(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Before Chicago teachers were forced back into the classroom, while they were staying busy protesting about having to resume work, a horde of woke students were learning all the wrong lessons and were quick to put into action the same tactics as their leftist educators.
At least 500 students staged a walkout of Chicago classrooms last week to spew a whole litany of so-called needs for safer school conditions and demands for more inclusion, equity and racial justice during the surge of COVID-19 cases, reported the Blaze.
And what better way to show concern for the necessity of vaccine mandates, masking policies and social distancing than to hold a crowded protest, which is what they did.
Students demanded schools shift to remote learning for two weeks and provide free COVID testing and N-95 masks. They also want mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and no spectators at sporting events.
The social justice gadflies kicked it up a notch to include demands for free at-home tutoring, free personal laptops and cold hard cash to fight “inequitable structures and oppressive systems.”
That type of endeavor, obviously, can’t be accomplished without “access to high speed wifi, that has at least 10 Mbps of download speed and 1 Mbps of upload speed,” which the students demanded, and also insisted the free laptops must have at least “4GB RAM & 512GB storage, and at least 8 hours of battery life.”
The cash would come in the form of COVID-19 relief stipends “to help cover the necessities that families are going through during these times beyond food.”
In a letter of grievances, the students blasted Chicago officials while backing the Chicago Teachers Union and their anti-education strike, reported ABC News.
“As you consistently prove yourself and your leadership to be incompetent, we as Black and Brown young people are the common denominator of being the most harmed and impacted,” the letter read. “We are tired, exhausted, and frustrated.”
Chicago Public Schools officials, in response, said they are “committed to fostering learning environments that allow students to respectfully deliberate issues with evidence and an open mind – and safely participate in civic action.”
Test scores in Chicago schools, meanwhile, continue to plummet, with 80% of students failing to achieve basic proficiency in reading and math.
Boston schools have wallowed in a similar testing plunge, and officials there offered an equally tepid response when students staged a classroom walkout and held a webinar to discuss their pandemic fears.
The students demanded a two-week remote learning period, proper personal protective equipment for teachers, adequate technology for remote learning and the cancellation of some standardized testing.
Upon hearing the demands, schools officials were quick to not tell students to return to classrooms and resume learning because of course they didn’t.
The government wonks and bureaucrats with Boston Public Schools said they believe “deeply in students advocating for what they believe in.”
“We further believe it is critically important that we encourage and support them in expressing their concerns, beliefs and positions to their leaders,” the statement said.
Less then 34 precent of Boston public school students in third through eighth grade met grade-level exceptions in math, while only 46 percent scored at grade level in reading.
