Education not Incarceration Teach-in : Update for May 1st

Momentum Builds for the..

Education not Incarceration Teach-in - Speak-out:

Saturday, May 1st, 10AM-3PM
Oakland Technical High School
4351 Broadway, (Near the Macarthur BART and Bus Route 51)
Curriculum, Schedule, Bilingual Flyers and More at: http://www.ednotinc.org ; Spanish translation will be available

We are gaining momentum as May 1st's Teach-in - Speak-out for Education not Incarceration approaches. Our endorsemet list has grown to over 50 organizations, over 15,000 flyers have already been distributed, professional posters are being placed up throughout the Bay Area, radio PSAs and announcements have begun, the program is near completion with powerful presenters, musicians and artists, clowns have been tentatively scheduled to do childcare, a letter is being sent to over 100 faith-based organizations in Oakland, a training of teachers, artists and presenters ocurred yesterday and presentations are beginning in classrooms throughout the Bay Area and will be followed up by artists working with students next week. In short, Saturda y, May 1st from 10AM-3PM at Oakland Technical High School, 4351 Broadway, near the Macarthur BART and Bus Route 51, is a day to save on your calendar and tell your friends about.



Here is an updated outreach e-mail to help spread the word...

Education Not Incarceration Teach-in – Speak-out

Oakland Technical High School, 4351 Broadway

Saturday, May 1, 2004, 10AM – 3PM

(near the Macarthur BART and the Route 51 Bus Line)



Education not Incarceration Coalition (http://www.may8.org) Teach-in – Speak-out to Further Our United Fight for Resources for Our Schools and Not for More Prisons

CARRY ON THE HISTORICAL AND FIGHTING TRADITION OF INTERNATIONAL WORKER'S DAY, MAY 1ST.



Join Education not Incarceration’s day of teach-ins and speaking out!



Ø Learn more about the link between cuts to education and rising prison populations in interactive workshops where everyone will be given a chance to speak.



Ø Create graffiti art, spoken word and video for the afternoon speak out where you can raise your voice for education not incarceration to invited elected representatives and officials.



Ø Childcare and food will be provided.

How you or your organization can participate:



1. Endorse the event (individual or organizations)

2. Send this outreach e-mail to your friends/members

3. Send a flyer to your friends/members, available at http://www.may8.org/TeachAction/speakout.pdf (or go to http://www.may8.org and click on the flyer link)

4. Come to the next planning meeting on Monday April 12, 7-9PM at the Neibel Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave in North Oakland.

5. Organize your friends/ members to attend the event

To Endorse: please send your name, e-mail, phone #, address and expected # of friends/members you will bring to Demetria McCain at 510-986.0545 or Lisa Gutierrez Guzman at lggwwt [at] hotmail.com

Workshop Goals:

Each session should teach people about both education and incarceration issues

Each session should be linked to a set of demands, thus preparing participants to present the demands in the speak-out

Each session should be interactive and produce something to present in the speak out, e.g. video, talking points, spoken word, graffiti

Each session will have a small team of facilitators including: lead presenters, people to focus on products for the speak-out and ENI members to help prepare for the speak-out.

Tentative Schedule:

9:30 presenters meet and prepare

10:00 breakfast, tabling, art/sign-making

10:30-12:30 workshops (including presentations and productions)

12:30-3PM: lunch, festival and speak-out , where students present artwork, organizations have interactive booths, and presentations of demands are made to key politicians.

Potential Workshop Topics and Demands:

1. EDUCATION AND PRISON BUDGETS
Demands
Reduce the prison budget by reducing the number of prisoners
Restore jobs and funds to K-12 and higher education systems
Forgive school district debts in Oakland, West Contra Costa and Emeryville.
Possible presenters
Someone from the Community College coalition
Someone fr
om CR,
PMP

2. SCHOOL AND PRISON CLOSURES
Demands
Don't close a single school in California
Don't open the Delano II Prison
Close Pelican Bay State Prison, Folsom State Prison, Valley State Prison for Women, And California Correctional Center, Susanville
Possible presenters
Someone from the Coalition against Oakland school closures
Someo
ne from
the Prison Closure group

3. WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS? CONTROL OF EDUCATION AND INCARCERATION
SYSTEMS
Demands
Add former prisoners and prison activists to the Schwartzenegger's new prison review panel
Restore control of state-occupied school districts to democratically elected representatives.
Organize teacher and community councils to oversee school-site budgeting
Possible presenters
Cesar Cruz--W. Contra Costa organizer of the march to Sacramento
Someone from the "shadow commission" to review prisons
4. TEARING DOWN BARRIERS
Demands
Abolish California's three-strikes law
End discrimination against people with felony convictions and support re-entry for people coming home from prison
Increase financial aid for higher education and education inside
prisons
Settle the Williams lawsuit
Possible presenters
All of Us or None (confirmed)
Californians for Justice

5. CRIMINALIZATION VS. EMPOWERMENT OF YOUTH
Demands
Stop sending youth to the CYA/shut down the CYA as we know it
Transfer youth incarceration resources to community counc
ils for
new school design
Build youth leadership of community-controlled education
Confirmed presenters
Books Not Bars, School of Social Justice and Community Development

6. FEDERAL ASSAULTS ON PEOPLE OF COLOR
Demands
Flood struggling schools with resources. Impose educational spending
caps on affluent
communities.
Refuse to comply with No Child Left Behind's testing regime
Repeal the Patriot Acts. Keep military recruiters out of our schools.
Possible presenters
Tammy Johnson (ERASE initiative, ARC) on No Child Left Behind
Someone from NNIR on immigrant detention and deportation
Frank Wilderson--on political prisoners and the patriot act
People from the anti-military recruitment campaign

7. ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ZERO TOLERANCE
Demands
To be determined: linking “Zero Tolerance” policies and police harassment and brutality.
Possible presenters
Teachers for Social Justice
Copwatch, October 22nd Coalition
Current Endorsers Include: Oakland Education Association; Oakland American Federation of Teachers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 257; All of Us or None; Oakland Parents Together; Idriss Stelley Foundation; Teachers for Social Justice; Californians for Justice; California Prison Moratorium Project; Low Income Families’ Empowerment Through Education; University of Creation Spirituality; Global Exchange; October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation; Gray Panthers of the East Bay; Critical Resistance; Vision Youth z; Oakland Community Action Network; Center for Third World Organizing; Metropolitan Greater Oakland Democratic Club; East Bay Community Law Center; People’s Grocery; Berkeley Bay Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority, Inc.; Bay Area Police Watch; Challenging White Supremacy Workshops; Reclaim the Commons; Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign; Greenwood Earth Alliance; Not in Our Name; Ecology Center; Oakland Catholic Worker; Youth in Focus; Progressive Communication; Socialist Unity Network (A Coalition of Committees of Correspondence for Democratic Socialism, Democrats Socialists of America, International Socialist Organization, Socialist Party, and Solidarity); Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal; San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; Middle East Children’s Alliance; Women of Color Resource Center; Hayward DEMOS Democratic Club; Gay-Straight Alliance Network; Gray Panthers of Greater Oakland; Black Women’s Media Project; Women Standing in Love; International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement; Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; Books not Bars; Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary; School of Social Justice and Community Development; Justice Now; Dan Siegel, President, Oakland School Board; Rena Rickles, Board Member, MGO; Cesar A. Cruz: ENDdependence Collective and March 4 Education Committee; Eric Mar, Vice-President , San Francisco School Board; Oakland City Councilwoman Nancy Nadel

Contact Amanda Lashaw: 510.547.5617, lash [at] uclink.berkeley.edu with program questions or ideas