1000 protest planned state education cuts

Opponents of cuts to public education held a noisy protest in Center City Wednesday evening.

Gov. Tom Corbett has proposed cutting state appropriations to state-run and state-related colleges, such as Temple University.

About 1,000 protesters, mostly school age, took part in the demonstration. Jalieah Gibson was among them. She said state cuts to education will affect her future.

“I think it’s real serious. I also think it’s taking away from young adults … from our future,” she said. “It affects me personally because I’m thinking about going on to higher education and I didn’t know the budget is being cut.”

Lawrence Jones, a student at Drexel University and a member of the Philadelphia Youth Commission, said the cuts to education are wrong.

“We believe that these cuts to education aren’t right and that these increases to the prison system aren’t right. They don’t need to increase money to the prisons,” he said. “They need to put the money into education. That will keep the young people out of prisons.”

The protest from the Criminal Justice Center to Philadelphia School District headquarters caused traffic problems during the evening rush hour.