Susan van Gelder presents a mix of reports, information, commentary and dialogue about the ICE raids against immigrants in Southwest Detroit, as well as the actions to resist it.
teachers
Detroit braces for Trump’s ICE invasion
February 4, 2025Rumors about ICE are spreading in Southwest Detroit. In a school, student absences are already elevated. Meanwhile communities are gathering resources and planning activities. The sooner we gather, more people can be helped.
Trump grabs power, spreads hate, stirs resistance
February 3, 2025President Donald Trump is encouraging deadly hate toward women, Blacks, people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and immigrants. It is grassroots responses and mutual aid that can block Trump’s power grab. More forms of revolt will erupt in the face of the downward spiral of this capitalist world in crisis.
Essay: The decades-long struggle for free universal public education
January 11, 2025Facing Trumpist attack on public schools, teacher Susan van Gelder traces history of the struggle in the U.S. for free education, from Reconstruction to the present. She highlights what we must fight for and the forces of retrogression.
On the Anniversary of the 1871 Paris Commune: Women, youth and education in revolutionary Paris
February 12, 2024In this essay, originally published in the March 1985 N&L, Erica Rae takes up the new kind of education arising in the 1871 Paris Commune. She focuses on the role of women during this historic turning point, especially the revolutionary educator Louise Michel.
In Memoriam Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) 1958-2024
February 8, 2024As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.
Universities under far-right attack
January 26, 2024The “resignations” of presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard revealed the philosophical failings in academia, which is under attack by the far right for not suppressing criticism of Israel. Why didn’t academia know how to respond to the events in Israel/Palestine?
World in View: Citizens’ revolt erupts across Sri Lanka
May 19, 2022A massive citizens’ revolt is taking place in Sri Lanka. It is focused against the authoritarian President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, who occupy many government posts. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have taken to the streets in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the President leave.
Authoritarian attacks on teachers
March 19, 2022Critical piece on a “parents’ bill of rights” requiring schools to post online every piece of instructional material that will be used for the school year.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2022, Part One
February 5, 2022Readers’ Views on: Labor: Teachers Face Politician Bosses; Labor: Automation and the New Humanism; Socialism, Statism and Philosophy; Fake ‘Right to Life’; Eviction Tsunami; Agribusiness vs. Planet; Afghanistan Exploited; Taiwan Faces China and U.S.; Desmond Tutu; With the Migrant Caravan; U.S. vs. Palestinians
Editorial: Republicans savage democracy and history
July 1, 2021The worldwide protests over George Floyd’s murder and other protests of Republican-led policies led them to erode, stifle, obfuscate, erase from memory and repress democracy, passing laws to subvert elections and teaching. Republicans decided that democracy must be destroyed so that they can rule in perpetuity, representing the 1% in the name of white Christian America.
‘Virtual’ teaching or hazardous workplace
November 29, 2020A teacher of six-year-olds in a low-income Illinois suburb tells of her experience teaching during COVID-19 and how those who run the schools have no comprehension of what the job entails and no interest in protecting the mental and physical health of teachers, staff, or children.
Readers’ views, September-October 2020, part one
August 29, 2020Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.
Detroit dispatch #9: Children learning during the pandemic
July 25, 2020Educator Susan Van Gelder breaks down the difficulties and political realities of what happens to school children, teachers, and others trying to educate children during the crisis caused by the pandemic and Donald Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’ attempts to destroy public education.
CTU teachers strike!
November 17, 2019Chicago teachers went on strike to end their terrible working conditions.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2019, Part One
Readers’ Views on youth climate strike; Socialism and ecology; counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East; auto and teacher strikes, and Brexit and labor
Mexican and U.S. teachers’ dialogue
September 2, 2019A U.S. teacher reflects on the article “Teachers debate how to oppose ‘reform’” in Mexico and its connections with the world-historic movement of an education for freedom.
Teachers debate how to oppose ‘reform’
June 27, 2019Teachers in a study circle on the book “México: represión, resistencia y rebeldía” speak on teachers’ resistance in Mexico. Translated from Praxis en America Latina.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2019
February 25, 2019Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2019-2020
Unity in Los Angeles teachers’ strike
January 24, 2019Activist and teachers’ strike supporter Basho reports on the Los Angeles teachers’ strike which is also a strike against charter schools and for better education for Los Angeles’ children.
Trump aids capitalism’s attack on labor; workers strike back
A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the state of the U.S. economy and the revolt of labor in the wake of country-wide teachers’ strikes, an historically long government shutdown, and an unsteady, uncertain worldwide economy.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
May 3, 2018We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
Chicago March For Our Lives
March 25, 2018On a bitter cold morning on March 24, 2018, over 85,000 of us jammed into Union Park on Chicago’s west side to be part of the March For Our Lives and to join with protesters in 800 other cities across the U.S. and the world.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part I
January 31, 2018Readers’ views on: U.S. Racism on trial, the right’s crocodile tears, creeping fascism, climate change, nuclear alarms, teachers as labor, Pat Hunt Presente! and Judy and Dan presente!
Retirees help Detroit schools
May 1, 2017Retired teachers and community residents have come to the aid of Detroit high schools abandoned as failing by the State of Michigan and the Detroit school system.
Union betrayals
November 30, 2016Latina union activist in Detroit questions how working people lost out in the school board elections and the ballot measures in the recent election and, noting that the AFL-CIO supported the Dakota Access Pipeline, asks, “Which side are you on?”
Long Island University-Brooklyn teachers break lockout
Long Island University-Brooklyn locked out their teachers but were not prepared for the support the teachers received from students and staff and finally had to end their lockout.
Brooklyn, New York, teachers win big
October 3, 2016Teachers at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York, with support from students and staff, won their strike against the University who locked them out after they refused to accept a bad contract.
Letter from Mexico: Education for the service of society
September 17, 2016Teachers, parents and their supporters hold a national strike, protesting Mexico’s so-called “educational reform” and working for education that truly serves society.
Letter from Mexico: Police kill defiant teachers in Oaxaca
July 2, 2016Despite police murders of teachers, surviving teachers and their supporters carry on inspiring protests against so-called “educational reforms” in Oaxaca, Mexico.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers today
May 18, 2016Our era, when racist police gun down Black men, women and youth, continues a history as old as the U.S. The piece excerpted here shows some of that history and how racism can be spurred on by this country’s leaders and would-be leaders, out for power. It takes up how Left movements respond to racism and the attempt to answer the question by funneling liberatory impulses into the dead end of electoral politics. The relationships between the Black freedom movement, anti-war youth, workers, and philosophy of revolution remain as critical today as when this article was written.
Youth in Action, January-February 2016
January 26, 2016Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.
Detroit teachers’ sick-out
January 25, 2016Teachers in Detroit held a sick-out closing 60 schools, directed against Gov. Snyder and his Emergency Manager for Detroit schools.
Youth in Action, Nov.-Dec. 2015
December 15, 2015McGill Univ. tent city for fossil fuel disinvestment; New Delhi College of Art protest; Westmount High School student picket supports teachers; Beirut “You Stink!” protests
How not to defend schools
December 10, 2015Detroit public school teachers rally in support of school boiler operators.
Stop charter schools!
September 6, 2015The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.
Letter from Mexico: CNTE teachers’ goal: autonomous learning
August 31, 2015The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of people—teachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activists—demonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.
World in View: Chile students protest
July 8, 2015Chile’s students once again took to the streets by the tens of thousands to demand fundamental education reform.
Chicago teachers prepare to strike
June 29, 2015Over 1,000 teachers and labor supporters rallied three weeks before the Chicago Teachers Union contract expires. The Thompson Center plaza was a sea of red T-shirts with teachers and other unionists chanting “This means war!” about the contract battle ahead.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2015, Part 1
March 8, 2015Revolt and Counter-Revolution, from Greece to Syria; Here Come the Reformers; Women’s Freedom; Against Racism
The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965
In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.
Youth in Action, November-December 2014
November 25, 2014Newark high school protests; Egypt bans student movements; students and teachers defy Colorado school board brainwashing; Yemen youths’ political graffiti; Philadelphia high school students strike to support teachers.
WORLD IN VIEW: Latin America’s people in view and in motion
July 8, 2014Colombia’s Election and ‘Peace’; Zapatista Activist Assassinated; World Cup Shows Other Brazil.
Educators rally in New York City
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
New York—More than 300 teachers—as well as education personnel, parents, students, and community leaders and supporters—from New York City and other parts of the tri-state area concerned about education inequalities rallied outside New York City’s City Hall.
In a “Take Back Our Schools” rally, we [=>]
‘We can’t survive on $7.25’
February 20, 2014NY rally demands $15 minimum wage, fast-food workers’ right to organize a union without fear of being fired.
Latin America in continuous struggle
November 22, 2013Resistance by Indigenous groups in Colombia; Indigenous Guatemalans resist Canadian mining company; teachers in Mexico protest “educational reform” law
Latin America in view
July 10, 2013Bolivia’s Statism; Guatemala’s Genocide Trial in Disarray; Honduras coup anniversary
School’s out! Where’s my next job?
July 9, 2013People may imagine that teachers here hit the beach or kick up their heels poolside, sipping cocktails and working on a suntan. For me and many other teachers, though, Monday will be the kickoff to the summer routine of registering for unemployment benefits and looking for work, as, once again, a year’s contract has come to an end.
July-August 2013 issue of News & Letters is now online
July 1, 2013News & Letters, July – August 2013. Lead: Turkey, Syria and Iran at crossroads of world revolt; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: ‘Russia more than ever full of revolutionaries…’; Editorial: Support striking prisoners!; Essay: Communization theory and its discontents truncate Marx’s dialectic; Workshop Talks: The boss is spying; Revolutionary from Turkey speaks; Brazil’s uprising; Teacher and school struggles; and more…
Teachers and allies fight restructuring
February 20, 2013Lake County, Ill.—Recently, teachers in my district received a warning that the district would be undergoing “restructuring” for the 2013-14 school year. When the superintendent visited our school after the winter break, she informed us that scores were still not reaching our goal and that sweeping changes would be necessary.
She needed to submit a “bold [=>]