NEW YORK CITY, May 5  — The UCLA Civil Rights Project just named New York as the state with the most segregated school system in the U.S., with New York City leading the way.
Racist disparities between students of the same age show us each day how unequal our society is. An Annenberg Foundation report of September 2012 found that in black and Latino neighborhoods only 10% of students graduate “college ready.”
The current contract proposal for NYC teachers is — like those before it — a contract ON the mainly black and Latino youth of the NYC school system. The offer of $5,000 to teach in “hard-to-staff” (read black and Latino) schools is a capitulation to racist segregation, to the notion that separate can be made more equal. Teachers must reject this contract because separate can never be made equal.
This contract ought to be rejected also because it contains increased avenues for the Department of Education  and principals to sow division among teachers by offering merit pay. If this contract passes, a small number of teachers will be anointed as ones with the responsibility for coming up with new and sustaining effective teaching practices.
Teachers must reject this contract because our union refuses to fight for a reduction in class size. Yes, it is true the raises are paltry and don’t even keep up with inflation. However, that is not the reason to vote this contract down. We should vote no because we need to send a strong message that we stand in solidarity with the interests of our students. The 2012 teachers strike in Chicago had mass support because the teachers were demanding better conditions for everyone in the schools, not just money for themselves. This kind of working-class solidarity is necessary but not sufficient to bring about the changes we need, which can only be satisfied by communist revolution.
We ought to use this contract vote to truly examine our priorities as educators. Good teachers do not show up to work every day merely for the money, but because we care about equality for the students.
Capitalism wreaks havoc on the lives of our students and it is a never-ending struggle to teach well. The only way out is to band together with students and their families to fight the bosses’ racist, segregated school system. In this fight we tie ourselves to a long tradition of struggle, a tradition that has given birth to revolutionaries committed to the fight for communism. From each day on the job, to local strikes to general strikes to insurrection to the seizure of power, the banner of the struggle for an education our students deserve is emblazoned with the slogan: FIGHT TO LEARN, LEARN TO FIGHT.