Thousands of high school students sent a very clear message
to New Jersey governor Chris Christie on April 27 when they walked out of their
schools to protest his proposed $820 million cuts to public education.
Some students marched and rallied, like the over 2,000
students from seven high schools who chanted outside Newark City Hall. At other
schools, students walked out of class and marched around campus. The protests
were organized through a Facebook page, “Protest NJ Education Cuts—State Wide
School Walkout,” which had almost 18,000 fans on the day of the walkout.
Christie’s spokesperson, Michael Drewniak, tried to
delegitimize the students’ protests as “youthful rebellion” or “spring fever.”
But a student picking up litter at Newark’s City Hall summed it up well: “We
just thought we might as well clean up the mess we made. Unlike our governor.”
Quality education is a right that should be as accessible as
any other necessity in life.
