Updates

Youth Justice Coalition's Day 1 of Freedom Factory Leads to Confrontation With LAPD
12/14/2011

By Youth Justice Coalition & Rise Up L.A. 12/13/2011

At 9:00 am on Tuesday December 13, 2011, Day 1 of the Freedom Factory, youth who have grown up in the communities of South Central Los Angeles, Watts, Inglewood and Compton liberated the L.A. City Library's Hyde Park branch on Crenshaw Blvd. and 66th Street. The action was sponsored by the Youth Justice Coalition and Rise Up L.A.

Located in the middle of one of L.A. County's poorest and least resourced areas, the library has been padlocked since 2004.  The goal for the action was to open the building for 4 days of community programming, and to demonstrate the benefit of youth and community centers.  (L.A. County invests less in youth development than any other large city in the nation.)  A planned schedule of activities included 3 meals a day, political education workshops, art and mural making, sports and theater classes, films and information on jobs and other community resources - all free for anyone in the community.   .

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2012 School-to-Prison Pipeline Regional ActionCamps - National
12/09/2011

The overuse of harsh zero-tolerance measures, police, and juvenile courts in addressing school disciplinary issues has led to the needless pushout and criminalization of countless youth across America. In response, a growing national movement has emerged to dismantle this School-to-Prison Pipeline.

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Podcast: Students Organize Around the Root Causes of School Pushout
11/17/2011

This 4-minute report features students' voices from a recent event called Youth Speak-Out Against Push Out. This event was organized by the Campaign for Nonviolent Schools and Education Not Incarceration of Delaware Valley, as part of the Dignity in Schools National Week of Action on School Pushout.

 Philadelphia Student Union members Shayla Johnson & Andrea Jobe produced this story for On Blast Radio.

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School Choice Discrimination Leaves No Choice for Vulnerable Youth of Color
11/15/2011

The term school choice is commonly used by corporate education reformers as a grotesque misnomer to disguise their attempted end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court’s seminal recognition in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) of the constitutional right of all children to equal educational opportunity, based upon the absolute rejection of the “separate but equal” concept of segregated public education.

School choice programs encourage privatized outsourcing of public education that increases academic segregation based on race, disability, language and poverty that undermines the concept of equal educational opportunity.

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