted the above earlier from my Blackberry but wanted to provide more context so I am reposting.

Jack Gerson was part of the "Another View in District 14" teacher group (which morphed into a caucus around 1974) I was involved in back in the early 70s when he taught in NYC. He's been an activist in Oakland for a long time as a high school teacher and union activist in a fairly progressive NEA local.

Before Jack sent the above out, he sent me this last night:

Hi Norm,

How are you? I guess the last time we've had contact was at the post-NEA convention conference in Chicago last July, organized by CORE / CTU and PEAC / UTLA.

Maybe you've heard about the takeover of Lakeview Elementary and the People's School there. I'm one of the organizers of that action, which is aimed directly at fighting school closures and, consequently, has to confront many of the other key planks of the corporate agenda for shutting down public education. We've made the Oakland school district uncomfortable enough to post a long statement on its home page (and circulate it to media) trying to justify why it's closing public schools. The Lakeview sit-in asked me to write a reply to it in the name of the whole group, and we're trying to get it circulated as widely as we can. We'd really appreciate it if you could put some or all of this up on ednotes online (and any other ways you could find time to do).

By the way, we did a public pot-luck dinner and movie last night, and the movie was "Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman". Thanks for doing that -- it's really a valuable tool.

....And Philly Too: The Resistance Grows

Hello friends and colleagues, As you have probably heard, the School District of Philadelphia has announced its plans for dealing with the schools in our District that have been 'under-performing' for years. It's called the Renaissance Schools plan. Instead of giving these schools the vital resources they're in much need of, the District's solution is to turn these schools over to different management and wash their hands clean of responsibility. And, this is all in line with Federal and State initiatives like Obama's Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind. The Renaissance Schools plan could have far reaching negative consequences on the education of tens of thousands of students in Philadelphia. The Teacher Action Group put together this information sheet to explain the situation (it's mostly geared toward educators.) If you work in Philly schools or know folks who do, please forward this to them. We need to get the word out. Teachers and educators need to be talking and strategizing with students, parents and other community members about what we all want to see happen in this District. Here's to the fight to keep public education public!

Anissa Weinraub