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The Rise and Fall of the United Teachers of New Orleans

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The Rise and Fall of the United Teachers of New Orleans THE RISE AND FALL OF THE UNITED TEACHERS OF NEW ORLEANS AN ABSTRACT SUBMITTED ON THE FIFTH DAY OF MARCH 2021 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CITY, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY-SOCIOLOGY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY JESSE CHANIN APPROVED: ______________________________ Patrick Rafail, Ph.D. Director ______________________________ Jana Lipman, Ph.D. ______________________________ Stephen Ostertag, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation tells the story of the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) from 1965, when they first launched their collective bargaining campaign, until 2008, three years after the storm. I argue that UTNO was initially successful by drawing on the legacy and tactics of the civil rights movement and explicitly combining struggles for racial and economic justice. Throughout their history, UTNO remained committed to civil rights tactics, such as strong internal democracy, prioritizing disruptive action, developing Black and working class leadership, and aligning themselves with community-driven calls for equity. These were the keys to their success. By the early 1990s, as city demographics shifted, the public schools were serving a majority working class Black population. Though UTNO remained committed to some of their earlier civil rights-era strategies, the union became less radical and more bureaucratic. They also faced external threats from the business community with growing efforts to privatize schools, implement standardized testing regimes, and loosen union regulations. I argue that despite the real challenges UTNO faced, they continued to anchor a Black middle class political agenda, demand more for the public schools, and push the statewide labor movement to the left. Finally, the post-Katrina destruction of UTNO demonstrates the limits of union power and the real, human costs of school privatizations. In the wake of the storm, the district fired over 7,500 educators, the largest dismissal of Black educators since Brown v. Board. I argue that these dismissals were intended not only to set the stage for the remaking of the New Orleans school district but also to discipline organized labor in the city and the state. With their members dispersed throughout the country and their homes destroyed, it was impossible for UTNO to mobilize any significant resistance. Though the vacuum created by Katrina helped speed up reforms, the same processes of school closures and privatizations are occurring in urban areas throughout the country. Examining the results of UTNO’s destruction on educators, unions, and city politics helps elucidate the cost of neoliberal reforms and specifically their devastating impact on communities of color. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE UNITED TEACHERS OF NEW ORLEANS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED ON THE FIFTH DAY OF MARCH 2021 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CITY, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY-SOCIOLOGY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY JESSE CHANIN APPROVED: ______________________________ Patrick Rafail, Ph.D. Director ______________________________ Jana Lipman, Ph.D. ______________________________ Stephen Ostertag, Ph.D. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT So many people supported me through the process of researching and writing my dissertation. I would like to thank the professors at Tulane who encouraged and supported me along the way: Rosanne Adderley, Fred Buttell, Xiaojin Chen, Kevin Fox Gotham, J. Celeste Lay, Laura McKinney, Carol Reese, and Allison Truitt. Special thanks to Camilo Leslie, who gave me an extremely light TA load the semester after my son was born, allowing me to jump back into research, and Stephen Ostertag, who served on my committee and was eternally encouraging. I am especially grateful to Patrick Rafail and Jana Lipman, who guided me through the research process, read every chapter I wrote, and always pushed me to think more analytically. The dissertation is much stronger, and better written, thanks to their feedback. Thanks also to my colleagues in the City, Culture, and Community program who influenced and challenged my thinking: Danica Brown, Annie Freitas, Ari King, Dena Lagomarsino, Estilla Lightfoot, Chloe Tucker, Sarah Woodward, and Tait Kellogg. Thanks to my comrades in Solidarity Tulane for always bringing a welcome distraction— someday we will win health care. I was fortunate to work at two institutions that sharpened my research skills. Thanks to everyone at the Education Research Alliance, especially Christian Buerger, Doug Harris, Nathan Barrett, and Jane Lincove, for mentoring me. Special thanks to Huriya Jabbar for inviting me to collaborate on a research project and introducing me to ii many of the tools of qualitative research. Thanks to Samantha Francois, who hired me as a research assistant at the Louisiana Public Health Institute and shared with me her many insights about the city and the schools. This work would have been much more difficult without a generous dissertation fellowship from the Spencer Foundation. Thanks to Maria Gahan and Angie Harmon for their work coordinating the fellowship. I am grateful also to the mentors I met through the program, specifically Jon Shelton and Ansley Erickson. Thanks to Walter Stern who met with me both at that conference and a couple years before, when I had no idea what I was doing. Thanks to Dan Golodner, AFT Archivist at Wayne State, who was warm and welcoming when I visited and then fielded quite a few requests over email once I had left. Thanks also to Connie Phelps and James Hodges at the University of New Orleans special collections, who went above and beyond to assist me, despite less than ideal funding conditions. I had the great fortune of getting connected to Al Kennedy, who shared with me his reflections on the school system as well as guiding me through working with uncatalogued archives. I am also indebted to the many Tulane librarians who assisted me in finding books, reading microfilm, and accessing government data. My family and friends were endlessly supportive of the project. Thanks to Kevin Connell and Rosamund Looney for reading drafts and giving me feedback. Thanks to Theo Hilton for commiserating. Thanks above all to Nicky Gillies for her unwavering belief that I was doing something worthwhile. And thanks of course to little Oscar for ensuring that I was never tempted to work too much. iii Last, and most importantly, I want to thank all the UTNO members who fought to make the union successful as well as those who shared their stories with me. I hope that I did those stories justice. Thanks to Colette Tippy and the union activists today who continue to fight for equity in our schools. And thanks especially to the late Nat LaCour, whose leadership inspired so many, and whose razor-sharp memory contributed significantly to this project. I will be forever grateful that I had the chance to meet and work with Mr. LaCour. This dissertation is dedicated to him. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................ II LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... VI LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... VII TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS ............................................................................. VIII ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... IX INTRODUCTION: “THE UNION IS MADE UP OF PEOPLE” .....................................1 CHAPTER 1: THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING CAMPAIGN, 1965-1974 .............31 CHAPTER 2: “EDUCATING OUR OWN PEOPLE:” UNION DEMOCRACY AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, 1975-1982 ................................................................95 CHAPTER 3: “THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ACTING LIKE A MINER:” DISRUPTION AND POLITICAL ORGANIZING AMIDST THE RISE OF NEOLIBERAL POLICYMAKING, 1983-1998 .............................................................162 CHAPTER 4: UNION BUREAUCRACY, STATE TAKEOVER, AND THE BID TO DISMANTLE A DISTRICT, 1999-2005 ........................................................................223 CHAPTER 5: COLORBLIND NEOLIBERALISM: HURRICANE KATRINA, MASS DISMISSALS AND THE PRIVATIZATION AGENDA, 2005-2008 ...........................279 EPILOGUE: CHOICE VS. DEMOCRACY IN THE “CHARTER SCHOOL CITY” .343 APPENDIX: BACKGROUND, POSITIONALITY, AND METHODOLOGY ...........373 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................384 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1. Percent of Black and white public school teachers in the 2011-12 school year, by selected states. .................................................................................................................6 Table 1.2. Percent of minority teacher population in New Orleans elementary (K-8) and secondary (9-12) schools, 1969-1973 ................................................................................70 Table 2.2. Comparison of Teachers’ and Superintendents’ Salaries—Large School Districts, 1977. .................................................................................................................124 Table 5.1. Timeline of events August 2005-January 2006. ............................................278 Table 6.1. Charter School Union Drives Post-Katrina.
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