Youth

Vermont Students & Workers Oppose Poverty Wages

February 8, 2014 Jonathan Leavitt, www.truth-out.org Resist! Student Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth

In Vermont, labor unrest in higher education is giving way to powerful new forms of adjunct, staff and student organization. At "progressive" Burlington College, once run by Bernie Sanders' wife, a controversial neoliberal "restructuring" has spurred restive students to dissolve their student government and form a "more democratic student union." At St. Michael's College, the mission statement of which is packed with social justice verbiage, the school has refused to give a contract to the first union in the Catholic College's 109-year history. In response, an "alt-labor" coalition of low-wage janitors, students and Vermont Workers' Center members has staged a series of rallies, dragging St. Mike's $434,000 per year President John J. Neuhauser back to the bargaining table. At the University of Vermont, shantytowns (to win divestment from apartheid) and occupations of the president's wing of the Waterman administration building (to win a more diverse faculty divest from war profiteering and protest tuition increases) are as much a prerequisite for a Catamount green-and-gold graduation as any seminar.

Teachers In Oregon Vote To Strike For Better Learning Conditions

February 7, 2014 ByJacob Chamberlain, www.commondreams.org Resist! Education, Student Activism, Youth

In an ongoing battle for student and teachers' rights in Portland, Oregon's public school system, nearly 3,000 teachers voted Wednesday night with an overwhelming majority to authorize a strike starting February 20th if school officials don't meet their demands to improve education. Among those demands, the teachers are calling for Portland Public Schools to hire more teachers in order to allow smaller class sizes. The teachers are also calling for a curriculum that "does not force teachers to teach to the test" and an increase in teacher pay that "provides fair compensation after years of sacrifice," according to the Portland Association of Teachers. “No teacher ever wants to go on strike, we want to be in classrooms with our students,” explained PAT president Gwen Sullivan. “But Portland teachers are united and resolved to stand up for our students’ learning conditions. It’s time to move this to a conclusion so that we can have a contract that is fair for teachers and good for students.”

Strike: Students & Faculty Union Unite At Univ. Of Illinois At Chicago

February 3, 2014 Caroline Gonzales Kuehner Hebert and Jason Netek, www.socialistworker.org Resist! Education, Student Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth

The unions at UIC are standing up and sending a unified message--that workers and students alike are unhappy with conditions on campus. Students are paying more for a worse education--meanwhile, UIC employees are providing more wealth than ever for the university, but getting by with less. If the faculty get the contract they are asking for, not only will they have jobs worth staying in, but students stand to get a better education as well. The UF says that a strike will begin on February 18-19, with picket lines going up on those days--students are encouraged to come to campus on those days, but to join the picket lines instead of going to classes. Workers across Chicago are being asked to write solidarity statements from their unions and community organizations, and come out to show the administration that this fight is part of a broader struggle for all workers in the city.

Letters From A Youth (YSI) Jail

January 21, 2014 Sandra Khalifa and Arely Lozano-Baugh, www.youngist.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Youth

In 1963, “Letters from a Birmingham City Jail” gave a scathing indictment of American equality from a King behind bars. He found himself there for the future of Black and Brown youth - for our generation, our children and our grandchildren. But today we find our youth entrenched in a new system of segregation. Every year, thousands of youth of color are turned away not from the white-only lunch counter, but from the protections of a quality public education. Black and Brown youth are not being hosed down in the streets of Birmingham, Jacksonville, Selma, or other bastions of segregation. They are being pulled from the classroom for childish misbehavior and funneled through the school to prison pipeline. Black and Brown kids today are not handcuffed for their activism but stopped, frisked, and jailed. For this reason, in 2014, imagine we write you this letter from a Youth Services International’s (YSI) private juvenile prison cell.

Portland Students Take Over School Board Meeting

January 21, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Education, Student Activism, Video, Youth

Below are two articles and a video showing the takeover of a Portland, Oregon School Board meeting by students, teachers and community members. The protest was organized by the Portland Student Union. Revolts against school closings and budget cuts have been occurring in many cities most notably Chicago and Philadelphia. The cutbacks in education are tied to the broader issues of austerity and corporatization of schools. This is a national phenomena that is leading to a national education revolt. Indeed, you can see the international nature of the issue as many students are wearing the red square from the student protests in Montreal last year. School Board walked out of its own session early on January 13 when students mic-checked the meeting out of frustration that the district has not listened to nor prioritized their concerns of students as they negotiate with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) in what has become an increasingly heated contract battle. The students made ten specific demands.

Government Already Spending What Is Needed For Free Tuition

January 19, 2014 Richard Long, www.ourfuture.org Educate! Education, Student Activism, Youth

Here’s a news flash you probably didn’t know: It would cost less for the government to make all public universities tuition-free than what the government already spends in higher education. Today, the government spends $69 billion a year on student aid for the neediest students. According to the New America Foundation, around $36 billion is spent on higher education grants (like the Pell Grant program), $32 billion of potential revenue is lost through tax credits, exemptions and deductions, and around $1 billion dollars is spent on federal work-study programs. The cost of all public universities? $62.6 billion. That is a $6.4 billion difference between what America spends to help its neediest students and the cost of all public colleges combined.

City College Of San Francisco Wins Round In Accreditation Battle

January 16, 2014 Michelle Kern, www,peoplesworld.org Resist! Education, Student Activism, Youth

City College of San Francisco has regained accreditation, for now. With a Jan. 2 injunction Judge Curtis Karnow blocked last summer's action by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) stripping the college's accreditation. Thedisaccreditation would have gone into final effect July 2014 and would have effectively shuttered the school, which has served thousands of students for decades. Karnow's injunction delays the move pending a court decision on a lawsuit brought by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera against the disaccreditation. After hearing two days of arguments, on Dec.. 26 and 30, Judge Karnow noted in his ruling that the "consequences would be catastrophic" if the ACCJC were allowed to finish the disaccreditation process. "Those of you who have challenged the faculty unions know the sacrifice and price of demonstrating the courage to say no when you must," Kinsella wrote. "That is the type of leadership you now have to demonstrate to retain your accrediting commission. "As an aside if you think this is an ACCJC issue you need to think beyond this because this is nothing more than a fight for total control, void of all but legal constraints that enrich faculty with more entitlements every year. Once they control accreditation they own you." In comments at a forum on ACCJC, held at the College of San Mateo in October, Rafael Mandelman, newest elected board trustee of CCSF, observed that this remark of Kinsella's "offers an amazing insight on how ACCJC sees the world ... that there's this Manichean battle between good and evil. Faculty unions are evil and administrators ... are good."

High School Students Walk Out In Support Of Teachers

January 14, 2014 Sarah Levy, www.socialistworker.or Resist! Education, Racism, Student Activism, Youth

About 200 students at Jefferson High School in Portland, Ore., walked out of classes on Friday, January 10, in support of their teachers who are locked in an increasingly heated contract battle with the school district--and to reclaim respect for students and the school in general against media claims that Jefferson is a "failure" and a "gang" school. The protest came during a week of action to build support for the teachers, whose contract campaign has taken up issues of education justice, challenging swollen class sizes and the standardized testing mania. Called by the Portland Student Union and Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign, the week of actions will culminate on Monday, January 13, with a rally and march on the Portland Public Schools (PPS) board meeting. On Friday, Jefferson students chanted, "We're the future of this nation, we deserve an education!" as they blocked both lanes of traffic for several blocks on North Killingsworth Street, a busy thoroughfare in North Portland.

The Kids Who Make Our Clothes

January 8, 2014 Alexander Reed Kelly, www.truthdig.com Educate! Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth

In spite of decades of international campaigns against child labor, children in Bangladesh as young as 10 years oldcontinue to sew shirts and pants at all hours of the day and night. Many of the 4.7 million kids working in Bangladesh come from rural areas where school is not an option. Indeed more than half of them have never been to school. In their labor, some oversee large industrial sewing machines. Others use glue to fix sequins on dresses. Their minimum wage is $39 a month. In a 12-hour shift, an average child worker will handle more than 1,400 shirts.

Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For

January 6, 2014 Jesse A. Myerson, www.rollingstone.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Student Activism, Youth

It's a new year, but one thing hasn't changed: The economy still blows. Five years after Wall Street crashed, America's banker-gamblers have only gotten richer, while huge swaths of the country are still drowning in personal debt, tens of millions of Americans remain unemployed – and the new jobs being created are largely low-wage, sub-contracted, part-time grunt work. Millennials have been especially hard-hit by the downturn, which is probably why so many people in this generation (like myself) regard capitalism with a level of suspicion that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. But that egalitarian impulse isn't often accompanied by concrete proposals about how to get out of this catastrophe. Here are a few things we might want to start fighting for, pronto, if we want to grow old in a just, fair society, rather than the economic hellhole our parents have handed us.

Pentagon Data On Student Testing Program Rife With Errors

January 6, 2014 Pat Elder, www.warisacrime.org Educate! Wars and Militarism, Youth

The ASVAB is the military's entrance exam that is given to fresh recruits to determine their aptitude for various military occupations. Since 1968 the test has also been used as a recruiting tool in high schools. It's used by USMEPCOM to gain sensitive, personal information on high school students, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 18. Students typically take the test at school without parental consent and often without parental knowledge. The Pentagon admits military testing in the nation's schools is a crucial component of maintaining an "all-volunteer" force. In recent years military recruiting has evolved into an exceptionally sophisticated psychological campaign aimed at enticing high school children to enlist.

The Nonviolent Roots Of Syrian Rebellion: Students United Against Tyranny

January 5, 2014 Staff, www.syriauntold.com Resist! Student Activism, Syria, Youth

When a group of students staged the first demonstration at the Damascus College of Science in April 2011, they could not imagine that would be the beginning of the future Union of Free Syrian Students (UFSS). The Union, which has played a fundamental role in the Syrian uprising, remains one of the most relevant youth groups developing civil resistance in the country. “At that first demonstration, 50 of us had planned to gather to demand freedom, justice and dignity,” one of the organizers said to Syria Untold. “We were amazed when we saw hundreds of students show up.” After that first protest, which was recorded and widely shared online, professionalization and self-protection became a goal for the students. It became clear that there was an urgent need to protect demonstrators by concealing their identities on camera, which led to an increasing effort in hiding people´s faces on pictures and videos. Today, most of the Union’s work focuses on humanitarian and health aid, as well as on reporting and media activities. They evolve in response to the reality on the ground, which has evolved from a peaceful civil uprising to increasing militarization and Islamization, amid international indifference. In spite of everything, the Union, as many other civil activists, continues to resist all those trends, aiming for a future of freedom, justice and dignity.

Throwing Kids In Jail For A Trifle

January 3, 2014 Mychal Denzel Smith, www.thenation.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Education, Racism, Youth

In May of last year, the New York Times editorial board described the situation as follows: “School officials across the country responded to a surge in juvenile crime during the 1980s and the Columbine High School shootings a decade later by tightening disciplinary policies and increasing the number of police patrolling public schools. One unfortunate result has been the creation of a repressive environment in which young people are suspended, expelled or even arrested over minor misbehaviors—like talking back or disrupting class—that would once have been handled by the principal.” In fact, the results of these policies are more than just “unfortunate”; they’re racist. The stats bear this out. As Molly Knefel reported in Rolling Stone, half of the New York City students suspended during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure were black, even though black students made up around one-third of the student population.

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Youth Can Handle The Truth

December 22, 2013 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Education, Finance and the Economy, Police abuse, Youth

This week we want to highlight some of the issues that are spurring youth to get active in their communities and what they are doing about them. Young people are yearning to understand the world, even when the truth is horrible, so that they can change it for the better. Mary Elizabeth Williams writes in Salon: “They’re questioning and curious and skeptical and intensely philosophical. They want to make sense of the world and reasons people do the things they do. They have amazing ideas, ideas that are too often wrung out of them by a school culture increasingly devoted to filling in little circles and insisting there’s only one correct answer to any problem that comes along, and only one way of arriving at that.”

Pollution-weary Students Stage A March To Protest Incinerator

December 19, 2013 Fern Shen, www.baltimorebrew.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Health Care, Human Rights, Youth

The protesters were going to walk to the site – a former chemical plant less than a mile from their school – where Energy Answers wants to build the 160-megawatt trash-to-energy Fairfield Renewable Energy Power Plant. “Let’s show Energy Answers, the governor and everyone else that we’re not going to take it,” Watford said. “Let’s show them that Curtis Bay is not a dumping ground.” English teacher Kelly Klinefelter Lee also addressed the gathering of about 200 people in the school auditorium, saying she was proud of the students. “There is much to object to. . . mercury and lead and greenhouse gasses,” she said. “These students already breath some of the dirtiest air in the state and their young bodies bear a terrible price.”

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