Class action

Oppressed students, unite

by Kristen Lombardi

Last Sunday at the Hong Kong in Harvard Square, the air was thick with disdain for the state's educational institutions. About half a dozen students -- from public and private schools in and around Boston -- crowded into a boat-size booth and, between spoonfuls of lo mein, ticked off all that's wrong with what they call "the mental concentration-camp system known as the Massachusetts public schools."

Too often, they claim, students get scolded for questioning the curriculum. Or kicked out of class for challenging a teacher's views. One of the students, an outspoken 16-year-old named Janek Dichter, was even suspended from Acton-Boxborough High School for five days because he protested the Junior ROTC program there.

"Public schools are repressive regimes," exclaims Dichter, who now attends the Cambridge School, in Weston.

Which is why he and a handful of his peers intend to take on the public schools. Their resolve: to give a voice to disaffected youth throughout the area by creating a citywide union for high-school students. "We need a union in the same way workers [do]," Dichter explains, "to stick up for our student rights."

At the Hong Kong, Dichter and friends sketched out a plan, pondering such fundamentals as what to call themselves (Student Power, or High School Campus Action Network) and where to recruit much-needed additional members (Brookline, Boston, Concord). And they plotted an activist agenda, rather predictably flagging the controversial Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as a top priority.

Says Danielle Kilroy, 15, a petite yet passionate Newton North junior: "The MCAS is a perfect example of how the public schools reduce students to numbers." She relays the tale of one Newton North teacher who actually bribed students into taking the 20-hour exam, rewarding whoever finished with a field trip to the Six Flags amusement park.

School issues aside, these activists -- some of whom participated in the high-profile International Monetary Fund protests in Washington, DC, in April -- hope to encourage their colleagues to get involved in social causes such as capital punishment, animal rights, and the environment. Though the group is in its infancy, members predict a surge in activity this academic year.

"We just got started," Dichter says, "but we'll do whatever to band students together and improve our quality of life."

Dichter and friends meet biweekly at various Harvard Square locations; they invite all area high-school students to attend. Contact antiwar1013@hotmail.com or ideflat@hotmail.com.