What was Red for Ed? What is it now?

Red for Ed started out as an idea, which was communicated via tweet: from AEA president Joe Thomas to music teacher Noah Karvelis. Where did the idea originate? Did Joe Thomas think it up himself, or did it stem from a wider AEA or NEA discussion? I don’t know.

The hashtag #RedforEd was launched. I saw the original conversation and hashtags unfolding on Twitter. Over that weekend, thousands of people had joined the Arizona Educators United Facebook page.

How did the admins for the group get chosen? I don’t know.

The first day of wear Red for Ed was a Wednesday. I don’t know how this day got chosen, but it happened to be the day that the AEA president (dressed in a red shirt) held a press conference to announce the endorsement of David Garcia for governor.

Noah Karvelis claimed to know nothing about this endorsement.

Regardless of this original mishap, which caused suspicion within the actual grassroots people who wore red that day, the “wear red shirts on Wednesday to support education” movement continued to grow.

As more people started to wear red and join Facebook groups, the structure started to form. Liaisons volunteered to communicate with their schools. Noah started leading Ducey protests outside of the KTAR studio, which brought more publicity.

We rallied at the Capitol, all waiting to hear the “demands” announced to the world. Wearing red turned into doing walk-ins. Discussions heated up, talks of a walkout intensified.

At this point, reporters were fawning over this “grassroots” movement that was acting independently of the teachers’ union. However, the entire funding source of the operation was AEA. There was a Go Fund Me page that briefly opened, but then shut down. Everything down to the “I Support Red for Ed” signs was stamped with AEA sponsorship.

Who was calling the shots behind the scenes?

In a recent article in the Socialist Worker, AEA president Joe Thomas is quoted: “Arizona Educators United was a Facebook group created by young teachers who really believed they could change the system. As union leaders, sometimes we get cautious, but thankfully they wouldn’t let us be cautious.”

It may be true that, after the 20x2020 plan was announced, Joe Thomas wanted to be cautious but Noah and the gang of Facebook admins wanted to go on strike anyway.

But it is definitely true that most of the grassroots, rank and file Arizona teachers wanted to be more cautious. And don’t tell me we voted to go on strike.

The walk-out vote was rife with confusion. Many people who voted “yes” imagined a one day walkout. Many people who voted “yes” imagined a walkout the next school year. I’ve heard anecdotes of liaisons refusing to give ballots to people who wanted to vote “no.” At my school, several people who voted “yes” on the first day of voting said they would have changed their vote to “no” after they learned that the Capitol lawn had been reserved for the entire following week.

Who crafted the voting procedure? AEA. Where were the votes counted? AEA headquarters.

The strike was an absolute debacle. What were the conditions for ending the strike? No one knew. Teachers didn’t know. Lawmakers certainly didn’t know. Joe Thomas wanted to meet personally with the Governor to “negotiate the demands.” Parents were checking their emails nightly to see if schools would be open the following day.

Toward the end of the strike, when it became clear some version of the 20x2020 plan was inevitable and school districts were about to re-open anyway, something strange happened. In a press conference, Joe and Noah finally announced the conditions for ending the strike: Lawmakers must sign the 20x2020 plan into law before the teachers would return.

Wait, what? Didn’t they just launch a strike to protest that very same plan? Weren’t most Democrats against the plan? Weren’t there teachers in the Capitol at that very moment lobbying against the budget?

A complete debacle. Also at that very moment, a ballot initiative was being filed with the Secretary of State’s office. Who wrote the initiative? A progressive economic interest group. Who chaired the initiative? A teacher who is a local AEA rep. Who funded the initiative? Mostly AEA and the NEA.

None of the rank and file teachers knew what was in the initiative until it was being distributed on the lawn of the Capitol.

The media has continued to equate Red for Ed with the people who marched at the capitol and all the subsequent actions by its leadership, including the initiative. But that’s a false equivalence. Currently, the people who marched are largely disconnected from the actions of the original Red for Ed leaders. There’s an array of Facebook groups, but nothing unified.

Meanwhile, the NEA has seemingly taken license of #RedforEd and is pushing members across the country to wear red and rally and protest for various demands.

There still exists some grassroots energy in Arizona that is non-partisan. There’s a Republicans for #RedforEd Facebook group, there are school and district and charter school Facebook groups still active.

At this point, I believe it’s still possible to unite these disparate forces into a unified, independent group, with a continued focus on education funding, perhaps in the form of a non-profit. But I have seen nothing encouraging in the current admin of the main group, who seem arrogant and obstinate, unwilling to diversify politically and unwilling to break away from the AEA.

Maybe they’ll be more willing after the November election.