The next battle over public schools
My name is Andre Dunbar. I am a senior at William L. Sayre High School in Philadelphia, and I am a student organizer with the Philadelphia Student Union.
The Philadelphia Student Union is fighting back against school closures and the transformation plans we are seeing in Philadelphia and nationally. As students we don't want to see what other cities are seeing now--closures that that are hurting their communities. These closures destroy our education.
Governor Corbett's cuts to education leave my district with less money, which leads the district to say that they cannot afford to keeps our schools open. But at the same time that Governor Corbett is cutting school funding, he is spending more money on prisons. This shows us his perception of us as students and where he expects us to end up in our future. Not investing in neighborhood schools like my school--Sayre High School--is setting us up to fail.
Soon, Dunbar and other students will descend on D.C. in a Jounrey for Justice -- God speed. I guess Mitt Romney and his pals are right when they call someone like Andre Dunbar a "taker." He's taking back hhis school.