San Francisco Community College (California, USA) students protest pay hikes for administrators amidst class cutbacks, 2019
US Bosses Sacrifice Colleges on the Altar of Profits–Communist Education Starts Now in Revolutionary Struggle
CALIFORNIA (USA), January 20—Even before Covid disrupted community colleges here, California’s capitalist rulers were planning even more profound disruptions.
Now, systematic cuts are slamming the door on working-class students who left high school lacking critical skills. A new funding formula will soon drive many colleges into even deeper cuts. Already, many part-time instructors are losing their jobs. Full-timers will likely follow.
California is run by Democrats. This is not Texas or Florida, where the attacks on education are openly racist and often support organized religion. But the Democratic Party is just as money-oriented as the Republicans. Its new policies are just as racist.
“We have to look at the big picture,” a comrade teacher explained in a meeting of co-workers. “The global capitalist economy is in crisis. That’s why the California legislature – advised by its corporate partners—is cutting spending on community colleges.”
Schools in Capitalism Serve Capitalist Interests
US community colleges mushroomed in the 1960s. Baby-boomers entered the workforce just as automation was transforming it. No longer could white men drop out of high school into unionized jobs that could support their families. National liberation movements from Algeria to Vietnam shook imperialists and inspired masses. The US civil rights movement exploded into urban rebellions.
Community colleges served US capitalism by drawing unemployed youth from urban streets into classrooms where some learned skills for new technical jobs. These colleges fostered the myth of the “American Dream” that anyone could “make it” if they worked hard enough. They offered a cheaper way for the state to expand college enrollments.
Times have changed. Now, amidst the general capitalist crisis, California’s young-adult population is declining. The capitalists need to push young adults into the workforce faster so that labor surpluses will drive down wages.
To speed up the assembly-line, California politicians promote “dual-enrollment.” Students take college classes in their high schools for both high school and college credit. State officials ask why students should have to take a college course that they’ve “already had” in high school. They are really asking why the state should pay for it. Everyone knows that returning to a subject lets us learn and understand more about it.
High school and college precalculus don’t have the same curriculum. College US History classes critically examine primary documents because most students learned the basic outline of events in high school. The capitalists are glad to avoid the risk that young adults will hear radical anti-critiques in college that are blocked from high school classes. For them, colleges exist to credential people with degrees and certificates, not to educate them.
In Capitalism, Bosses Decide – In Communism, Workers Decide
“Whoever controls the data, controls the story,” said a statistics instructor. “There are big problems with their data. When we suggest better data and measures, they shut us down.”
California capitalists and their paid politicians control more than data. They control the state: cops and jails, courts and legislature, public schools and more.
College faculty are discovering this. Through unions and professional organizations, they meet with politicians and bureaucrats. They believe that their better data, their classroom experience, and their reasoned arguments will sway them. The big shots brush them off.
Some see organizing students as key to “getting them to listen.” But teachers and students need to organize for revolution to destroy the capitalist state and fight for communist power. It’s impossible to make capitalist politicians work for us.
“If you think that the people who do the work can and should make the decisions,” a comrade college teacher said in a different meeting, “that is a really radical position.”
The Big Picture: Mobilizing for a Communist World
The International Communist Workers’ Party invites all who do communist work today to participate in our decision-making. That’s how communist society will function.
Communist education starts now. In conferences and meetings. Reading, discussing, and writing for Red Flag. Reflecting on our practice and learning to use communist theory to analyze and improve it.
When we’re involved in a struggle – like fights against racist cutbacks – it’s easy to lose sight of the larger picture. Then we get discouraged or bogged down in reformism.
Communist analysis helps us connect our particular situations with the general world situation. That enables us to unite particular groups (like community college teachers and students, or factory workers) in the general revolutionary struggle.
That’s one of the main ways that communists participate in working-class struggles, big and small: building communist relationships that make communist ideas real to our friends and encourage them to join ICWP.
Read our Pamphlet:
“Communist Education for a Classless Society”
Available here
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