Call NOW! 866/327-8670  Tell your senators to include student loan reform in the upcoming reconciliation bill.

Stop.  Go to your phone and contact your Senator right this minute.  Why?

Because right now, the Senate is in a serious debate, the outcome of which could jeopardize the fate of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.  Republican Senators and key Democratic Senators are opposing the inclusion of SAFRA in the reconciliation process.  But as Rep. George Miller stated today, the choice is clear:

We can continue a student loan program that the Congressional Budget Office has documented will waste tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years on a titanic boondoggle in excess subsidies to some of the nation's richest and most powerful banks.

Or we can do what President Obama suggested in his budget, and what the Congress voted last year to do in its budget resolution:  We can reform the student loan program by taking these wasteful subsidies to banks, and redeem the savings for millions of families and students who want a shot at attending college.

It is that simple.

So call your senators if you believe that Congress should pass a budget reconciliation bill that includes increased student aid, an improved student loan system, money to states and colleges to improve student success, and money directly to community colleges.  Call your Senators if you think we should stop subsidizing banks and lenders and start providing money to students and their families so they can attend college and graduate without staggering debt levels.  Call your Senators if you believe that academic staffing needs should be addressed through this bill.

As Rich Williams, Higher Education Associate for U.S. PIRG states:

"If student aid reform is cut from the final reconciliation package, then large banks and lenders will prevail over struggling students and their families."

Act now.

 

Here is a headline we have been hoping to see for along-time:  "Faculty on two UW campuses take step to form unions"--so reports the LaCrosse Tribune and several other outlets picking up the AP story.  The first campuses to file authorization cards for a union election are UW-Eau Claire and UW-Superior.  According to the AP story:

Organizers on both campuses said they collected cards from 70 percent or more of faculty members saying they wanted to form unions affiliated with AFT-Wisconsin. They have asked the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to verify that the response meets the 30 percent threshold required and to set a date for elections, which could occur as early as May.

AFT-Wisconsin worked tirelessly to get legislation passed that would grant UW faculty and staff the right to collectively bargain just like all other public employees in Wisconsin. They succeeded last year and immediately began organizing. Approximately 20,000 academic workers could ultimately gain representation.The law stipulates that full-time faculty be included in one unit and contingent faculty and professional staff be in another. Full-time faculty will vote in these first elections.

"For the first time ever, this will give us a seat at the table just like the other state employees," said Gloria Toivola, a UW-Superior political science professor.

UW System spokesman David Giroux told the Associated Press that  the administration would maintain its stance of neutrality and neither support nor oppose union representation for faculty.

"We're going to do our best to stay out of the way altogether," he said.

Barbara McKenna contributed to this article.

Students from Evergreen State College serenaded legislators on March 4, the national "Day of Action to Defend Public Education," with their version of Amazing Grace: "I once could eat, but now I find, I can't afford the food," they sang, before politely filing out of the legislative chambers at the direction of security.

In New York state, parents, students, educators, and community and school board members held 18 press conferences and turned out to tell lawmakers they must reject Gov. Paterson's proposed $1.4 billion cut to public education funding. Students, with labor's participation, held rallies across New York City at City University of New York campuses, and at State University of New York campuses throughout the state. (More coverage of New York events is on the New York State United Teachers Web site.)

In Urbana-Champaign, Ill., more than 300 members of the University of Illinois UC United Coalition, including students, workers and faculty, staged a march and rally on campus, calling for an accessible, diverse and democratic UI at Urbana-Champaign as part of the March 4 National Day of Action. Chicago students and labor groups sponsored a panel discussion and rally, and then set up a soup kitchen to serve those hurting from job and resource cutbacks. AFT Graduate Employees Organization locals participated in both sets of events.

In Michigan, education supporters rallied at Wayne State University and in Lansing. Both gatherings featured demands for reversals of layoffs and full investment in education, K-12 thru higher education.

Organizers estimate that students, education workers and parents held actions in 30 states. In many, the focus was on higher education budget cuts, but public frustration is building over K-12 funding cuts as well, as the flow of stimulus dollars generated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsides.

In California, the epicenter of a student protest movement that began in September, the state reached critical mass on March 4, with hundreds of actions on college campuses and school districts. There, the public is showing resistance to the notion that decimating public education and other services is a given in a time of recession.

Passions ran high outside University of California central administration headquarters in Oakland, Calif., before 150 demonstrators were arrested for trying to shut down the freeway. Students at UC Santa Cruz so successfully blocked the entrances to the campus at the start of the day that the administrators posted a notice at 7 a.m., telling students and employees to stay away.

Fifteen students were arrested at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, one of them, the staff representative for the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association. An eyewitness account of the arrests is posted on the MGAA Website. The students were issued citations, but the American Civil Liberties Union is exploring whether free speech and free assembly rights were violated. [Barbara McKenna, Carrie Wadman, Paul Sickel, UW-Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association, UI Graduate Employees' Organization/photo by Russ Curtis]

The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) just released its annual survey of faculty salaries, and the data they present gives the impression of a boat taking on water after striking an iceberg: almost one-third of surveyed faculty members saw their salaries decline by an average of 3%, while 21% saw no change in their salaries. The survey also shows that only 8% of administrators took a pay cut, but those who did saw their salaries decline by an average of 6%.

The stagnation and decline in faculty salaries is yet another symptom of the on-going disinvestment in public higher education, exacerbated by the strain that the Great Recession is putting on state budgets. As John Curtis of the AAUP points out in the Chronicle of Higher Education's write-up, even with the glimmer of an economic recovery on the horizon, a recovery for higher education is likely to lag behind other indicators, and even then faculty salaries could run up against the shoals of state budget politics. Says Mr. Curtis, "I do think we're at a pretty critical juncture at looking at higher education as a public good and as a resource that contributes something to society. Unfortunately, a lot of governors and legislators are looking at higher education as only an expense."

The CUPA-HR data is likely only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the on-going woes. Just as only a fraction of an iceberg is visible above the water line, the CUPA-HR survey seems to provide only a partial picture of the state of the American collegiate faculty. From the information provided in their press release, the CUPA-HR survey seems to under-represent faculty at community colleges. It also provides salary data for five different categories of faculty: full, associate, assistant, newly hired assistant, and "instructor." The "instructor" category appears to only capture full-time, non-tenure track faculty, omitting the swelling ranks of part-time faculty. The survey summary also does not seem to examine the loss of faculty jobs - disappearing tenure-line positions, faculty furlough days, lay-offs and other data indicative of a labor force that continues to rely more and more on contingent workers.

Even if the data understates the true magnitude of the problem, the trends are unmistakable. A persistent decline in public investments for higher education instruction is having a deleterious impact on our nation's ability to provide a quality college education precisely at the moment when we are calling upon our national system of higher education to help spark economic growth. Policy makers would do well to heed these trends as they seek to integrate higher education into a plan for economic recovery.

 

Community college teacher Jim Miller (right) and others set out on the 260-mile march to Sacramento on March 5. David Bacon photo

Following in the steps of Cesar Chavez, educators and other labor activists are trekking 260 miles through California's Central Valley to raise support and public consciousness about California's perilous future. The March for California's Future begins today with a rally in Los Angeles and a launch from Bakersfield. Forty-seven days from now, the walkers will arrive in Sacramento.

The core group includes four teachers and a community college faculty member who belong to the California Federation of Teachers and a probation officer and firefighter. Sponsored by the CFT, AFSCME and a coalition of labor, education and faith groups, the march has three goals:

• To reclaim the promise of quality public education and services;
• To rebuild state government so it works for everyone;
• To restore fair and equitable taxes to invest in California's future.

Picking up where yesterday's Day of Action to Defend Public Education left off, the marchers will link with other supporters all along the way-- hundreds of firefighters, educators, nurses, in-home-care workers, students and police officers. They will help register voters, hold teach-ins and town hall meetings, and educate more of the public and legislators about how Californians can reclaim prosperity.