Meet the California Students Who Stormed the State Capitol to Demand Funding For Their Futures
- Johnathen Duran
- in
- Politics
- 9 hours ago
Meet the California Students Who Stormed the State Capitol to Demand Funding For Their Futures
In the dark hours of the night, 22 student-activists from California colleges drove in two vans to be in Sacramento this past Monday morning. At 9 a.m. on June 10th, without permission to be on the premises, they staged an Un-Silent protest from the sidewalk out front of the very hospitable state capitol. Signs in hand, mouths taped shut, they made their voices heard by challenging legislators to support the Governor Brown-supported Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).
Whereas the current system, rooted in age-old partisan bickering and mired in Proposition 13, has created an education system in which students are out to survive rather than thrive, the LCFF will "increase flexibility and accountability at the local level so those closest to the students can make the decisions, reduce state bureaucracy, and ensure that student needs drive the allocation of resources."
Let's start from the beginning.
I spoke with Ivette Alonso, a student who just finished her junior year at Whittier College, a small "liberal arts college that pushes students to question the world around them." Ivette found her place at Whittier College, and a place in a class with a mouthful of title: The Sociological and