Save Our Schools Rally - A Huge Turnout!
On May 25, TSJ joined several thousand fired-up teachers, parents, students, and school staff, in a huge show of outreach at CPS's proposed budget cuts.
Marching from CPS headquarters to City Hall, we took to the streets with demands:
* Save our Schools!
* Chop from the Top!
* Stop investing in Private Schools!
* The Money is There- Give the TIF $ back to the People!
Clark Street was clogged with buses unloading marchers (by our count about 40 buses). As part of the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), TSJ and other GEM partners (KOCO, Blocks Together, Pilsen Alliance, among others present) joined the current leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union and CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) which initiated the rally in the union and is in a run-off for the leadership.
This powerful outpouring signaled the power of unity between teachers and community that we will need we will need to defeat the drastic budget cuts hitting school districts around the country as politicians, corporations and banks try to dump their financial crisis on our backs.
The rally gave us a taste of the power of the teachers union, a sleeping giant, which if fully awakened as a social justice union in principled alliance with children and communities, has the strength to bring the city and the school district to listen to the people' demands. This is why it is strategically important to support CORE for the CTU runoff election on June 11!
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