(Editor's Note: Yohuru Williams is a contributor to our current issue on the threats to public education in America; subscribe here to read the full issue.)
Since her horrific shooting at the hands of the Taliban in October of 2012 simply for attending school, Malala Yousafzai has become an international symbol of student activism and the power of education. Even before becoming the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, her story was shared widely. She continues to be held up as a symbol of the power of youth to challenge oppression and injustice.
Yousafzai even had a private audience at the White House when she visited Washington, in October of 2013. She sat with president Obama, firmly advising him that the use of drones fueled terrorism. In a subsequent interview, she revealed how she “thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees.” Her expression of gratitude confirmed what many persist in celebrating as America’s deep commitment to education and democracy abroad. Government officials have spoken powerfully in support of pro-democracy rallies across the globe and consistently affirmed the right of youth to have access to a quality education.
When Yousafzai left the White House, however, she was whisked away to speak at the exclusive private school that the President’s daughters and other children of privilege attend. That she was not scheduled to speak or at least tour one of the District’s public schools illustrates a much larger problem. Despite our insistence on democracy and justice abroad, both are failing here in the United States in the one place we need them desperately, our public schools.
In reality, Yousafzai has much in common with many American students who are speaking out powerfully and passionately in defense of public education in the United States. While they may not be facing down guns, they are endangered by policies and practices ushered in by corporate education reformers like former DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee that not only deny their access to education but also their human dignity and worth.
Students across the nation have borne the brunt of top down policies that reinforce economic inequality, label them, their teachers, and their schools as failures, force school closures, and encourage outright segregation while limiting curriculum choices and subjecting them to high stakes testing.
Students have been speaking out about these polices from Providence, Rhode Island and Denver, Colorado to Newark, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois. They were not rewarded with visits to the White House but rather face hostility, indifference, and in some cases, even violence.
When they acted within the system, respecting the rules of democratic practice by petitioning officials for redress and requesting the opportunity to be heard, they met with mockery. When they took to the streets or engaged in acts of civil disobedience, like the Philadelphia students who staged a sit-in at a School Reform Commission session, they were treated with ridicule and disrespect, in many cases by the same people and