High School Rising (Newsreel #38)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now you don't have a choice you go to school or you go in don't get into class get in the car get into class get into K get into K and then soon as we get ready to you know better the school day but I mean like he won't be face to face you if you was a student around the school you wouldn't want to have nobody's coming around here harassing you all the time six hours a day for Lee so Ralston you I'm not in it for nobody I don't care black white blue I don't care what color you it's a concentration camp [Music] [Music] the way your studies are directed or isolated you learn about English and English grammar and then over here you learn about mathematics and over here you learn about some crazy psychology that doesn't have a damn thing to do with what your mind works like and you get into high school it isolates you from what's happening in the world while you're reading about the lies of the Declaration of Independence while you're reading about George Washington know you know what's going down outside you know about the war that's going on in Vietnam you know about what's going down in Latin America you know about what's going down in Africa but you don't know this from what's going on inside that school then you're isolated into a trap you know and if you go into college well then you're heavy into it you know you're really making it what's cut you off from the other people who are in a little bit below you in Business Administration [Music] it's called a drag it makes us compete against each other for [ __ ] things like IQ test grades football teams cheerleading teams student body offices it makes us compete and act alone because they know that individuals are easier to control than groups school is nothing but a pacification program and no amount of those extracurricular activities and new books or teaching methods can change the fact that the school's just don't meet anybody's real needs try to make education real and a real world because you can't study things standing still because nothing stands still you know like a like an educational system you know it's like geared for one or two things it's geared to change or it's geared to maintain and the one we're in now is geared to maintain [Music] [Music] the people of America have always been told that the government tries to meet their needs but looking around we can see that in every case this isn't true education doesn't meet our needs because like every other institution in that society education just serves the corporation it's too politically and economically run our lives in this way students don't control their schools neither do the past or the communities that they live in our education a whole education is controlled by corporation owners and by their Boards of Education and the state legislators that work for them big businesses use educational system to fill the manpower needs and then they can guarantee their profits because they need bureaucrat engineers technicians to supervise profit-making they need secretaries the factory workers clerks and mechanics they're the ones that make the profits and then they need the military to protect them the main way that the corporation's get what they need from the schools is through the tracking system this tracking starts in grade school we get reading an IQ test and the test figuring out intelligence by comparing everybody scored to the scores of white privilige suburban kids but the thing is that the majority of the kids in grade school don't come from this privileged minority see the majority of the kids in grade school come from white working people's neighborhoods or black and brown communities and says they don't have the same backgrounds they don't grow up the same ah as the kids that they're compared to for the test scores they don't come out smart no these tests are games because they're the main thing that decides what track we go through school on so students from more privileged homes well they get put on academic track and then they get separate and some better education and of course they go on to college ah if you're black or brown or if your family's not so well off then you get put on the vocational track and what comes out is that you're trained only enough for the military or for low-paying jobs and and what else is left unemployment and if you're a girl your education is just geared to an early marriage and a lifetime job in the home things like military and company recruiting most of the counseling our charm schools and work-study programs all these things go along with the tracking to serve the corporation's cause helps them select an educated Pugh to become the boss's over Labor while the majority of us those of us in the lower track just come out to be workers in their cheap labor force and continue to create more and more profits for corporations another thing about tracking is that it gets kids used to always being at the top always being at the bottom the majority of us black brown and most white kids are at the bottom and fighting among ourselves because of like race differences or the neighborhood that we come from see this is the worst thing that we can do because it helps the man see it keeps us apart and it makes us much easier to control than if we were to fight together against the things that hold all of us back and keep us separated [Music] we have got tired of Education with Kenny because our mother my brothers our background how my brother since is just big big come to this high school and I soon as they come out of this high school middle o any player typically job goes to the army and didn't break the bass working they never did teach me anything we wanted them to move back door with our 17th of man because I said two weeks you know and like we're not waiting for after two weeks if they can do that they can get bigger figure out answers by the next day [Music] actually there is no strike in progress at all it's against the law for our students to strike students of high school age or the school code calls for them to be in regular school attendance and so there is no strike at all [Music] every time the student starts suppose there's some one of them dumb suckers going there and lock the door and go call a pig that's what they do lock they do I call a pig then when the pigs come in they get our [ __ ] to drive about clear the halls get off the street get off the street and all this all this propaganda you know I'm sure that that the demands as they're written do not reflect entirely young people's thinking they're as obviously we both see the man Misha Stevens wrote the 17th of May that nobody from the outsiders we were just getting outside support [Music] however the attitudes and behavior of some of these young people disturb us at times whenever they like whenever they like you know see something that they don't like or anything well they just like shut you off and they thought they suspend you would throw you out of school or they like will have you arrested I got kicked out for trying to get demands do it see they figure this way they can scare suspension over keep things calm you know you know he threatened me said that about I go out started getting students hot about the striking I think that they're gonna know and sustain what they're gonna recommend me go to jail so then there are other people they gonna scared up and they gonna say well on it soon style this is happening I don't wanna get suspended or I don't want to go to jail so see they can get you on any trumped-up try shakin say I was coming out of school I was passing out papers I was in school breaking windows I will get you a let's how to hang you up real good [Music] [Music] the fact of what the system is trying to do to us and what has manipulated us but more do we stand and how do we you know what do we do what this means in terms of work and this is why a really important thing for us to do is education and to present the demands in the school in a way that it's very educational like you can set a demand such as open missions to college and explain the whole tracking system and explain why they can't give you open admissions to college because you are tracked into different jobs you trafficking to white-collar jobs you'd attract them to blue collar job and you track into the army directly and this is why the educational means is very important through the whole whole organizing of her high school we want to control that school and make it relevant to us schools must be made to serve the people to teach the true history of this country and its people and the struggles of working people and all foreign press people at home and abroad prison-like school buildings and rules must be done away with all of us here in this room have got to educate ourselves politically and socially you know we can't do this in this school because this school you know don't give you that kind of an education and what we have to do is go outside into the streets where it is I think we have to make the point clear that we cannot change the high schools without changing society right on not only within the high schools but outside and like join with other movements in in creating a new society to learn from the struggle to the black and brown kids they're getting it on cuz they got it worse than any other and we I support them we gotta unite with them against the [ __ ] that's keeping all this down it's when kids get out and teach each other [ __ ] you know cuz the school ain't couldn't do it they gonna have to teach each other and begin to get together you know because uh potentially their strengths man they're more kids in this country in high school today than ever happened before and they make up a huge percent of the population and they get together and they get organized and organized in a school and then organized in the town city in a County and across the nation man it's all over you know then they in a position they got power you know and they say dig jack the school's ours man it's ours you know and we're gonna make it serve us and that's all there is to it [Music] [Music]