Laying out their demands

Last week, students in Baltimore, MD staged a creative protest against the school system:

Young bodies sprawled out across the cold sidewalk on West Baltimore Street yesterday. There were at least 400 of them in all, Baltimore public school students, lying still as if they were dead.

They hoped the officials across the street and safely inside at the Maryland State Department of Education would hear their cry:

"No education, no life."

It was Day 1 of a three-day student strike, protesting the impending closure of several Baltimore school buildings.

The students were protesting a move to close school buildings in a system with a capacity for 125,000 students but only 85,000 enrolled. Thus, with a surplus of space for 40,000 students, it makes sense to close a few buildings, or offer the buildings to other government agencies or even charter schools.

The students are not protesting simply the closure of the schools, but the conditions of the remaining schools, which appear to be grossly overcrowded. According to the story:

Wayne Washington, a junior at Heritage High School in the Lake Clifton High School complex, said he has 37 to 40 students in each of his classes. Learning anything, he said, is "real hard." He said class-size reduction would be impossible if the school system moves Hamilton Middle and Laurence G. Paquin Middle/High School into the Lake Clifton building as proposed because there wouldn't be any extra classrooms.

A group of girls from Thurgood Marshall High School described a school in chaos. They said they don't have adequate heat, drinking water, books or toilet paper. They said the school has mice and a serious roach problem, including in the cafeteria.

Previously, I have advocated for parents (and by extension students) need to get a little confrontational with school systems to make their voices heard. Such activity is necessary in order to prevent stupidity and stupid management decisions. While I don't necessarily see small class sizes as a panacea to school ills, having 35 plus kids in a classroom and school with a rodent and insect problem, with security issues and lack of supplies is clearly not even an acceptable situation, let alone an ideal situation.

Granted, the school system is under pressure from the state to operate more efficiently, but you can be sure that no one has thought about ways to do that, rather they simply see the dollar signs associated with closing some buildings without thinking about other impacts. Efficient operations does not mean simply closing buildings, but operating with a little common sense.

So here are my questions. First, what genius decided on the current course of action without actually thinking about the consequences? Second, whose job is it to make facilities safe, habitable and useable as educational institutions? Because that person and their entire staff needs to be fired, right down the janitors at the schools. Third, who is in charge of assigning children to schools? That person needs to have their head examined as well as their math credentials because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you have space for 125,000 students, cramming 35 or 40 students into one math class is not an efficient use of space and time. Fourth, what on earth is the school administration thinking about, because it surely is not the education of the students in their charge.

Finally, where are these students' parents??!! Their kids on a school strike, but where are the parents, the taxpaying, voting parents. While the kids make a dramatic point, the undeniably sad fact is that they will not be heard as well as 400 kids and their 800 parents and their 1600 neighbors and their 3000 friends.

Good luck to these kids and their efforts.