No peace after strike for Detroit teachers

Detroit--The unity and solidarity among Detroit Public School teachers, which carried us through a 16-day strike in September and won us modest gains, continues to be challenged by difficult working conditions and moves by the school board to erode the power of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

Last year the school district had set up alternative schools for students who had dropped out of school and staffed them with non-union teachers.  Now that the DFT is demanding that union (state-certified) teachers staff the alternative schools, the district is threatening to close them. The district claims they would cost too much to operate with DFT members.

The DFT is demanding, if non-union teachers continue to be employed, a portion of the state funds that accrue to the district because of the enrollment at the alternative schools. I am shocked that the DFT is willing to overlook non-union teachers for the alternative school if it could receive money!  This is blood money!

Meanwhile, teachers struggle with a dysfunctional bureaucracy and mismanaged resources.  One contract demand that we did not win was, "Every teacher must have access to a working copy machine."  There have been times at my school when all copiers were down.   Teachers still do not have all the workbooks and videos that come with our new textbooks.  They only order one copy of a workbook per teacher.  It makes the need for working copiers that much more acute.

But all this pales in comparison to the mismanagement the newspapers recently reported, about $58 million in technology contracts issued by the Board of Education.  Of the four vendors awarded contracts, one operated out of the owner's home and two were found to have empty offices at the addresses listed on their documents.  All were said to be friends of either the Mayor of Detroit or the CEO of the school  board, William Coleman.

--Susan Van Gelder, Detroit teacher