Defend California public education

Please sign and forward out widely the Open Letter to Defend CA Public Education:

http://www.change.org/petitions/open-letter-defend-ca-public-education

This Open Letter is an indispensable tool to reverse the attacks on public education in California. It gives the authorities an ultimatum: either cede to our demands or we will begin a massive wave of actions beginning on February 1, 2012.

Please help us gather hundreds of thousands of signatures -- including from all major labor, student, and community organizations -- by forwarding this out widely. Moreover, please begin organizing on the ground to make February 1, 2012 the start of the largest, most united, and most powerful wave of actions California has yet seen.

(This Open Letter was first adopted by the Nov. 15 General Assembly of Occupy Cal, the largest GA in the history of the U.S. Occupy movement, with more than 5,000 students, faculty, and campus workers. For more information, contactcaloccupation@gmail.com )

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http://www.change.org/petitions/open-letter-defend-ca-public-education

Open Letter to the State Government, UC Regents, CSU Trustees, and All Education Administrators

Quality public education is a basic human right, not a privilege. We call on you to publicly declare your support for the following:

1) Stop cuts to public education. Reverse the fee hikes, layoffs, and cuts in all levels of public education to at least their 2009 levels.

2) Refund education and public services by taxing the rich and the corporations.

3) Fully implement affirmative action to stop the re-segregation of public education. Overturn Proposition 209.

4) Respect free speech and free assembly. No use of force against protesters on school sites.

If you fail to issue such a statement, and if you fail to take concrete actions in this direction, we will begin a wave of actions, up to and including strikes by some groups that are part of our movement, beginning on February 1, 2012 to ensure that our demands are met.

We call on all California students, teachers, workers, and their organizations to sign this Open Letter and to organize and mobilize around it at their sites and in their communities.