On Blast

In September, students from Philadelphia Student Union went to Immokalee Florida for a conference put on by the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA). Eric Yates conducted this interview with John Michael Torres, an activist and steering committee member of the SFA, which is part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers(CIW).

During the conference, PSU members learned about the CIW's campaign for a better contract with Subway. On December 2, Subway gave in to the workers' demands and CIW announced a major victory in this campaign!

Almost every student in Philadelphia has to wear uniforms. But what is the real purpose? And are uniforms helpful or hurtful to students? Produced by Sylvia Wright and Eric Yates.

On this month's show we'll hear a roundtable discussion about the military's new methods of recruiting young people, an interview with hip-hop artist and activist Omecka, a story about how immigrant parents are fighting for more traslators in Philly public schools, and a report back from PSU's recent Student Summit. Plus, there's music and other news!

With less than a month left until the teacher contracts expire, PSU held an action in front of Masterman (the 'best' school in the city) to say that the negotiations must include students' needs and fix the inequitable distribution of qualified teachers across schools. We believe that one solution to this problem is the use of teacher incentive grants, which would help keep qualified teachers at 'hard-to-staff' schools. Audio from this action was recorded by Amber Felton and Andrew Perez, and produced by Greg Jordan Detamore.

On September 17th, there was an incident at Sayre high school in which 50 police officers brutalized Sayre students. Twenty-two students were arrested as a result of this and one student was hospitalized for several days, yet none of the police officers were reprimanded.

The press reported that this "riot" was caused by unruly young people. But Sayre students believe that the real root causes include a poor learning environment, isolation of students, lack of community, students' day to day frustration of being in an underfunded school, negative perceptions of neighborhood school students and a tense relationship between students and school police.

On October 9th, Philadelphia Student Union held a press conference in front of Sayre to bring the truth about this so-called "riot" to light. This piece was produced by Dan Jones and Matt Johnson.

Arlene Ackerman, the new Superintendent of the Philadelphia School District, has said that she may push to implement a method of funding schools called Weighted Student Funding (WSF). To find out what WSF really is and what it would mean for Philly students, Khalif Dobson researched how it has worked in other cities and then produced this radio piece.

This past year, Philadelphia Student Union's campaign to get equitable school funding had a major victory. PSU helped secure a $274 million increase in PA's education budget, including $51 million in new money for Philadelphia schools. PSU's organizing and lobbying efforts also helped put a new funding formula in place; a formula that is based on what students in each district actually need.

Dan Jones spoke to Vince Gordon, School Board Director for Upper Darby, about what the new funding has meant for his district and what we need to do to make sure we get the future increases our schools need.

On this month's show: Audio from our recent action about the distribution of qualified teachers, an update about PSU's school funding campaign, an interview with a student organizer from the Student Farmworker Alliance, and a piece about Weighted Student Funding, which is a new way of funding schools that might be coming to Philly. Plus news and music!

Aramark provides food service for prisons, schools, and venues across the country. But do they provide health care, adequate pay, and a good environment for their workers?

PS: We know from experience, their food is crappy.

Produced by Dan Jones and Matt Johnson.

On this month's show: An audio introduction to Philadelphia Student Union, UNITE-HERE's campaign against Aramark, the United Workers mission to end poverty in Baltimore, and a student perspective on Mayor Nutter's plan to cut the Drop-Out rate. Plus news, music & more!