MARCH FORTH recap

Good work everyone who protested their right to education!
U-Mass
University of California (one of my favorite videos)
SDSU Walk Out
Monroe Elementary in California !!!!
For more videos and stories like these about schools all over the U.S. (nearly thirty states participated today!) click here

If anyone else has any videos or pictures they would like to share, please e-mail them to educationisforeveryone@gmail.com

Future Meeting Information:

Hampshire College at 5 o'clock on Monday, March 8 in the Franklin Patterson Building

U-Mass at 5 o'clock Tuesday, March 9 in the Campus Center - Room 168c

FINAL MEETING INFO BEFORE MARCH 4, 2010

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

5 o'clock, Campus Center Room 165-169

U-Mass

There will be a sign-making party after!

Overview and history of the movement.

All over California right now there are walk-outs, occupations of buildings, and huge protests being staged at the UCs (University of California), California State Universities, and community colleges. To Californians, public education is supposed to mean access to all, including low-income students, immigrants, and people who are considered to be part of a minority group. It is also supposed to mean access to resources such as libraries, good professors, and specialized programs. UC Berkeley, for example, is considered one of the top academic institutions in the world, and is a public university. However, California has recently found itself in a financial crisis, with a statewide deficit of $42 billion. To cope with this severe lack of funds and inspired by neoliberal reforms that have been sweeping the nation for the last couple decades, the California government is cutting the amount of money they spend on their universities, thereby forcing the universities to “privatize.” In the University of California schools, the Regents (the board that runs the school) have recently approved a 32% increase in student fees over the next two years.

Privatization is a neoliberal tactic and can mean many things. In the case of privatizing California schools, it means replacing public funding with student fees, increased corporate sponsorship of academic research, and increased reliance on endowments, to name a few. Privatization means that universities will rely heavily on private donors and corporate funding, which means the corporate sponsors will potentially have the ability to dictate the material taught and to sway publicized results of research. Increased fees mean that many students will no longer be able to afford higher education.