Divesting from Public Education Privatizers Resolution at Cal. Federation of Teachers Convention

The California Federation of Teachers will vote this weekend on a resolution to avoid investing in and to divest from companies advocating for and profiting from the privatization of public education.

Taxpayer dollars are diverted from traditional public schools to for-profit charter schools that are usually not held to the same standards of accountability as regular public schools, and diverted to curriculum and software chosen not for its educational value but because a company made donations to elected officials to give them contracts and craft "standards" that create a need for their products.

This movement has so savaged public education that as few as half as many college students are signing up for teacher prep programs and teachers burning out and quitting before retirement are at record highs too.

The debate in the CFT is not whether these companies are harming public education but how best to deal with them: through shareholder activism to change their behavior or simply dumping their stock. Some have argued that simply selling and avoiding their stock won't impact their behavior.

However, for at last the last few decades, the mantra in the corporate world has been "increasing shareholder value." If big institutional investors dump your stock, your stock value might take a hit.

More importantly, another divestment movement scared those in power enough that a presidential candidate condemned it and legislators are trying to figure out how to stop it--the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement against Israel. Whether you agree with the goal or not, the movement got the attention of those in power.

If divestment didn't work, Hillary Clinton would not have made attacking it an issue in the election.

At least one privatizer stock is struggling right now, Pearson, who pushes for and profits from the repetitive high-stakes testing and common core.

News of institutional investors planning to sell off might drive their stock even lower, and resistance from the people most familiar with their product might make their board of directors wonder if the take over of public education is worth the hit to their stock price.

If you are in a faculty union in another state, get your union to divest your retirement funds from public education privatizers too.  Educators owning these stocks is like chickens owning stock in KFC.

Tell teachers' retirement fund to DIVEST from standardized testing companies

As the teachers rebellion against standardized testing grows, it's time to flex our real muscle: tell the teachers' retirement system to take our money OUT of standardized testing companies. 

The retirement fund just recently set a precedent by divesting from gun companies, but corporate backed education reform is threatening the very existence of public education by buying politicians and policies that benefit Wall Street at the expense of our kids.

We need to make sure they aren't using our money to kill our jobs and our schools. I'm providing contact information for California, but if you post other states in the comments, I'll be glad to add that to the post itself in updates.

In California, you can contact the CALSTRS, our retirement system, board of directors at board@calstrs.com

800-228-5453 • 916-414-5040 (Fax)

P. O. Box 15275 

Sacramento, CA 95851-0275

Feel free to use or modify this brief message:

As a member of CalSTRS, I ask that since you have divested from companies whose guns kill students and teachers, you also divest from the corporations pushing education "reform" that are killing public education so they can cannibalize the corpse. 

Start with those pushing endless repetitive high stakes testing, like Pearson, ETS, and McGraw Hill.

As an educator, I do not want to invest in businesses that corrupt our public education policy for the financial gain of a few. 

I look forward to hearing your plan of action on this.

You can also tell your union to demand that CalSTRS divest from corporate education reform companies, starting with testing companies.  Just change the message slightly:

As a member of CFT (or CTA) I ask that since CalSTRS has divested from companies whose guns kill students and teachers, I ask that you direct CalSTRS to also divest from the corporations pushing education "reform" that are killing public education so they can cannibalize the corpse.  

Start with those pushing endless repetitive high stakes testing, like Pearson, ETS, and McGraw Hill. 

As an educator, I do not want to invest in businesses that corrupt our public education policy for the financial gain of a few. 

I look forward to hearing your plan of action on this. 

In the AFT, you can contact: 

Gary Ravani
K-12 Council President
cfteck12@aol.com
Administrative Office
California Federation of Teachers
2550 North Hollywood Way, Suite 400
Burbank, CA 91505
818-843-8226, Fax 818-843-4662

If you are in CFT but not a K-12 teacher, contact:

Joshua Pechthalt, President
jpechthalt@cft.org

In the CTA: 

President Dean Vogel
E-mail: dvogel@cta.org
P.O. Box 921
1705 Murchison Drive
Burlingame, CA 94011-0921
Phone: (650) 552-5307
FAX: (650) 552-5007 

Check back later for a proposal on what we could do WITHOUT testing companies that would also save states a lot of money.