The Progressive: When Students Go On Strike For Their Schools

Sarah Jaffe
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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.