Filed under: Teens & Tweens, In The News, Education

Newark police try to contain hundreds of students from a University High School march chanting “Christie has to go.” One officer estimated the crowd of students to be 500. Credit: Andrew Mills, The Star-Ledger

New Jersey high school students took a lesson in civil disobedience today when thousands walked out of class to protest Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed education cuts, the Star-Ledger reports.

The walkout was organized on a Facebook page, where more than 16,000 students signed up to participate.

“Phone calls, texts, Twitter, Facebook, everything,” says Malcolm X. Shabazz high school senior Donald Jackson, 17 who was leading a march of fellow students. “We’re protesting budget cuts, cuts in lunch, after school programs, it has to stop.”

College student Michelle Ryan Lauto, 18, who went to high school in New Jersey, set up the Facebook event page about a month ago encouraging the walkouts. She tells the Star-Ledger she finds it “disturbing” that her little sister may go through a school system far different than that one she did.

“I think the best outcome would be for the students to be in school and find a way to protest outside of school hours,” says Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

Related: Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green Star in Video Protesting School Budget Cuts in California

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on ParentDish