Hats off – again – to Chicago’s smart, courageous teachers and the union leadership they’ve re-elected, from the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), including Karen Lewis as Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president.

The union representing Greek secondary school teachers has asked for messages of support.  The Greek government has banned its strike and other public employee unions have come out in support of the teachers. Mary Compton’s newly-reconfigured website about teachers’ global resistance to neoliberalism’s destruction of public education has the information about the strike and how/where to send messages of support.  

     Mexican teachers, particularly in the south of the country, have joined a regional rebellion of rank-and-file teachers that erupted in violence in late April. In the state of Guerrero the offices of all three major political parties were vandalized and set afire to protest their support for the educational reform passed by congress and the states over the last five months. At the same time there have been marches and demonstrations in several other states, and there are plans afoot to strike indefinitely beginning on May 1.

     One of the most inspiring examples of people fighting back against the predations of international capital is taking place in the Jagatsinghpur district of the Indian state of Orissa (also spelled Odisha).

Teachers at Garfield HS in Seattle, Washington are re-launching the MAP test boycott of the spring  test with a press conference at which they will announce important developments. Garfield  teachers are concerned that because evaluations are  directly tied to the spring version of the test, the district will not give the same leeway for their boycott this spring.

Student protests in defense of public education as a right are spreading across the globe. The courage young people are showing is remarkable, as they confront governments who do the bidding of bankers while pretending to put “students first.”  Student protests in Chile have resumed, with between 80,000 – 150,000 young people taking to the streets in Santiago, to demand free public education.