Philadelphia students: Education not incarceration
By
Joseph Piette
Philadelphia
Published Apr 7, 2011 8:37 PM
Student protest in Philadelphia, March 30.
WW photo: Joseph Piette
|
Demanding “education not incarceration,” more than 2,000 college
and high school students marched against Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s
plans to cut $1 billion in state funding for education.
Hundreds of high school students from Sayre, Bok, Furness, South Philadelphia,
Kensington, Paul Robeson, CAPA, West, Bodine, Edison, Sankofa Freedom Academy
— from 25 high schools in all — massed in front of the city’s
main courthouse on March 30. They chanted “No education, no life”
as students kept coming in, arriving by mass transit or by foot after schools
let out.
The diverse crowd doubled, than tripled as students from Penn State, Temple and
other local colleges joined in. They had earlier marched from Temple University
to the State Office Building to protest proposed cuts affecting university
education, then walked another half mile to join their brothers and sisters at
the Criminal Justice Center.
According to a nearby plaque, today’s protest took place near the site
where the great labor organizer Mother Jones began “The March of the
Factory Children.” In July 1903, some 200 youth walked from Philadelphia
to New York City “to dramatize the need for child labor
legislation.”
On their banner was the demand “We want more schools and less
hospitals.” The hospitals referred to where children ended up from the
injuries they suffered in dangerous but profitable factory conditions.
Over 100 years later, today’s youth were chanting “More classmates,
less inmates” because the proposed budget includes an 11 percent increase
in funds for inhuman but profitable prisons while school funding is
slashed.
Many students have loved ones in prison, often for petty, nonviolent crimes.
The students know the latest cuts will inevitably push more young people into
the school-to-prison pipeline. They will also eliminate opportunities for youth
to access higher education and cut badly needed jobs and services from their
schools.
Pennsylvania’s prison population has already grown from 8,200 in 1980 to
51,500 in 2010. In addition, the annual cost per inmate in that period has
grown from $11,400 to more than $32,000. While most states are reducing prison
populations and shutting down prisons, Pennsylvania is continuing to increase
incarceration rates.
Among the groups that organized today’s protest were the Campaign for
Nonviolent Schools, Service Employees Local 32 BJ, UNITE HERE Local 634, Parent
Power, Action United, One Love Movement, Our City Our Schools, Youth Art and
Self-Empowerment Project, Urban Nutrition Initiative, Media Mobilizing Project
and the Philadelphia Student Union.
As the march passed by a taxi stand on the way to the final rally at the School
District Headquarters, cabdrivers in waiting cabs sounded their horns in
solidarity. Many vehicles were decorated with pro-education signs.
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