Students Advocate for their Own Opportunities to Learn

As advocacy groups across the country litigate, mobilize, and vote in favor of improving schools, no single group has more direct investment, or more potential power, than the students themselves. And though many of the adults advocating on their behalf can see the value in fighting to reform the system, students are inspired by a sense of urgency that comes of the knowledge that in the time it takes a lawsuit to move from one court to the next, they will have graduated. Facing worsening crises in their school systems, students in Philadelphia and Baltimore have begun fighting back, urging legislators, school board members, and administrators to listen to what they need.

Baltimore, Maryland
Earlier this year, a circuit court judge ruled in Bradford v. Maryland that the state and city were underfunding Baltimore City schools. The state and city have refused to provide improved funding before the appeal goes through to the state supreme court, leaving current high school students with little hope of seeing substantial improvements in their schools. Ironically, student achievement improved significantly last year in Baltimore City, but funding for this school year was cut.

Faced with this reality, and the spate of fires set in Baltimore City schools this falls, students have mobilized, looking to the State Board of Education to improve funding for their schools. As reported in the Baltimore Sun, students testified at the Board’s meeting in October, speaking passionately about teacher layoffs and shortages and poor learning conditions. Speeches at this month’s meeting did not run as long, but were equally fervent, pleading with the board to demonstrate its concern. Students requested a budget proposal that would reflect the deficiency recognized in the funding lawsuit, and one requested that security guards place the Board of Education and state Superintendent Nancy Grasmick under arrest.

During the most recent Board meeting, the pleas of these students were magnified by the events going on outside the State Department of Education, where the Board’s meeting was going on. More than 50 students lay on the sidewalk, declaring their message: “no education, no life.” The students had taped red Xs to their clothing, and were feigning death in the style of a prominent anti-smoking commercial. The students were accompanied by numerous adult advocates, including members of the Algebra Project and a group that was “Fasting for Funds.” After a sedate response by members of the State Board of Education, students left with an understandable sense of frustration, pledging to return until they received a real response from the officials who wield such power over their schools.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Only two days after the Board of Education meeting in Baltimore, students in Philadelphia held a rally outside the school district’s headquarters, declaring disappointment with the new teacher’s contract for its failure to address the unfair distribution of qualified and experienced teachers. The students protested the greater preponderance of inexperienced teachers in schools that are filled with poor and minority students, and demanded improved incentives to attract teachers to those schools. They also derided the new system of site selection, which combines seniority with principal choice, as confusing.

The rallying students were organized by the Philadelphia Student Union and backed, like the Baltimore students, by a coalition of adult advocates. Following the rally, three students outlined their demands to the district’s chief executive, Paul Vallas. In addition to improved incentives to staff poor schools, the students asked for more teachers, smaller class sizes, more supplies, and a better core of substitute teachers. Vallas agreed with what the students were arguing. Later, an assistant to Vallas defended the incentives in the existing teacher contract, but admitted that insufficient funds were the primary reason that a more prominent incentive package was not included. This analysis was reinforced by the president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who agreed that improved salaries would make staffing needy schools much easier.

Prepared by Nelly Ward, December 14, 2004