Sunday Update | New post up with links to local media stories on more than three dozen walkouts in ten states. More to come!
Saturday Update | New information is still coming in this morning. Be sure to follow @studentactivism on Twitter for the latest.
High school and college students in Madison, Wisconsin are planning a two o’clock walkout this afternoon, and they’re picking up support and planned solidarity demonstrations all over the country.
Students will be converging on the Library Mall on the University of Wisconsin campus for a teach-in on the state’s education budget cuts and new restrictions on collective bargaining at three o’clock.
Wisconsin students are encouraging students around the country to hold walkouts at two o’clock local time, and right now the national Facebook group for the walkout is currently closing in on six thousand members.
I’ll be updating this post over the course of the day as new information comes in.
11:00 am ET | More on today’s planned walkouts, including a statement from a Madison high school senior who is helping coordinate the whole thing.
11:30 am | Governor Walker has signed the budget bill. A formal signing ceremony is reportedly scheduled for three o’clock at the Capitol, the same time as the planned teach-in at UW.
11:55 am | So far I’ve heard official word of walkouts in Amherst, Massachusetts, the University of Illinois, and the University of Minnesota. More to come…
12:15 pm | Students from at least eight communities in Idaho held walkouts yesterday.
12:45 pm | Portland, Oregon, Mankato, Minnesota, Austin, Texas.
1:00 pm | Walkout coming next week in Skokie, Illinois.
2:20 pm | News of walkouts is starting to bubble up on Twitter. Most of the tweets don’t identify school or location, but Teaneck NJ, Louisville KY, and New Paltz NY are now on the map. One student has even tweeted a pic of a teacher blocking the classroom door to keep students in.
2:55 pm | More from Twitter: Three schools in Ithaca NY have walked out. And it’s worth pointing out that most people participating today aren’t tweeting about it. What we’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.
3:15 pm | According to one report on Twitter, administrators at a high school in Flint, Michigan just staged a fire drill to thwart a walkout as it was getting underway.
3:20 pm | Walkouts happening all over Wisconsin. Too many to keep up with.
3:35 pm | Reports on Twitter of walkouts in North Carolina and Ohio. That makes fourteen states and counting.
3:45 pm | Colorado, too.
4:15 pm | As the walkout reached the Mountain time zone and a teach-in began at the University of Wisconsin campus, Governor Scott Walker held a ceremonial signing for the bill at the State Capitol.
4:50 pm | The vast majority of today’s actions have taken place at high schools — I think I’ve only seen evidence of four or five college walkouts, out of a total of several dozen at least. Many of these students are reporting that they’ve been prevented from walking out, or punished for doing so. And as I noted on Twitter a few minutes ago, the fact that so many schools ban the possession of cell phones probably has a lot to do with the low profile of these actions on social media.
High school students face huge barriers to political organizing, and today’s events are particularly significant when seen in that light.
5:05 pm | New reports coming in of walkouts in Maryland and Alaska!
5:10 pm | And add Washington State to the list, too. That’s eighteen.
5:15 pm | Tennessee!
8:50 am Saturday | I’m starting to comb through news reports from last night, and I’ve already turned up one state that wasn’t on yesterday’s list — New Hampshire. Much more soon.
29 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 11, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Wesley Strong
Making sure you got my comment on FB – I’ll keep you up to date with ones I can find: Angus – I’ve found a ton of events via FB. check my profile: http://www.facebook.com/wcstrong also, add Idaho: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/10/2713324/high-schoolers-walk-out-to-protest.html
March 11, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Joe Fifield
A group of students held a walk-out at my small private school, Marshall School, in Duluth, Minnesota, at 2 this afternoon
March 11, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Wesley Strong
Lauriejean Brown posted Rochelle, IL on FB:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_187367814637933
March 11, 2011 at 4:50 pm
this is what Friday looks like « hahayourefunny
[…] this is what student activism (one form) looks like. I am surprised young people in CA aren’t mentioned. Step it […]
March 11, 2011 at 5:12 pm
kimikoko
It’s inspiring that so many of our youth made their voices heard today !!! Bless you guys. You are our future !!!
March 11, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Arturo Araya
Shame on those punishing those brave students who are standing up for themselves and for the rest of us. Shame on you! You think you are keeping order and being good teachers but what you are actually doing is preventing the best civics lesson of the century from taking place, and gagging our young people in the process. Shame on you!!
March 11, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Wisdom
Students should take action against any teachers preventing them from leaving- slash their tires, etc, but leave a note making it clear there are consequences to stifling free speech and political protesting.
March 11, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Wesley Strong
Victoria Sheila Gross
I go to a school in New York City, and I gathered up people to walk out at 2pm to go peacefully protest in front of our school. We all got detentions, but it’s all about standing up for what’s right. We are the youth. We need to be starting revolutions.
Keep on fighting, Wisconsin!
From FB: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_187367814637933
March 11, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Marc Osten
REPORT FROM AMHERST, MASS
200+ students – amazing speeches – a heart wrenching story from a student – singing – and whole lot of learning
That is what I witnessed outside the Amherst Regional High School 55 minutes ago. Jonathan Simonds and Daniel Osten deserve props for taking the Wisconsin students call to action and triggering action in solidarity.
Videos and photos will be posted within the next few hours.
Marc – A proud father and supporter of youth civic action
March 11, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Emmett Ross
can you make a full list of the states that had walkouts?
thanks!
March 11, 2011 at 9:03 pm
cynematic
Hi, I run a grassroots news site on education news, and I’d love to get some first-person student voices saying why they walked out in support of teachers/unions.
http://www.k12newsnetwork.com
We start from the premise that parents, educators, and students make the news, and these are the very voices that should have the greatest impact on education policy. (I’m also parent of a public school kid.) We’re very interested in reporting what corporate media won’t.
I’m happy to re-post/cross-post pieces that have already appeared online. You can contact me, Cynthia, at k12newsnetwork@gmail.com.
Thanks!
March 11, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Jerry Prager
Wisdom is a provocateur and no one should listen to him/her.
Slashing tires is a BAD idea, and creates foolish consequences and does nothing to further your cause, go and peace and go together. This is just beginning, and you who walked, and those who will yet walk out will be walking in to American history. This is the start of the 2nd American Revolution: the first gave you a republic: the second will guarantee your democracy.
March 11, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Jerry Prager
Canada will have your back once we get rid of our own anti-democrats.
March 12, 2011 at 1:13 am
Lior Avishay
Students at Granada Hills Charter High school in Granada Hills Ca.
were calling for a walkout, only to be told by the school’s principal that they will be suspened and that the “ring leaders” will be expelled.
Shame on GHCH for not allowing their students to express their support.
March 12, 2011 at 1:27 am
Wesley Strong
Thats the legacy of Morse V. Fredereick – HS students effectively have no free speech rights! Call the National Lawyers Guild, ACLU, and others, get help.
March 12, 2011 at 8:20 am
«Madison, do not retreat» « waltendegewalt
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March 12, 2011 at 9:59 am
muhammed
I am disappointed that rather than keeping our kids learning, they are being hassled and distracted with these purely political efforts. Hey, Gacy, leave those kids alone applies to Moore and his ilk as well. I am hoping that people can see through Moore’s “kill the rich” advocacy. Stealing all the money that billionaires have, and the majority in highly volitile stock wealth, and giving it to say, address just obama’s deficit this year, well we would only be 3/4 of the way there, but in the process would have lost the half million people they employ. Students: Study hard, work hard, create your own business, get out of victim ville and giving your hard earned pennies to this tub of lard who does nothing, for his own employees, but instead sues for millions more in his own profit.
March 12, 2011 at 11:16 am
Scott
To: Muhammed the Racist … I think the Klan meeting is what You want . WOW, You Really are the Best advertisement for the Left, PLEASE Keep it UP and Thank-YOU !
March 12, 2011 at 11:51 am
Jesse Banks
I was one of the students organizing this on the Madison end; I’m trying to compile articles and other documentation on the Wisconsin Students in Solidarity facebook page, so if anyone has links send them to jesse.m.banks@gmail.com
March 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm
muhammed
@Scott. So anyone sho disagrees with the socialist agenda that puts politics ahead of learning is a racist? That is so last century dude. Did not you see Larry William’s piece on Comedy Central: The race card is maxed out. Get back to work. Work hard, learn, prepare for life. You will be amazed a the effects of study and hard word. I see that no-where on this agenda
March 12, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Angus Johnston
Muhammed, Scott, Wisdom: I’ve been AFK and not monitoring this thread, but I need you all to take a step back. Ease off on the flames and the silly pissing matches, or I’m going to start deleting comments.
Thanks.
March 12, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Lynn in Montana
Angus,
Thank you so much for posting this information while it was largely ignored elsewhere. So many folks wanted updates so I kept retweeting and posting the link on HuffPost, which at least had the article pre-walkout. Their updates came well after yours.
I watched the Livestream of the Walkout and was so impressed with the will and guts of these students, and their grasp of the big picture. To those who think that these young people are not thinking for themselves: Bah! Watch the interviews.
I look forward to more updates about yesterday’s Walkouts.
March 12, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Marc Osten
Great pictures of the students in action here in Amherst, Mass.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21699097@N05/sets/72157626126080559
March 13, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Marc Osten
Front page press coverage of Amherst student walk-out! http://bit.ly/ga8WPz
Angus – Would you like me to connect you to the two organizers. They might be a good short interview.
March 13, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Tracy in W. Seattle
Our journalist-operated news website covering Seattle’s largest neighborhood just published the story of a walkout in our area – group of 13 middle-schoolers at Denny Int’l Middle School in West Seattle, WA:
http://westseattleblog.com/2011/03/video-west-seattle-students-join-nationwide-protest
March 13, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Some signs of life. | Cautiously pessimistic
[…] The class war continues to heat up in the US as Wisconsin slowly moves towards a general strike. A high school walkout on Friday got a response from around the country, firefighters managed to shut down a bank that funds the Republicans, and Clifford Harper’s […]
March 13, 2011 at 2:48 pm
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March 14, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Student Activism « rhizomatic transgressor
[…] in at least twenty states staged walkouts on Friday, supporting teachers (and teachers’ unions) in Wisconsin and throughout the […]
March 19, 2011 at 7:13 pm
salaam-mander
muhammed-these students are using the rights they are given to call attention to an agregious wrong that has been commited against people that have “studied and worked hard”.what is wrong with that?