A woman's daugher (third grade) called home fratically. She had been absent a couplre of days and had just discovered that their artihmetic test was scheduled for that day. The mother reassured her: Don't worry -- you're not being tested, the teacher is! And in fact the class had done practically nothing for the preceding three weeks but prepare for the math test. (It is wrong that this affects only poorer districts; if you remember that it concerns not education but part of the 356-year attack on workers, and that it is the teachers (the workers) who are being attacked, it is clear that a particular target is apt to be the better paid teachers.
Defense of the working class as a whole will largely depend on the courage of those workers who believe in their work (e.g., nurses, teachers) to refuse to work their butts off. And they must also cease sneering at or breaking solidarity with the lazy bums, incompetents, etc in the work force. Solidarity means solidarity, not judging which fellow workers are "deserving" of solitarity.
And of course Gail is absolutely right: government workers are not our enemy.
Carrol