Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Think of it: Why would we put multi-millionaries in charge of public education?

I attended a committee meeting of the UC Board of Regents today in Oakland.  It was the Compliance and Audit committee.  I went to speak under public comment about education in general.  The security was intense with private security that escorted us up to the conference room and UC Berkeley cops in the lobby.  There were about 10 or 12 committee members there. 

I read the quote from the Regent's website that I used in the blog posting below that states, "The university shall be entirely independent of all political and sectarian influence... 
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2009/10/california-board-of-regents-just.html

I said to them one would assume that as they were under no political influence they would be on TV rallying people and calling meetings to defend public education. I added this must certainly be so given the trillions that have been handed over to the bankers and speculators. "Just today" I said, "The Wall Street Journal reports that GMAC---the moneylending arm of GM---- is getting another $5 billion from the taxpayers, it's third infusion of cash."  This is us lending moneylenders money, debt guaranteed by us also, so they can lend it back to us so we can buy a car. Isn't freedom swell?

They are silent of course  because they are a corporate board.  It is far from independent, nothing is independent about it.  They have the speculator and multi-millionaire investor,  Richard Blum, Diane Feinstein's husband on on it, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on it along with  former bankers and movie executives.  "Even on Sesame Street" I said, "They wouldn't put CEO's and speculators in charge of public education."  You don't have the fox guard the hen house.

I mentioned the conference in Berkeley that brought together students, workers and others and that their actions are drawing people together. Like the boss at work that is in a way our best ally because they won't let up, they are driven to attack our standard of living by the forces of the so-called free market, so these regents, carrying out the policies of the corporations, defending their class interests are helping forge an independent  movement of students and workers that will be the force that can drive back this offensive of capitalism, no only the offensive against education but housing, jobs, and public services.

It will be such an independent movement that can drive the corporations and the present regents as their representatitves out of public education.

A representative from what sounded like the American Association of Professors spoke saying he represented 50,000 people (not workers god forbid) and he complained of the lack of transparency with regard to finance.  Another faculty member spoke of the number of students that will not be able to return to university once the fee hikes are in place and those that are not accepted because of fewer classes and fewer spots.

A major issue is that the University is being accused of using student fees to pay for projects from renovation to new construction and numerous speakers demanded an opening of the books. One speaker gave an example of  a $136 million athletic training program and a $321 million football stadium renovation.  She pointed out that loans woudl have to be taken out for this but the revenue generating entity is already operating at a loss of $10 million a year, so with interest expected to be about 23 million a year on loans needed for the project, plus present losses of $10 million, she could not see how the project could cover this $33 million.  She said that authorities claim that they will sell luxury sky boxes to the stadium but there is no way this could cover expenses.

The general theme is that student fees are being used to buy bonds, pay interest fund general projects etc. These projects, like prison building, are very lucrative deals for construction companies, architect firms, law practices and so on. They all like to feed at the public trough.

On conference call were other regents, part of this committee in Sacramento, Riverside and Santa Barbara but Oakland was the only meeting that had public speakers.

The thing is that the University of California board of regents is basically a corporate board appointed by the governor of the state.  Being as working people have no political voice in the state legislature or the national level, privatizing education, denying working class youth decent higher education, is as natural to these people as breathing.  Rather than having the regents appointed by the governor, there are 26 of them;  How about we demand that a percentage of the seats (say a quarter) be assigned to faculty, a quarter to students, a quarter to workers that are employed from janitors to groundskeepers, and a quarter from the general public.  They should be voted by voters statewide. Or elections held at campuses for students and education workers and elections to the general public would be straight forward.  Anyone reading this that has any contributions to how that could be done should feel free to share them.  The main thing is to change the balance of class forces, from big business to working people, on a board that determines how higher education is run.

To check out the characters who are in charge of higher public education in the state of California visit:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regbios/welcome.html

Food manufacturers, CEO's heads of law firms and big business politicians, like Schwarzenegger and Karen Bass who joined with him in savaging California's workers and the middle class in the recent budget.  See:http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2009/07/democrats-and-republicans-savage.html
These are the guardians of education.  We're in deep you know what.

We're not fooled.  One of the chants at UC Berkeley during the recent strike and walkout in solidarity by students was "Whose university is it? Our university." Right now though, they have it; we have to get it off them.
 

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