The Progressive: When Students Go On Strike For Their Schools

[Omaha Steve]

Sarah Jaffe
This story appears in the current issue of our magazine. Subscribe to read the full issue online.

X post in Labor & Socialist-Progressive

http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/01/187952/when-students-go-strike-their-teachers

By Sarah Jaffe on January 02, 2015

The teachers’ union in Philadelphia lost the legal right to strike when the state took over the city’s public schools more than a decade ago. Then, last October, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission unilaterally voided the teachers’ contracts in the name of budget cuts. The students, in a move that is becoming emblematic of the new wave of organizing spreading across the country, went on strike because the teachers could not. Outside of the High School for Creative and Performing Arts in Philly, around 175 students danced and sang, holding signs that declared that education is a right—and that their teachers deserve health care.

Not too far away, in Newark, New Jersey, this September Newark Student Union activists took two days of action. They held blockades in front of three local high schools in the morning to encourage other students to join them marched to downtown Newark, where the Board of Education is located.

On the first day, they held a “know your rights” training.

On the second day, they shut down a major intersection. For nine hours.

FULL story at link.

[marym625]

1. This is fabulous!

This should be all over the news.

Thanks for the link and the post.

K&R!

[vive la commune]

2. Good on them!

[mopinko]

3. could be what it will take.

a much needed voice in the debates.
thx.