Schools For Sale

2,500 teenagers walked out of their Philadelphia high schools because they were protesting privatization of their schools. They were attempting to make a stand and say that they were not “for sale”. They wanted to speak up for themselves and not allow the Edison company to take over their schools solely for money. They had major ethos with their fellow peers because they are all going through the same thing and they all agree that they don’t want to be privatized. The Philadelphia residents should care because their kids already attend those schools, or they will have kids in the future that will be attending those schools. Also, the privatization of the schools will affect the community. For example, when the school had a bake sale, the principal would only allow Coca-Cola products to be sold with the baked goods, because juice and milk would compete with their sponsors. It is ridiculous how much everything revolves around who supplies the money. Education should not be a franchise, I know funding is needed sometimes, but the primary focus should be on the children and what they are learning. Like a student activist leader stated in the book “Do I want to learn that one plus one equals Pepsi?” (Quart 218) this shows that brands are so incorporated in the curriculum that kids are going to start associating these products with school, and that is not what education should be about. If this was happening to me and my school, I would like to be consulted because I would be against it. It is the children that are affected most by this and they should be the ones with the most input not the people with the pocketbooks..