Conference Proposals  »   A social movement not limited to public education

Dear conference organizers and attendees:

First, thank you for your commitment to public education and time to organize and participate in this conference. I do, however, think an important topic should be on the table at the conference, which is the question of the scope of the movement that will be necessary to effect society-wide meaningful change in our state.

I am concerned that people might believe it is either politically sufficient or expedient to mobilize only on behalf of public education in California. Rather, it is important and possible to leave the conference with an explicit emphasis on mobilizing all sectors of society that have been singled out unfairly for state budget cuts, including but not limited to programs for the disabled, senior citizens, homeless, state parks, libraries, recently unemployed, healthcare. We also cannot fail to see that workers and families who have experienced job or home loss are caught up in the same crisis that compels us to gather at Berkeley for public education. We are not simply in the midst of severe budget cuts and a dysfunctional political system—-it is our social values that are under attack.

We have entered an era of multi-year economic lethargy. The prospects for a sustainable economic recovery are practically non-existent. Even if we were successful at building a movement to defend public education, the funds for shoring up state investment in our schools are not likely to materialize without a strong economic rebound. We run the terrible risk of convincing lawmakers to increase funding for education at the expense of other vital programs on which so many vulnerable people in our communities rely.

The alternative must be a state-wide collective effort to re-write the state’s fiscal (tax and spending) priorities for all sectors of society. Only a broad-based social movement can achieve this. We should think in terms of mobilizing a movement that extends beyond our justified but relatively narrow concern to protect public education. No one knows yet what such a social movement will look like, but we can take a big step towards building it here at the Berkeley conference.

Sincerely,
Christopher S. Barkan
PhD student, History of Consciousness
UC Santa Cruz