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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Just sayin'
@2, I'm a Greener myself, and most of the student body is in classes with more traditional organization that all the jokes and stereotypes would have you believe. My schedule at Evergreen looks nearly identical to the schedule I had at the UW. So a walkout would be noticed, but again....*how* does that influence the leg any more than writing my rep?
Walking out, acting in mass, shows your legislators that you're willing to take an action rather than just write a letter or make a phone call. What are you missing when you spend the time to write a letter? Nothing much... there's a very low opportunity cost. When you walk out, you're sacrificing a few hundred dollars' worth of tuition. You're saying that it's more important to tell them that what they're doing is wrong than to be in your class at that particular time.
If enough people do that, walk out of their classes, that sends a rather strong message to legislators.
Walkouts will do nothing unless they effect the tax base.
Building massive vanity projects like the Deeply Borrowed Tunnel is way more important than funding Education ...
It's not like the State Constitution says that's important or anything, right?
Why do you hate the Republicants' funders so?
Get involved. Stay Involved. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!!!
That's really cool that you believe everything you just wrote but you are forgetting one important thing. All these students walking out of school is not going to change the fact that the state is broke. When you are broke you have to spend less. When you get out of school and start to pay bills you will learn this.
Get involved. Stay Involved. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!!!
But you know, maybe it's true, I just have to believe - we'll do this student walkout, and the leg will decide, "gee, I *was* going to listen to the part of my constituency that demands I balance the budget, but now that I know college students are willing to **skip class**, something they never ever do......"
I am a 40 year old married parent of two children who has been paying bills for 22 of those years, so I guess I have "learned this", as you say.
And guess what? We already do spend a heck of a lot less! Most college students I know are just getting by, and not because they are irresponsible, or lazy, or didn't know how to manage their money (most of them also hold jobs). It's because of flattened wages for our working class, insurers providing less and charging more, companies dropping retirement packages for their employees and reducing hours so as not to have to provide any benefits at all.
We didn't make the state broke anymore than we made the nation broke. Look to the top 1% of wealthy CEO's of banks, insurers and corporations for that. They gambled away our money and expect us to foot the bill, on the backs of newly-graduated students.
I remember several things that happened right after the President announced that the UC was taking an enormous budget cut. Students were facing a then-potential 32% increase in student tuition and major cuts in the number of classes that were available.
I can tell you, there were people in the streets, up in classrooms walking out, staff and faculty demonstrating their opposition, and screaming newspapers and emails.
And what did I think about the walkouts?
Disruptive.
I understand that there is a need for action, and that letters can only do so much. But I was there to get an education. I was in class to listen to what my professor had to say, and teach me facts that I needed to know (Now, whether or not the history of 18th century America is vital to my future career is a whole new discussion). If I had joined that walkout, and the many others that went on before and after, I would have missed out on working towards my degree.
Yes, the value of the school's degree will decrease if the quality of education that went into it decreases.
Yes, walkouts make an unmistakable point in the eyes of the administrators and legislators.
But think about it. Why are students in school in the first place? I think many of the "maybes" on the Facebook walkout pages are the result of students being pinned between the notion of taking action against the budget cuts that will jeopardize their future and the need to get to class and get the most out of the thousands of dollars they are already investing in their education, most of which may be in the form of student loans.
Now, having said all that, I would like to point out that I am deeply disappointed in the stance the legislators took regarding education (particularly the legislators in CA). This is a problem that is not just plaguing Washington but the entire US as well. Students across the country need to work together to remind the legislators how it was that they got their jobs in the first place.
I understand how there will be no gain without any sacrifices. But I just can't see myself tossing aside a few thousand dollars of my parents' money that they worked for and saved just for me so I can go disrupt my fellow classmates' attempts at getting what education they can.
@15 FTW. Still waiting to hear from the students what essential state services should lose $600m to keep the schools at current funding levels. Regardless of the why, poor is poor.
Want to really solve the problem? Change the laws so schools don't have to pay so much to out-of-state (gasp!) insurance companies. Blanket immunity from liability lawsuits, like the kind handed out by the feds for wiretapping and other civil liberties crimes. Free health care from UW Med. Things like that. Spend the money on actual education, not on the leeches making fortunes off the state.
Anyway I hope this really does happen and does make an impact, though I think it will take more than a walkout to get anyone to listen. Students aren't taken seriously (see points above). We need to do something bigger, more drastic, be less afraid to get into trouble, you know? No revolutionary change happened without a few hundred maybe even thousand people in jail...