This from Seattle Education:
After the arrest of Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School, on Monday, November 28th, the students at Garfield organized a march to Seattle City Hall in response to their teacher’s arrest and to his demands to fully fund education in the state of Washington...
The students of Garfield High School issued a statement on their Facebook page. It goes as follows:
We are Washington State Public Schools students tired of the constant cuts to our education. We are the people who have been affected most by these cuts, and we are showing that we care. For too long, this stat…e’s budget has been balanced on the backs of its students. Apparently, our representatives in Olympia have forgotten that the Washington Constitution says that funding education is this state’s “paramount duty”. This is a student voice reminding our legislature of that fact. And also of this one: We are this country’s future. We will vote. And we will hold them accountable.We will walk out of school on Wednesday the 30th of November at 12:30 PM to march to City Hall and tell the world that we are fed up with this lack of funding for education. Although we acknowledge the irony of missing a free education in order to protest, we realize that sometimes unorthodox methods must be utilized in order to gain attention. To all Garfield students and students from any other Seattle schools, public and private, we hope you will join us tomorrow as we stand up against a constant barrage of cuts and mistreatment, and converge upon City Hall to make our voices heard.
We have two primary goals we hope to accomplish:
-We want to stop the constant cuts to education that have hurt our school and other schools in the state.
-We want to insert a student voice into the political discourse in issues regarding education.
Following are our grievances, things that have already happened as a result of past cuts:
-Students who want full schedules have been denied them due to a lack of teachers. Many seniors were denied a science class due to a complete lack of state science funding.
-Other academic courses, such as advanced math classes, have been repeatedly cut from our school.
-The removal of summer school and night school has removed resources that allowed many students to graduate on time, therefore effectively increasing the amount the state must spend on those students.
The King County Superior Court ruled that Washington State is already failing to fulfill its constitutional obligations to fully fund public education. As Will Rogers said: “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
Cuts to the State’s education budget haven’t helped in the past, and they can only hurt for the future.
4 comments:
I love to see students protest like this and stand up for their education. I get very upset when I see commercials that have students from all over the world talking about how cool school is while the American students talk about how much they get made fun of. Forget that. These students and many like them, including myself, take education very seriously and direly want to succeed. To have the state of Washington fund schools so poorly that students have to protest is an outrage and a disgrace to the citizens of Washington. Education is the most important lifeline our country has. Signing out from Kentucky.
You can replace the teachers, but you can't replace the students. This will be interesting to watch.
This is how democracy is supposed to work. Too often does the public sit back and allow those in power to do whatever they want. It is truly inspirational to see people, especially young high school students, care about things as essential as education. Most constitutions emphasize the importance of education, as the Washington Constitution calls it a "paramount duty". Education is one of the greatest investments to be made and cutting education funding will be more devastating than people may realize.
While it may be sad that Washington had to reduce its education budget, it is a necessity. Unlike the federal government, the states have to keep a balanced budget. According to the Budget and Policy Priorities (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711), Washington state has a 2.5 billion dollar deficit for their 2012 budget. Just skipping school to complain about cuts is not going to fill that budget shortfall. States are making cuts across the board. These students don't seem to realize that you can't spend money you don't have. Should Washington cut more from public safety, health care, or higher education? The public schools take up %45 of Washington budget, so with education taking that much of the pie it will have to be reduced. No one wants to fire teachers but in a poor economy the government must make unpopular decisions to balance its budgets. You can not whine away your problems.
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