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Public Schools, Climate Disasters, Workers’ Control

When teachers’ union president Ray Cummings told the superintendent that her plan could put students in danger, he brought together problems of excluding workers from critical decisions and schemes to use climate disasters to privatize public schools.

Written by

Don Fitz

in

Originally Published in

Green Social Thought

Photo caption: Residents at Clearence and Labadie Avenues access the damage to their home after high winds rolled through the area late Friday May 16, 2025 in the Ville neighborhood of north St. Louis. Photo by Wiley Price I St. Louis American.

When teachers’ union president Ray Cummings told the superintendent that her plan could put students in danger, he brought together problems of excluding workers from critical decisions and schemes to use climate disasters to privatize public schools.

On May 16, 2025 a tornado tore through predominantly Black north St. Louis, killing 5, and leaving thousands of homes, businesses and schools either destroyed or with roofs ripped off. A month later, many buildings still had blue tarps over the top as the only way to protect them from hot summer downpours.

Without consulting the teachers’ union, School Superintendent Millicent Borishade outlined a policy to move students from seven damaged buildings to other schools which were selected according to “bell schedules, proximity from the original schools, space utilization, athletics and principal input.”

Upon learning of the proposal, Ray Cummings, presidents of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 420 in St. Louis, wrote to the superintendent that it could result in serious conflicts between students. He explained that there is often mistrust between students from different neighborhoods. Cummings warned that violence could easily erupt by cramming such groups together.

Missouri AFT President Carron “CJ” Johnson told me during an interview that she agreed with Cummings that Borishade’s proposal “threatens to create unsafe conditions by consolidating students from different areas into overcrowded, unfamiliar environments, heightening tensions and security risks to those who may not be wearing the right color shoes for that neighborhood.” She also emphasized that St. Louis already has problems with school buses and that the administration should not be making the transportation situation worse.

But the superintendent’s plan would crowd Yeatman-Liddell Middle School into Gateway Middle, which has a capacity of 658 students. Their combined total would be 737 students. Johnson pointed out that “Dunbar Middle School never should have been closed and that if it could be re-opened it could accommodate students from Yeatman-Liddell or any other school that would be able to enter it.”

The capacity of Miller Career Academy is 1013 students. A similarly dubious part of the superintendent’s measure would be to transfer students from two damaged schools to Miller, bringing its enrollment to 1253.

Superintendent Borishade relocated from Seattle to St. Louis in 2023. AFT’s president Johnson said that the superintendent “is not in tune with students, families or workers. She is not listening to people on the ground. She is not changing her narrative to fit with the people of St. Louis.”

One of the big concerns for Cummings and Johnson, as well as other union members and parents, is that schools hit hard by the May 2025 tornado may never be reopened and that the buildings could be sold to charter school operators. For years, pro-privatization groups such “Opportunity Trust” have provided money to those pushing charter schools in St. Louis. They try, and often succeed, in electing candidates to the St. Louis Board of Education (i.e., “School Board”) who typically advocate closing as many public schools as possible. Others run for the School Board to win approval for their own charter school.

Privatizers push hard to open charters in Black neighborhoods, claiming that Black parents must send their children to charter schools if they want them to learn how to read. The two great ironies of this argument are that (a) those coordinating such charter school schemes are typically white and (b) there is no evidence that Black children who attend Missouri charters have better reading scores than those attending public schools.

Critics have documented that charter schools represent a range of threats to public education. Charters typically do not require professional and non-professional staff to have the same level of degrees and qualifications as do public schools. As a result, they offer lower pay and fewer benefits to staff that may result in greater turn-around and less bonding with students.

Charters often offer fewer academic hours and extra-curricular activities as do public schools. They can “cream” students, meaning that they only admit students with the best academic records or fewest behavioral problems. Even if they do not “cream,” they are very likely to “dump” problem students back to public schools.

Charter schools may not test the proficiency of students the same way public schools do, meaning it is harder to evaluate their claims of success. Above all, decision-making processes for charters are not done by publicly elected boards, meaning that parents and others may have little to no ability to influence governing bodies set up to increase corporate profits.

When Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans in 2005 privatizers smelled a gold mine. The May 7, 2025 webinar on “Defending Public Education” was co-hosted by the Green Party of St. Louis and AFT Local 420. Dave Cash, President of the United Teachers of New Orleans, described how the “near total privatization of New Orleans public schools had devastating consequences for communities, teaching staff and students.”

Like St. Louis, New Orleans teachers have had a hard time getting decision-makers to listen to them, a task made more challenging to those organizing a union when the privatizers are motivated by profit rather than concern with education. Like New Orleans, those in St. Louis are worried that those interested in undermining public education will let no catastrophe be overlooked as an opportunity to destroy what should be our right as citizens. As climate-related crises escalate, so will openings to dismantle public services.

The problem of top administrators ignoring sound advice from those who carry out daily tasks brings up the very old question of “workers control.” Should unions limit themselves to “bread and butter” issues like pay, benefits, sick leave and vacation? Or, should unions seek more control over the worklives and decision-making power for employees? It is a core question of whether working people should accept their roles as mere cogs in the wheel of production or seek to humanize labor by defining their own jobs.

One of the best known current advocate of workers’ control is Michael Albert, who originated the idea of “participatory economics” or “parecon.” Albert emphasizes ways tasks can be shared so that there are “more and more people having a more and more appropriate level of say over their own lives.”

Historically, the concept of workers control has been emphasized as a safety and health issue. People working in factories are worried about injuries from unsafe use of tools or speed-up causing accidents and injuries. But now that a huge number of union members are in professional jobs, workers’ control applies to issues such as stress, treatment by administrators and how work affects the public – such as students who could be endangered by poorly thought out policies that could increase clashes at school.

The dispute over what should be done for St. Louis schools following the climate disaster has deeper ramifications than might meet the eye. More that just asking how students should be relocated after the 2025 tornado, it brings up the question of how decisions should be made. Teachers know student strengths and weaknesses because they are in touch with them daily. It may not be enough to say school bureaucrats must listen to teachers. Is it time to establish veto power for elected worker representatives who are themselves directly affect by decisions and represent others who are similarly affected?

Don Fitz (fitzdon@aol.com) has taught Environmental Psychology at Washington University. He is Outreach Coordinator for the Green Party of St. Louis and on the Editorial Board of Green Social Thought.