Students across New Jersey Walk Out in the Face of Worsening Budget Cuts

Thousands of high school students across New Jersey took to the streets in mass walkouts to protest drastic funding cuts that many districts across the state are now facing.  According to the current plan, Governor Chris Christie has proposed a nearly $820 million reduction to the public-education budget.  Vital afterschool programs, athletic clubs, social events, and cultural activities — the very lifeblood of a student’s educational existence — stand to be unceremoniously put before the chopping block.  Nevertheless, to the administration, that is not enough: Christie and his statehouse cronies have taken the demagogic road by stepping up efforts to paint the teachers and their union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), as greedy and “un-cooperative” for failing to accept proposed austerity measures relegated to them in the face of acute budget shortfalls.

Using the threat of selective layoffs — one that will disproportionately affect newly-hired teachers — Christie says the firings can be avoided if school employees would be “cooperative” and agree to one-year salary freezes as well as start paying 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health-insurance premiums.  Taken together, the cuts as proposed by Christie would serve to not only strike a severe blow to the teachers’ union but also pave the way for his ultimate goal of a privatized, “public” education.

Unable to sit by any longer while the fate of public education hangs in the balance, the students of New Jersey bravely took take matters into their own hands.  The mass walkout – orchestrated over the social network, Facebook — led to rallies in parking lots, football fields, and parks across the state.  Students chanted, waved signs, and made speeches supporting their teachers’ jobs and opposing Christie’s proposed cuts.  In Newark, more than 2,000 students left classrooms, stopped traffic on downtown streets, and rallied at City Hall, chanting, “Save our schools.”  Nevertheless, despite the courageous and militant mood and actions of the students, the one-day walkouts ultimately failed to halt the Christie offensive.  Decisive steps, therefore, need taking.  So, where must it go from here?

It is going to take mass, orchestrated action on the part of students, teachers, and the communities in which they live to smash the State’s attacks and break their stranglehold over the public-education system.  In other words, it will take indefinite action that does not limit itself to one day or even a random string of days.  Without such coordinated, measured action, the education bureaucrats can simply wait out the indignation of the thousands of students and teachers, demoralize them in the process, and, thus, allow for the return to business as usual.  Now, more than ever, direct, militant action presents itself as the only viable method to halt the impending cuts.  It will take systematic organization; Facebook alone will not be enough.

By forming committees of action comprising democratically elected, militant representatives of the student body at large – accountable and recallable if necessary – and by linking these committees together across New Jersey through the creation of a State-wide body, coordinating the struggle from the center, the powerful force of the entire student population of New Jersey can be directed against the bosses’ politicians in Trenton.  Such a body should seek to draw in all those facing the burden of budget cuts: primary, secondary, and collegiate pupils.

Likewise, rank-and-file members of the NJEA should demand that their leaders engage strike actions alongside the student organizations. They need to form up rank-and-file committees of their own.  These committees should be composed of militant fighters and be strictly answerable and recallable to by the mass membership.

The ferocity of the struggle between the education bureaucrats, teachers, and students is unquestionably going to continue to intensify given the nature and exigencies of the current attacks.  We must be ready to oppose further with militant, direct action all job cuts, the degradation of quality, public education through reductions in funding for programs along with all attempts to break the NJEA – to make working people and youth pay the cost of the crisis.  Stand up and say, we will not pay!

• Don’t pay for their budget crisis!  Generalize and intensify the frequency of the walkouts, sit-ins, and occupations across every educational facility throughout New Jersey.  Make your voices heard in the statehouse!

• Students and teachers, fight hand-in-hand!  Unite the struggles!  The NJEA represents some 204,000 individuals.  Taken together with the middle and high school population, as well as other public and private sector unions engaging in solidarity action, their combined pressure could halt the attacks and crack the Christie regime.

• Tax the rich to fund quality, state-funded public education! Hire more teachers and pay them higher wages along with greater benefits.  Expropriate the vast public sums allocated to the financial parasites and the monstrous bonuses paid out to executives to cover teachers’ wages, benefits’ packages, educational and sports programs for primary and secondary youth, and materials assistance (supplies, books, etc) to those in need of it most.

• Say “No” to state bureaucrats and “Yes” to teachers and students!  The mass of teachers and students organized in democratic assemblies and committees must have the ability and authority to operate and administer a first-rate, public education.  Only they should decide staffing levels, allocation of necessary funds, class sizes, and curricula.  Fight for teachers, students, and education workers’ control of school and colleges!