May Day Walkouts - Our Support

Please take the time to read this. It is long, but very important.
Please stand behind our youth on May 1st!

Support Student Walkouts On May Day

On May 1st, International Workers Day, hundreds of thousands
to millions of students around the country walk out of school
as they join workers in not going to work and consumers in
buying nothing, as our movement demands rights for migrants
and all others; a new way of engaging with the world.

Underlying this message will be an end of the war against the
people of Iraq and the insidious beginnings of a war against
the people of Iran. Also, as many students suffer conditions
that drive them out of school on a consistent basis,
students will also be protesting the disreputable conditions
that they have been forced to learn under in the world's most
wealthy nation.

Further, at the root of these protests will be a call of pain and
protest at the genocide of the people of New Orleans and the
continued neglect of people of color throughout the United States.
Finally, it will be a call for a new way of life that respects
the earth and the life on the earth, and the building blocks of
a movement that can envision deep and meaningful changes to an
empire that is beginning to crumble.

At the end of March 2006 in an act of bravery hundreds of thousands
of students walked out of schools throughout the country to
demand rights for themselves, their families and their friends;
for the 12 million people who live as second class citizens in
this nation. In response, instead of praising the bravery,
ingenuity and commitment of these student leaders; students
who realized that history could be taken into their own hands,
rather than just read about in their textbooks a myopic standards-
driven, education system cracked down on students throughout the
country- Suspending them, threatening their parents, and in some
cases incarcerating them.

The most tragic and powerful example of this was the push to death of
Anthony Soltero. Anthony was fourteen years old when he lead a
student walkout at his middle school in Ontario, California. He
was a third generation immigrant, who lead the walkouts because
he believed the cause was just and wanted to support it. On March
30, 2006, Anthony was driven to suicide by an education system that
has lost touch with its youth.

We live in a nation where students are driven out of school - over
50 PERCENT! of African American males don't finish school in our
inner cities and 60% of these youth end up incarcerated by the time
they are in their mid-thirties. Anthony's death, as a young Latino,
served as a perfect example of an education system out of touch with
students' needs.

On May 1st when hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of youth
walk out of school around the country to demand justice for the
12 million people who live in this nation as second class citizens,
we must stand with our future. NO MORE ANTHONY SOLTERO TRAGEDIES

How can we support the immigrant community in their struggle and
stand with the youth on May 1st?

1. We should work to secure formal endorsement of National
Education Association of May Day action.
2. We must protect the students and their families from
harassments of all kinds, Police brutality, government and
educational system repression.
3. We must prepare youth and their family by making sure
they understand and get the necessary help from ACLU, Lawyers Guild
and informed progressive individuals.
4. We need to dismantle their fear of the system through our
participation
and assisting in shaping demands for the walkouts.
We must educate them of the history of walkouts and their effect
in creating change.
5. We should organize our own actions, including leading a
call for a general strike and a buy/sell nothing day on May 1st.
We can plan to protest along side students, and create support
material to help students prepare for walkouts contact
ednotinc [at] riseup.net. We will post it to our website- http://www.ednotinc.org
6. Once walkouts begin we should go with them. In fact, for
educators it is our moral/LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY to go with students
and make sure they are safe when they leave school. We should make
sure they stay safe and are not attacked by anyone in the process.
We should build relationships with young people and parents so that
they trust us.
7. We must stop administrators and education system, police
and government harass students. We should stand beside them afterwards.
We should reassure them that we believe in them and will support them
in taking the steps they see necessary in creating change. We should
let them know that if they learn nothing else in school, to learn to
care about each other and to take principled, responsible stances
are the most important things they can do.