On Wednesday, March 1st, hundreds of students demonstrated at the State Education building across from the Arena, chanting "We Want Nancy! We Want Nancy!" (Grasmick didn't come out, of course).

On Thursday, March 2nd, fewer students, bravely defying grey weather, rain, and other odds, rallied again, this time at the North Avenue BCPSS headquarers. Numbers were back up again to at least several hundred for the very clear and sunny, but also very cold and windy, Friday rally at City Hall. In fact, having seen the results of Wednesday and Thursday, O'Malley and his cronies were so nervous that they called in Algebra Project representatives early Friday morning in a vain, laughable last-minute attempt to get them not to rally and make a fuss. Algebra Project turned this pre-rally meeting to their advantage by presenting O'Malley with a list of pledges and demanding he sign his name on the bottom. When he refused, but did agree to hold a press conference Monday (one of the few demands he was OK with), Project reps departed, reported back, and ralliers outside continued their pressure.

Below is the political position of the Baltimore branch of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) on the student strike and what can really be won -- or more accurately over the long term, what can't -- as long as these bosses and their racist system remains in power.

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STRIKING IS GOOD- REVOLUTION IS BETTER

Strikes are a great way to go – actually, one of the best. Students and workers in this society would have almost no voice without strikes.

Think about the national headlines that were made recently by the MTA transit workers’ strike in New York City over retirement, pensions and wages issues, despite that strike’s “illegality” (it’s also “illegal” under Maryland law for teachers to strike). A generation ago, in April 1968, one million college students stayed away from their classes and shut universities down, showing the power of student activism to help end the Vietnam War. In 2003 in Baltimore, a School Board meeting was taken over in opposition to 800 school layoffs and the threat of 1200 more. And over the last three years, Baltimore’s students have held strikes, the Die-In, and rallies in response to the racist, fascist conditions of the Baltimore City schools.

We in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a revolutionary communist organization of both workers and students, applaud this latest strike and the broad support it has gotten from teachers, students and faculty. We wish that all Baltimore students and staff would take to the streets against these rotten school conditions! But there are reasons why conditions are the way they are. Don’t think it’s just neglect. Rich people control the lives of the rest of us on purpose. This society we live under is a system, and that system – capitalism – actually needs racism to survive, just as the system of slavery did. In fact, capitalism is a modern-day slave system: still brutal, just more undercover.

In 2005, statisticians found that as much as $226.8 billion in profit in the United States is made specifically from paying black and Hispanic people less than whites (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2004-2005). That equals almost a full one-third of total profits for these rich owners. Mostly it’s achieved by confining people of color to low-wage jobs like McDonalds and Wal-Mart. And as wages of workers of color get lower, all other wages do too, including those of whites. Meanwhile, who gets the extra billions? The rich people in power do! The capitalists know how deeply this structure benefits them. Capitalism won’t let go of racism or “grow out of it.” Instead, we need a revolution to break capitalism apart. With a communist system, we can run the world ourselves, without racism.

The rich rulers’ Big Plan always starts with education. It has to. Control of the classroom is an excellent political tool. Keeping the education of poor people below a certain level in childhood prepares them only just enough to get into meager jobs when they get older. All through school, racism and social class divisions (rich, middle, poor) are reinforced. There are private and prep-schools for the wealthy, and there are the public schools for everyone else.

Capitalists can’t afford to have more than a few well-educated working-class students in the population. Recent figures show that even just reducing class sizes of early grades in U.S. schools “shrinks the achievement gap by about 38%” (classsizematters.org). Imagine – if that were everybody in Baltimore, the rich would be in serious trouble. So, they can’t really allow the major reductions in class sizes across all grade levels or the serious rebuilding of schools that we are demanding. It would mean less could go to their own interests: profit (like gentrification) and war.

Of course, without struggle, we’ll never win. That’s why the strike is great! But we should fight for something more than the immediate goal. The immediate goal can always be taken away later, but a revolution for communism would take schools out of administrative hands and put them in worker and student control. That’s really what Baltimore, and the whole world, needs. Death to racism and capitalism! Fight for a communist future!

Progressive Labor Party / www.plp.org / Box 13426, Baltimore, MD 21203