1. Democratize Education
The educational system and the educational reform process has become undemocratic and is controlled by those least connected to the educational process.
Therefore:
a. The students, parents, and teachers should be the primary influence in the educational system and reform process;
b. Improve budget transparency in educational institutions, public and private.
2. Improve Students’ Access to Higher Education and Citizenship
The inability to access higher education due to socioeconomic status systematically curtails students’ abilities to claim their right to an education:.
Therefore:
a. Reassess the formula that determines the amount a family is expected to contribute to their student’s education cost because the current formula gives an inaccurate picture of what a family is able to afford;
b. Provide a path toward citizenship to all undocumented persons who earn a degree in post- secondary education
c. Gradually replace loans as a means of financing higher education with grants, beginning with student of lowest incomes, moving upwards
d. Call upon states to prioritize their budgets to serve students' financial and academic interests at all levels of education.
3. De-Privatize the Student Loan Industry
Privatization of and abusive policies regarding student loans leave students drowning in debt and often result in their inability to pay with lifelong damaging effects of loan default.
Therefore:
a. The federal government should reclaim sole authority in financing student education;
b. Maintain and improve upon the federal income based repayment and federal loan forgiveness programs;
c. Improve regulations and cap loan interest rates;
d. Make lending policies transparent and put student loan contracts in terms that are understandable and accessible to students.
4. Remove Corporate Influence from Education
The outsized influence of capitalist economics in the educational system undermines the pursuit of knowledge and social development as the equally-important goals of education.
Therefore:
a. Facilitate the development of curricula that are connected to the needs of the community and promotes an increased, multi-perspective understanding of existing social, economic, and political paradigms; (eg. Gender, Ethnic, and Alternative Economic and Governance Studies)
b. Redefine the measures of success throughout the educational system in a way that gives equal weight to all goals of education;
c. Eliminate standardized testing as a measure of success throughout the educational system.
5. Improve Funding for Education
The poor quality of education resulting from the use of the property tax system to finance public education, which perpetuates cycles of inequality and creates a lack of opportunity amongst impoverished and marginalized communities.
Therefore:
a. States should fund their educational system through a means that provides adequate resources to all schools and is equitably shared;
b. All educational institutions should eliminate corporate influence and remain exclusively zones for education, not advertisement;
c. Eliminate all costs associated with attendance in public primary, middle, and high school, including, but not limited to, those costs associated with textbooks, lunches, busing, and writing materials.
Education is a right accorded to all persons, not a privilege. We the students stand to lay claim to this right. We demand the state take responsibility for providing for all its residents. Our demands for a better education are a first step in a larger struggle for a better social order. This greater struggle has begun with a new Great Awakening, a realization that we must radically alter our
social, political, and economic institutions. Be certain that once we reach our full level of consciousness, we expect to take back education into our own hands—free, fair, and accessible to all those who seek it. We the students hold the power and plan to exercise it.
-The Students
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