Baltimore Rally calls city schools funding Unjust -Underfunded by Over $200 Million
Sunday, March 20, 2005 at 12:56PM 
Demonstrators demand state give Black youths more academic resources
Wearing red Xs on their shirts and
hands, Baltimore public school students took to Baltimore Street
outside the Maryland State Department of Education again yesterday to
express their anger at the state's failure to provide more funding to
city schools. At a rally that drew 60 to 70 students and adults,
speakers complained about what students lack in their schools and
argued that the failure to provide a majority African-American school
system with the materials and teachers it requires is racism at work.
"If we continue to receive an inadequate education, we will be a
generation that suffers from injustice," said Chantel T. Morant, a
16-year-old City College junior who helped organize the event. Maryland
State Department of Education officials had no comment on the
demonstration. Students have been protesting the lack of state funding
for more than a year. Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan ruled
in August that the state had denied students an adequate education as
required under the state constitution and that it had "unlawfully
underfunded" city schools by $400 million to $800 million since 2000.
The case is before the Maryland Court of Appeals, which heard arguments
last week. Morant said students from the Algebra Project, a group of
high school-age activists, believed they needed to put more pressure on
the state while the case was being heard. During the protest, students held up arms and hands made of cardboard
with a large red X on the palm of each. The students said the X means
"no education, no life." [more] and [more]
