Saturday, April 24, 2010

NorthJersey.com: 13,000 students sign up for walkout over aid cuts

NorthJersey.com: 13,000 students sign up for walkout over aid cuts

NJ students plan statewide walkout Tuesday
Saturday, April 24, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY APRIL 24, 2010, 9:48 AM
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER
A Facebook page encouraging New Jersey students to cut class Tuesday to rally against state aid reductions has more than 13,000 signed up to participate.
The page, called "Protest NJ Education Cuts – State Wide School Walk Out," exhorts students – with incorrect spelling at times — to express their outrage against state funding cuts. The event was launched before voters rejected most school budgets on Tuesday, but after Governor Christie announced he was freezing aid promised to districts this year and cutting $820 million for fiscal 2011. Christie says the cuts are necessary to close an $11 billion state budget gap.
"This is one of the most serious things to ever happen in the state of New Jersey," the Facebook page says. "The only potential for change lies in the students. The youth who will be effected [sic] by all these cuts need to rise up and do something."
Students from Hackensack High School, Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, Academies@Englewood and Rutgers University are among those who pledged to join the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. walkout.
The Christie administration has insisted students belong in class and accused teachers of staging a recent