* Because California spends $7,571 dollars per student on K-12 education each year. (49th in the country…ahead of only Utah.) And we spend $216,081 dollars per incarcerated youth on the juvenile justice system each year

* Because I spent my undergrad years at Wisconsin fighting this same fight. We won some battles, lost others, but the struggle continues.

* Because Prop 13 is the devil. Tax the rich!

* Because it’s bigger than our individual administrators. It’s bigger than Schwarzenegger. And Obama isn’t bailing out anyone other than the banks.

* Because I go to over 50 middle and high schools each year with Youth Speaks, and I see the classes with over 40 students, the teachers terrified of pink slips, and the total disparity between schools in Marin versus right across the bridge in Richmond. Budget cuts don’t affect everyone equally. They hit the working class schools and communities of color the hardest.

* Because I love my students.

* Because direct action gets the goods. It’s time to get off Facebook, off Twitter, off our collective asses and reclaim our voices. Reclaim our power.

* Because we need more than just students, teachers, and faculty. We need the workers, we need the parents and grandmamas, we need the neighbors singing in every language.

* Because this is about more than just education. There is a crisis in California, an ongoing conflict that is going on all over America. About public programs vs. privatization, BART fare hikes vs. car culture & mini-malls, basic rights vs. endless war. We don’t need just to stop the budget cuts, we need to start a new era of collective thinking and resistance.

* Because there’s going to be protests all over the Bay Area, in Sacramento, and at every CSU in the state. Find the action near you!

* Because this is about solidarity. I have your back, you have mine. An injury to one is an injury to all. Love thy neighbor.

This is about solidarity. Don’t believe me? Watch my friend and comrade Isaac Miller below, busting his poem at the UC-Berkeley strike last fall. And this Thursday, March 4…I’ll see you in the streets!

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