A high school rebellion in Maryland

AN ATMOSPHERE of intimidation hangs over Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Md.

Last week, students prepared to stage a walkout to protest overcrowded classrooms, unsanitary conditions and the exploitation of teachers. Four students were suspended for five days each for organizing the event, which was intended to coincide with the March 1 Day of Action to defend education against budget cuts.

Northwestern's administration threatened to punish anyone taking part. Even that was not enough. The only reason the walkout failed, as one participant explained on Facebook later in the day, was because "the doors were locked, canine units were in the parking lot, the administration was illegally filming students, and cops were intimidating the students [into going] to class. They marched around chanting in the halls instead. Hundreds of students participated."

Other sources indicate that the doors were not actually locked (a fire-code violation), but that police and teachers blocked all exits.

Located in Prince George's County, just outside Washington, D.C., the school has a largely Black and Latino student body, from working-class families. The demand for better conditions and a decent education--as opposed to "teaching to the test"--won strong support as young activists prepared for the event over the past two months.

The administration was caught almost completely off-guard. Students now believe that the school police officer had been monitoring discussions among students on Twitter. But only the morning of the protest did he figure out what "Xbox" really meant. (The code name for the March 1 action was a shrewd choice: Any adult hearing it mentioned would assume the kids were just really excited about some video-gaming event.)

Word of the clampdown at Northwestern High is spreading. Labor activists and members of Occupy D.C. have offered legal aid and other kinds of support, and anyone who wants to help defend the students can put pressure on the officials named in a posting to the Occupy Education blog.

INSPIRATION FOR Thursday's protest came from El Cambio, a discussion group on social and political issues that formed at Northwestern High during the fall semester. As its name may suggest, El Cambio ("Change") was inspired in part by the wave of struggles that spread throughout the world in 2011.

It also has a special resonance during this election year. Some of the students were in elementary school when Barak Obama promised change during his 2008 campaign. But the only thing that's improved over the past four years is the corporations' bottom line, thanks to massive layoffs and constant attacks on workers' benefits. In their own time at Northwestern High School, students have seen Filipino educators brought in to fill teaching positions in Prince George's County--only to be discarded by the school system and left to face possible deportation.

But rather than become cynical about change, they've opted to fight for it. To build support for the March 1 action, members of El Cambio circulated a fact sheet listing their grounds for protesting. It is both impressive and appalling, and deserves to be quoted in full:

The Students Are Angry!

Students at Northwestern have found feces on the bathroom floors, puke in the water fountains, broken sinks, missing stall doors, and rooms lacking ceiling throughout our campus. The food we are typically served is not nutritious or sanitary; one student found a tooth in their hamburger!

Class sizes are enormous in our schools. It is too common to attend classes with over 40 students in it! This is intolerable. How are teachers supposed to enrich our minds with so many students to deal with at once?

For three years, our teachers have been denied obligated pay raises, and now the government is talking about not paying teachers for earning national certification and masters degrees!

Prince George's County promised our school's band funding to go to nationals. The County broke their promise and denied them funding.

The County has cut funding for our ESOL programs, threatening our Latino brothers' and sisters' opportunity for a better life and their right to an education.

Filipino teachers in Prince George's County, and throughout the nation, have been exploited and deported.

Students have pretty much no say in educational policies. The politicians advocating more "standards" and the steel fist of dictatorship over our educational environments are unjust and misguided Students, teachers, and parents should have control over our education, not politicians!

WE DEMAND CHANGE!

Nobody should expect bureaucrats to be delighted when their routines are disrupted. But any educational institution with the least respect for its students would consider this document a credit to everyone involved. It is well-considered and socially minded. The concerns it expresses sound valid. And there's not the slightest hint of adolescent prankishness.

The students operated, in short, like serious political people. That makes the response by Northwestern High's administration quite revealing.

"I was called into the principal's office at about 10:50 that morning," says Carlos, one of the El Cambio members put on suspension. (To protect activists from further harassment, SW will not use their real names.) When he reached the waiting room, Carlos says he saw "another kid there who hadn't had anything to do with the walkout. He was facing expulsion because he wrote something on Twitter about it."

So began several hours of threats and harangues by administrators. According to Carlos:

They told us if anyone walked out, that person would be expelled, and we'd be held accountable for everything. A friend of mine came to the office to try to defend me, and they wouldn't let him go--they charged him with the same thing. They said we were out to create anarchy and riots, that they couldn't trust us.

When students tried to walk out at 2:40 that afternoon, suspension papers were drawn up for Carlos and three other alleged ringleaders.

"They took away our civil rights of assembly and free speech," he says. "The way they said it was going to turn into a riot was pretty racist, like they assumed that since the students are nearly all minority, that's what we'd do. But we have morals and codes." Not to mention every reason in the world to protest.

THIRTY PEOPLE who had heard about the walkout showed up to express solidarity--only to be greeted by at least six police cars, forcing them to rally on a street corner nearby. They held signs reading "Moms support students rights," "Stand against anti-immigrant racism" and "Books not bombs," and drivers honked in support.

When school let out, a number of students joined the rally, and discussion began about how to rescind the expulsions. In an essay written the following day, one of the suspended students quoted a Northwestern administrator who said that the police were prepared to bash some skulls in.

But in fact, the student wrote, "the event was almost entirely peaceful. There were no incidents of fighting, intentional destruction of property, or attacks on staff. In fact, the only aggression in the halls of Northwestern was committed by the administration and police, who were pushing and grabbing people."

The idea was to teach students a lesson--and a teacher who heard about the events at Northwestern High spelled it out very clearly in a message to colleagues:

Some have theorized that there are really three public educational systems in this country. Schools for the ruling class teach children to think independently. Schools for the children of managers and professionals have to teach how to think critically. And schools for the working class have to teach how to follow directions and obey. And that was really the lesson from yesterday. People like you are not supposed to think for themselves. Democracy is not for people like you. Your job is simply to obey.

Thankfully, I think the kids have learned a different lesson: that if they are going to fight for their rights, institutions like even their own school will not be on their side.

But that's not the only lesson.

Two or three years ago, college students began feeling anxious--trapped by an economy that was shaky on the best of days. Now, high schoolers are starting to figure out a few things.

Hardly anyone believes that steady work and a living wage are just a recovery away. Poor and working-class kids get underfunded, crumbling and often prison-like schools for an obvious reason: Capitalism has no reason to invest in public education when there aren't going to be jobs to fill.

But it doesn't have to be that way. The millionaires and billionaires have two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, to look out for their interests. It's time for a new student movement that doesn't fall for either of them. Forget about Obama and listen to Frederick Douglass instead:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

Students at Northwestern High have learned that lesson. Imagine if thousands more did, all around the country--refusing to accept the future of low wages, or no wages, which is all that Wall Street and Wal-Mart have to offer. (You're never too young to find out that the capitalist system does not have your interests at heart.)

A movement like that would give the 1 percent nightmares--and the rest of us, hope.