“Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.”
– Alice Walker
As we sift through the election data from Massachusetts Ballot Question 2 and begin to draw conclusions to inform future directions, I felt compelled to write a personal reaction to the seismic shift in the political landscape this week, both on the national level and within the education reform movement.
A few weeks ago, I went to Wellesley College with BPS student Michael Jones from Boston Youth Organizing Project and Jessica Tang from the Boston Teachers Union to speak at an event called “The People Take Over the Election.” Because of our work on the No On 2 campaign, we were invited to talk about how grassroots movements can affect change on the local, state and national level.
Our story is one that you will not hear about in the mainstream press that continues to promote a false narrative that teachers unions alone opposed and defeated Question 2. The success of the No On 2 campaign was built on a sturdy statewide coalition made up of political leaders, organizers, school committees, teachers, parents, but most importantly, our students who are in under-resourced schools that are being crushed by budget cuts.
For students in Boston and other urban districts, adding MORE schools to an educational landscape in which librarians, AP classes, and Spanish classes have recently been cut; opening MORE schools when 5 students are already sharing ONE textbook due to a lack of resources; opening MORE schools when some of our leaders are telling us they may need to close some, none of this made any sense to them.
No On 2 was successful because our students brought a level of authenticity and unvarnished reality into a polarized political battle that was being fueled by millions of dollars of Dark Money and fed on longstanding racial and class divisions in Boston and beyond. Our students, along with Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson and other community leaders, parents, teachers and organizers, participated in debates, rallies, door-knocking, phone-banking, and conversations with our friends and neighbors. We wrote blog posts, created videos, and leveraged social media to spread our message across the state.
The No On 2 movement was natural and organic to us because we were speaking from the heart about the things we value the most in our lives: our children, our schools and our communities.
At the same event at Wellesley College, Karen Narefsky, a community organizer focused on affordable housing, brought up something that really struck a chord with me. She talked about how activism is not just something you do in isolation; it becomes a rewarding part of the collective human experience. I read a similar sentiment from BPS student Erik Lazo in this wonderful piece by teacher Emily Kaplan about the BPS Walkout and its natural segway into the No On 2 movement:
“With activism, you notice that you’re never too weak. If someone’s going to step on your toes, you don’t have to be okay with it. You can change your society. And being more connected with your community, you no longer need this isolated mentality...Not only do you experience whatever’s going on in your school, you experience what’s going on in other people’s lives. And then these experiences kind of intertwine with your own.”
“With activism, you notice that you’re never too weak. If someone’s going to step on your toes, you don’t have to be okay with it. You can change your society. And being more connected with your community, you no longer need this isolated mentality...Not only do you experience whatever’s going on in your school, you experience what’s going on in other people’s lives. And then these experiences kind of intertwine with your own.”
Your collaborators in activism are your everything. They are your friends, your family, your community, your lifeline, and it becomes difficult to ever imagine a life before you were an activist.
For us, Question 2 had a happy ending. We defeated a reckless ballot question that would have destroyed our urban public schools in Massachusetts. We changed the narrative that charter schools are the preferred educational solution of the black and Latino communities. We defeated a 24 million dollar missile aimed at our privatizing our schools with grassroots collaboration.
There will be much more for us to write on this subject this in the future, but in the present there is a much more immediate cause.
There will be much more for us to write on this subject this in the future, but in the present there is a much more immediate cause.
We need to recruit a nation of activists to push back on the racist, misogynistic, xenophobic tide that is rising faster than any of us can fathom. We need to organize, strategize, rally, write, create art, do whatever it takes to defend our vulnerable neighbors and preserve the future of our democracy. We need to be nimble, reflexive, creative, proactive, tough and compassionate all at once. We all need to become the best activists we can be, and FAST.
The task at hand will feel daunting at times, but the really good news is that this will be the most fulfilling, worthwhile and essential undertaking of all of our lifetimes.
