Views in brief

They're destroying City College

The American Dream of an affordable college education has been under attack via a giant coup d'etat in California for the past 2 years. City College of San Francisco (CCSF) struggles to keep higher education accessible to all people. In the wake of a political battle with a rogue Accrediting Commission, the ACCJC, the college has seen mass firings of mid-level administrators (deans) and a wave of carpetbaggers come in from around the county to stake a position in a college and city they do not know.

It's hard to imagine that this can happen in progressive San Francisco, but this is exactly why it's happening here. If the politicians and Koch Brothers who are hell-bent on ceasing public funding of college for the underserved can do it in San Francisco, at the largest community college in California, then they can take that precedent anywhere--and they plan to.

In the wake of the November 2012 vote where 73 percent of San Franciscans voted to give CCSF a major injection of cash, the new power team quickly made plans to lay that money to waste in a power grab of public money. The new chancellor and all upper level administrators just received a huge pay increase while they cut the faculty pay another 4 percent from 2007 levels--pay that they have never seen rise above that in the most expensive city in the nation. There were also major cuts to classified staff on December 22, 2012--just one month after a vote was put forth where the citizens overwhelming voted to keep CCSF alive.

No one voted to bloat administrators' pay. Here is the kicker: The top five administration positions recently had a new clause added to their pay policy that allows them to bring their pay up to "market rate" anytime they please, with no public board approval.

Imagine that! You decide one day in June that the market rate is higher than you're making, so you can give yourself a nice fat raise to take home.

Still in the trenches, the faculty slog it out teaching a huge number of classes and are told that their "productivity numbers" must increase lest the courses and even departments be slashed in the name of "saving the college money." This, from the new vice chancellor of Academic Affairs, who just received a hefty new paycheck.

It's another Scott Walker's Wisconsin and the people are fuming. (More grist for the mill is available online.)
Dana Jae, from the Internet

The legacy of Pete Camarata

IN RESPONSE to "Learning the lessons and passing them along": This is a wonderful remembrance of Pete. I knew him best in the 1970s and saw him occasionally since, and he is indeed exactly as you paint him--a warm, kind, smart and endlessly creative activist.

As I wrote to Bill Roberts about his obit ("A working-class hero"), we've lost two fine Teamster rank-and-file leaders within weeks of each other. Steve Kindred, who with Pete was among that handful of heroes with the brains and guts to organize Teamsters for a Decent Contract and Teamsters for a Democratic Union, passed in late December.

His and Pete's early deaths are a one-two punch I'm still recovering from. Again, yours is a fine goodbye to Pete, and thanks.
Michael Hirsch, New York

The struggle goes on in Venezuela

IN RESPONSE to "Behind the right-wing revolt in Venezuela": Short and to the point, this is one of the better analyses of the upheaval I've read. The weaknesses of Maduro's government are, unfortunately, part of Chavez' legacy. Whether or not they can be corrected is the crucial question.

I have yet to read any reports that emanate directly from the barrios, the heart and soul of the Bolivarian Revolution. This article comes closest.

Still. I'd very much like to get the picture from the eyes of the people who kept Chavez in power and have been at the forefront of the revolution--one that still has a long way to go before the socialist goal is realized.
Grant Fisher, Atlantic Beach, N.C.

Teachers focused on making change

IN RESPONSE to "Doing the math about class size and inequality": While I agree with you that the class size issue does seem to be an effort to reduce the power of teacher unions, I'd like to tell you, as a Portland Public Schools teacher who's been involved in the "Courageous Conversations" program from the beginning, this is more important than smaller class sizes.

If we have more teachers, and those teachers still have deeply held beliefs that Black and Brown students cannot achieve at the same level as white students, or that the behavior/cultural differences of Black and Brown students are unacceptable and should be punished or considered for special education, then we haven't changed anything.

We need to do both of these things. We need to reduce class size and help the predominantly white teachers in our schools have the time needed to break down and interrupt hundreds of years of discrimination. This isn't going to be done in one workshop, or one year. This needs to be constantly focused conversations about why teachers don't help out their Black and Brown students in ways that actually help to close the achievement gap.

In my opinion, this is the real work of society in our modern world. Don't discount the "Courageous Conversations" program just because it hasn't fixed this kind of a problem in three years. We need to stay focused on real change and conversations through these trainings are getting teachers and principals to ask the questions that we haven't been asking about why our students of color show up differently than our white students and what we are doing to perpetuate it and what we can do to interrupt it.

Thank you,
Drew, middle school math teacher, Portland Public Schools