Court Reprieve for Closing Schools: How Much of a Victory?

     The Lobis decision, which found that the City significantly violated state laws in the
decision making process to close nineteen schools gives the UFT a short period of time - how
short is yet unknown - to build the movement against school closings it has so far failed to do.  If
it seizes this opportunity, the court decision is a victory.  If, on the other hand, the UFT leadership
convinces the members that this decision means we can passively rely on the courts to stop school
closings, it will be a squandered opportunity, most if not all of the affected schools will be closed,
and it won't be any victory at all.  

     To understand why legal tactics alone are inadequate, we have to understand - first of all -
why this case was brought in the first place, why politicians and groups like the NAACP
supported it, and why the judge had to overturn the City's decision making process and call for
one with "meaningful community involvement."  The reason is that teachers, students, parents,
and their supporters turned out in great numbers, to protest the plans.  There were protests and
demonstrations at individual schools, at hearings, and at the Mayor's residence.  The UFT
leadership organized only one of these, at Brooklyn Tech H.S., for the PEP vote.  Even that one
was built mainly by the grassroots, with minimal support from the central union.  Without these
grassroots direct actions, this court decision would not have happened.

     We have to understand - second of all - how limited this decision is on its own.  Most
glaringly, the City plans to appeal it and it may be overturned very quickly at the appellate level. 
Even if it is upheld, it simply requires the City to go by the correct procedure in closings these
schools.  Therefore, the decision's effect may be nothing more than a six-month delay in the
closings, the amount of time the decision process requires.  To quote the NY Times, the decision 
". . . did not dispute the city's right to close the schools . . ."      How effective the decision will be
in achieving even that brief reprieve is thrown into question by the fact that the Department of
Education is barreling ahead with plans to open new charter schools in at least some of the 19
"reprieved" schools.

     This court decision makes militant mobilization against school closings more critical than
ever to pressure the higher court to uphold the decision. In the long run, a movement is needed to
create a political and social climate in which school closings are recognized as one of the
problems of current education, not part of their solution. 

     If the union organizes this movement,  the Lobis decision will mark a victory.  If not, the
decision will mark merely a speed bump on our union's downhill race to the bottom.