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class=articleHeadline><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">In New Jersey, a
Civics Lesson in the Internet Age</NYT_HEADLINE></H1>
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<DIV
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Newark, students took their protest to City Hall, but the real target of their
message was Gov. Christopher J. Christie, who has cut state aid to
schools.</DIV></DIV><NYT_BYLINE>
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class=byline>By <A style="COLOR: rgb(0,66,118); TEXT-DECORATION: none"
class=meta-per title="More Articles by Winnie Hu"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/winnie_hu/index.html?inline=nyt-per">WINNIE
HU</A></H6></NYT_BYLINE>
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class=dateline>Published: April 27, 2010</H6>
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<DIV
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">It
was a silent call to arms: an easy-to-overlook message urging New Jersey
students to take a stand against the budget cuts that threaten class sizes and
choices as well as after-school activities. But some 18,000 students accepted
the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known
for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and
many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots
demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.</DIV></NYT_TEXT></DIV>
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class=credit>Kori Lauto</H6>
<DIV
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.27em; MARGIN: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: rgb(102,102,102); FONT-SIZE: 1.1em">Michelle
Ryan Lauto, 18, a college freshman, joined students who walked out of High Tech
High School in Bergen County. It was Ms. Lauto’s Facebook message urging
students to take a stand against budget cuts that led to the protests around the
state. “All I did was make a Facebook page,” she said. “Anyone who has an
opinion could do that and have their opinion heard.”</DIV></DIV>
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class=credit>Ruth Fremson/The New York Times</H6>
<DIV
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.27em; MARGIN: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: rgb(102,102,102); FONT-SIZE: 1.1em">The
largest turnout was in Newark, where thousands of students from various high
schools converged on City Hall.</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 1.5em; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1.7em" class=articleBody>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">The
protest disrupted classroom routines and standardized testing in some of the
state’s biggest and best-known school districts, offering a real-life civics
lesson that unfolded on lawns, sidewalks, parking lots and football fields.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">The
mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring
actress and a college freshman, and came a week after voters rejected 58 percent
of school district budgets put to a vote across the state (not all districts
have a direct budget vote).</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">“All
I did was make a Facebook page,” said Ms. Lauto, who graduated last year from
Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, N.J. “Anyone who has an
opinion could do that and have their opinion heard. I would love to see kids in
high school step up and start their own protests and change things in their own
way.”</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">At
Columbia High School in Maplewood, that looked like 200 students marching around
the building waving signs reading “We are the future” and “We love our
teachers.”</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">In
West Orange, a district that is considering laying off 84 employees, reducing
busing, cutting back on music and art, and dropping sports teams, it was high
school students rallying in the football stands.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">At
Montclair High School, it meant nearly half of the 1,900 students gathered
outside the school in the morning, with some chanting, “No more budget
cuts.”</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">In
the largest showing, thousands of high school students in Newark marched past
honking cars stuck in midday traffic to fill the steps of City Hall under the
watchful gaze of dozens of police officers.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">With
their protests, the students sought to send a message to Gov. <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,66,118); TEXT-DECORATION: underline" class=meta-per
title="More articles about Christopher J. Christie."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/christopher_j_christie/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Christopher
J. Christie</A>, a Republican whose reductions in state aid to education had led
many districts to cut staff and programs and to ask for larger-than-usual
property tax increases. Mr. Christie, who has taken on the state’s largest
teachers’ union in his efforts to close an $11 billion deficit, has proposed
reducing direct aid to nearly 600 districts by an amount equal to up to 5
percent of each district’s operating budget.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">“It
feels like he is taking money from us, and we’re already poor,” said Johanna
Pagan, 16, a sophomore at West Side High School in Newark, who feared her school
would lose teachers and extracurricular programs because of the governor’s cuts.
“The schools here have bad reputations, and we need aid and we need programs to
develop.”</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Michael
Drewniak, the governor’s press secretary, released a statement on Tuesday saying
that students belonged in the classroom. “It is also our firm hope that the
students were motivated by youthful rebellion or spring fever,” Mr. Drewniak
said, “and not by encouragement from any one-sided view of the current budget
crisis in New Jersey.”</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Bret
D. Schundler, the education commissioner, also urged schools to enforce
attendance policies and not let students walk out of class. State education
officials said they had a call from one district that had moved students taking
standardized tests to another part of the building because of potential
noise.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Not
every school had students walk out. Nancy Dries, a spokeswoman for the
top-ranked Millburn district, which has used surplus money to avoid major cuts,
said it was “business as usual” there.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">But
in many other places, students came to school ready to make a political
statement. Emma Wolin, a junior at Columbia High, walked out of second-period
Spanish with several classmates, even though the school had warned that they
would face detention.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">“It’s
the activities and school spirit that make Columbia a great school, and I want
to keep it that way,” she said.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Judy
Levy, a spokeswoman for the South Orange and Maplewood district, said that
teachers did mark protesting students absent, and that some students went back
and forth between the walkout and their classes, while others chose not to
participate because their classes were reviewing for Advanced Placement exams
that begin on Monday.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Ms.
Lauto, whose message inspired the walkouts, said in an interview that she was
amazed and gratified that so many students had responded. She said the state
education cuts had really hit home because her mother and sister both work in
public schools in Hudson County.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Ms.
Lauto, enrolled at Pace University, said she has always had an activist streak.
In seventh grade, she tried — but failed — to organize a protest over a new
dress code, and after President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she wrote
“Going to Canada, Be Back in 4 Years” on a T-shirt and wore it to class.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">But
until now, Ms. Lauto said, she has used Facebook only to keep in touch with
friends and let them know when she is performing in shows. She alerted those 600
Facebook friends to her message calling for a student walkout and asked them to
pass it on.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Within
a week, Ms. Lauto received hundreds of responses, not all of them positive. In
fact, so many students insulted her and said the walkout was a stupid idea that
she disabled the message function on her Facebook page. On Tuesday, Ms. Lauto
joined students who walked out of High Tech High School in Bergen County. She
said she was not planning any more protests, but hoped that students learned
that their voices could be heard.</P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">“I
made this page with the best of intentions,” she said. “The fact that it has
become so wildly successful — I’m so overwhelmed.”</P><NYT_AUTHOR_ID>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 2.8em" class=authorIdentification>
<DIV
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; FONT-STYLE: italic; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em"><BR
class=webkit-block-placeholder></DIV>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.46em; FONT-STYLE: italic; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 1.5em">Nate
Schweber contributed reporting from Newark, and Lois DeSocio from
Maplewood.</P></DIV></NYT_AUTHOR_ID></DIV></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>