Six University of Sussex students have been suspended by Vice-Chancellor Michael Farthing for allegedly taking part in a peaceful occupation in Sussex House on March 3. Farthing informed the students of their suspension via e-mail.

The occupation was part of a national day of student action against education cuts.

When students gathered to demonstrate in support of the occupation, university management called fully armoured riot police, armed with CS spray, Tasers and attack dogs. Officers from the Forward Intelligence unit filmed the demonstrators. Two students were arrested, and some were physically attacked and detained without charge, despite acting entirely peacefully throughout.

Dartington College of Arts, a small academic institution in Devon, England, will close this autumn. Its 610 students and 30 staff are to be absorbed into the larger University College Falmouth (UCF), 86 miles away in Cornwall. The closure was prepared in anticipation of large cuts to universities, £900 million of which were announced by the Labour government this month.

Situated by fourteenth century Dartington Hall and Gardens, the college is a valuable resource with a specialised library, postgraduate research and practice-led teaching. It was set up in 1961 during a wave of university expansion, in a town that has been a cultural centre since the 1920s. The college is fiercely popular with students for its close-knit community and picturesque surroundings.

On Wednesday, the Kansas City, Missouri, School District’s (KCMSD) board will vote on superintendent Dr. John Covington’s plan to close 26 of the district’s 61 schools, eliminating 700 jobs, including 285 teaching positions.

With the full backing of the local corporate and political establishment, and in line with the policies set forth by Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, Covington is also proposing a sweeping attack on teachers’ working conditions, including longer school days, merit pay and other punitive “performance-based” schemes.

Despite efforts to muzzle popular opposition, thousands of parents, students and school employees have attended meetings over the last two months to protest the school closings and other attacks on public education. When the board announced the closing of Knotts and Pinkerton elementary schools, the crowd shouted out “No!” in unison and drowned out what the speaker had to say.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted March 2 to send layoff notices to more than 5,200 workers. These included 2,000 elementary school teachers, 2,370 certified management employees, 321 secondary teachers and teachers in the arts, and 574 support personnel, including counselors, psychologists, nurses and librarians. The district is facing a $640 million budget gap.

The LAUSD is required by law to notify teachers at least six months in advance of the next school year of any possibility they will lose their jobs, even if not all employees are ultimately fired. Just under a year ago the school board approved 5,400 layoff notices for teachers, janitors, counselors and administrators. While federal stimulus monies were able to minimize losses to a certain extent, in the end 2,000 educators and staff lost their jobs.

Less than one month after the Rudd government’s My School web site was launched, ushering in school league tables and a punitive regime of high-stakes testing, Education Minister Julia Gillard unveiled a further raft of pro-market education reforms. Gillard’s address to the National Press Club on February 24 pledged a new wave of attacks by Labor on public education.

The measures outlined in Gillard’s speech, including a uniform national curriculum, teacher performance guidelines, student ID numbers, the return of school inspectors, and the “reform” of teacher training, constitute a declaration of war on the teaching profession.

On March 4, tens of thousands of students and workers demonstrated in opposition to education cuts throughout the United States.

The largest marches were held in California, where state and local governments have pushed through a 32 percent increase in fees for many college students, along with deep cuts in K-12, community college and university education funding. This month, tens of thousands of teachers in the state will receive notices that they could be laid off by the fall.

The demonstrations are an initial manifestation of growing anger and resistance to the policies of the corporate and financial elite. Their significance extends far beyond California. The same agenda of cost cutting is being imposed throughout the country, spearheaded by the Obama administration. Obama has publicly supported the mass firing of teachers and is blackmailing states into expanding charter schools and into carrying out other attacks on public education.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced on Thursday a list of 35 so-called underperforming schools, where the jobs and contracts of teachers are directly threatened.

That same day in Boston, the state capital, Mayor Thomas Mennino and Superintendent Carol R. Johnson announced that teachers at six “underperforming” city schools would be forced to reapply for their jobs, and that five school principals would be reassigned to different positions.

The moves follow the February 23 firing of all 74 teachers and 19 other staff members at a public high school just over the Massachusetts border in Central Falls, Rhode Island. School Superintendent Frances Gallo carried out the wholesale firings at Central Falls High School after teachers rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

Tens of thousands of students, teachers and workers participated in protests Thursday against cuts in education across the US. Many of the largest protests were in California, where the state government has pushed through massive cuts in K-12 education funding, as well as sharp increases in university fees.

Students at many colleges and schools walked out for at least part of the day, with the main state universities in California and several other states staging rallies. Students in the University of California system were recently hit by a 32 percent increase in fees. Large evening demonstrations were called in the major cities as well.

This statement is being distributed at rallies on March 4th throughout the US in opposition to attacks on public education. Click here for a pdf version to download and distribute in your area

The International Students for Social Equality supports the demonstrations today in California and throughout the US against education cuts. These events must be made the starting point for a nationwide campaign against tuition increases, school shutdowns, the attack on teacher pay and benefits, and the destruction of public education as a whole.

Education is a vital necessity for all workers and young people. It is not a luxury that should be slashed to the bone to meet the budget-cutting demands of Sacramento or Washington. The ISSE insists: it is not a matter of what must be cut. Instead, it is a question of the necessary political strategy to oppose all cuts.

President Obama’s public support for the mass firing of teachers at a Rhode Island high school is a declaration of war on all teachers and on the working class as a whole.

No US president has so openly supported the mass victimization of workers since Ronald Reagan fired the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981. Obama’s intervention against the teachers at Central Falls High School is motivated by similarly reactionary aims.

Speaking before an audience of business executives at the US Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Obama hailed the decision to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High after they rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

This statement is being distributed at rallies on March 4th throughout the US in opposition to attacks on public education. Click here for a pdf version to download and distribute in your area

The International Students for Social Equality supports the demonstrations today in California and throughout the US against education cuts. These events must be made the starting point for a nationwide campaign against tuition increases, school shutdowns, the attack on teacher pay and benefits, and the destruction of public education as a whole.

Education is a vital necessity for all workers and young people. It is not a luxury that should be slashed to the bone to meet the budget-cutting demands of Sacramento or Washington. The ISSE insists: it is not a matter of what must be cut. Instead, it is a question of the necessary political strategy to oppose all cuts.

In a speech before the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC on Monday President Obama hailed the decision by school authorities in Rhode Island to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High School.

The mass firings ordered by state school officials were part of a national plan developed by the Obama administration to deal with so-called “failing schools.” Seventy-four teachers and 19 other school employees were dismissed after they rejected a “turnaround” plan—authored by Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan—which would have torn up their contract and forced them to work longer hours without additional pay.

The mass firing of teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island on Tuesday, February 23, was greeted with predictable enthusiasm by the Obama administration. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, declared, “I applaud Commissioner Gist and Superintendent Gallo for showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.”

Duncan was referring to events at the school committee meeting at which the names of all 74 teachers and a further 19 staff members were read aloud in an announcement of their impending dismissal in the fall.

On February 23, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Education voted to notify more than 900 school employees that they could be laid off this year. This is almost double the 500 workers that were notified about layoffs last year.

The 900 employees include 318 full-time teachers, 139 teacher aides, 109 instructional support staff, 98 principals and assistant principals, 22 counselors, and 10 librarians. The teacher layoffs amount to about 10 percent of the entire staff.

A town hall meeting in San Francisco organized by parents on Thursday drew more than a thousand parents, teachers and residents, overwhelmingly opposed to school cuts. In addition to laying off teachers, the district has also proposed increasing class sizes, reducing bus services and cutting summer school programs.