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CHICAGO — Israel Munoz was a senior at Kelly High School in Chicago when the teachers strike broke out last September. “Their courageous stand would change my life forever,” he said in an essay on the on-line blog, Student Voice. “For me, this strike was as much about the students as it was about the teachers. It was about students being forced to wear clear backpacks and being told by security guards to walk through metal detectors every morning, having to sit in 90 degree, overcrowded classrooms, using ripped books, the 50% drop-out rate, taking standardized tests, the lack of necessary resources, and, of course, the ‘gourmet’ chicken patties, along with all other forms of systematic inequality. But most importantly, the strike was different for me because I felt that my voice had finally been heard.” (http://stuvoice.org/blog/2013/08/29/stuvoicestories-expanding-the-chicago-student-union/#sthash.91KbQ3Zw.dpuf)
Munoz and others around the city formed Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS). They organized, confronted the School Board, marched and petitioned to stop the threatened school closings. In the end, Chicago closed an historic number of schools and then slashed school budgets (affecting Kelly and other Chicago schools to the tune of $90 million). Then Chicago fired over 2,000 teachers and 1,000 other school personnel. During the summer students formed the Chicago Students Union to get students as equal partners in the education fight.
From Munoz’ statement, the students organized against school closings not simply to preserve the status quo and to keep the schools open. School should not make students feel like criminals. A month after the school year has begun, many classes still have no textbooks! CPS promised last spring to bring more resources to schools slated to “welcome” students displaced from closed schools; but many still do not have libraries. CTU organized an “operation book drop” to deliver books to schools like South Shore Fine Arts Elementary School, a south side “welcoming school,” which has a library but where budget cuts eliminated the librarian!
Ross Floyd, co-founder of the Chicago Student Union, is from Jones, one of the top schools in the city, not in danger. He got involved anyway, as he said on MSNBC’s Education Nation (Oct. 6, 2013): “When you see 49 schools being closed, at the same time charter schools are coming in, and at the same time teachers are being fired and $90 million being cut from our budgets, you know in your heart that that’s not right, . . ..”
In other cities throughout the U.S. students are forming student unions to make sure their demands are heard. This is how Munoz articulates it: “The recent actions in Chicago epitomize this necessity and make it clear that the fight is far from over. . . We need change. And when I say ‘we need change’ I mean ‘we need a revolution’.” Not a revolution of guns and violence, but rather a revolution of new ideas, youth empowerment, and student leaders.” (from Student Voice)
Politicians in Washington are nationalizing education in the interests of the corporations as they institute Common Core standards and turn over taxpayer funds to private charter schools. We need a movement to guarantee that education is nationalized in the interests of the people, with equal funding for all, so that every student reaches his or her full potential; so that the student demands, so well articulated by the CSU, are guaranteed.
