Philadelphia Student Union is turning 15 this year. Celebrate with us on Tuesday.  Here's a look back at some of our victories over the years.
 
1995 A group of Philadelphia high school students who are concerned with the state of public education in the city realizes that if meaningful school reform is going to happen it will have to be led by the most-affected: students. The Philadelphia Student Union is formed.

The New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative just issued a report on the media ecosystem in Philadelphia. Through the report they explore the work of MMP and the future of journalism in the city. Full report available at the NAF blog.

By: Joshua Breitbart

"Infection in our Health Care System," an hour-long investigation by Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) into the local impacts of the healthcare crisis, premiered May 18 on PhillyCAM, the new public access cable station serving the people of Philadelphia.

The show is the first episode of MMPTV and it bears both the grandeur and flaws of any new ambitious undertaking. For an issue that has dropped off the media radar since passage of federal health care reform, however, the report adds new perspectives and elevates the public discussion.

Yvonne, a live-in nanny and member of Domestic Workers United shares stories that illustrate the need for domestic workers to have equal labor protections and benefits-- two things that they are currently not getting under the law. The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights would change that.

Many people who support standardized testing have good intentions: they would like an objective way to evaluate how well schools are serving their students. They would also like to use the results to help figure out which schools need help. They have an admirable central goal - to ensure that all students are learning.
 

Up to six million workers are injured each year in the United States. 6,000 are killed outright. At least 50,000 die each year from work related disease. Every year, Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health (PhilaPOSH) recognizes Workers Memorial Day and honors people who have been killed on the job. This memorial ceremony is part of a larger campaign to raise awareness about the rights of workers' and the importance of safe working conditions across all industries.

Members of PSU recently traveled to Harrisburg PA to meet with students from Harrisburg's William Penn High School and engage them in our Campaign for Nonviolent Schools and our Campaign for Equitable School Funding. We led a participatory workshop that explored the root causes of violence in our schools and communities. We also talked about conditions inside our schools, and students from both Philly and Harrisburg agreed that underfunding of schools is a root cause of many of the problems we face.
 
By sharing our experiences, students came to the realization that the problems we see in our schools are not isolated to our own districts; that the struggle for a high quality education is a statewide struggle. In this radio piece, we hear from Harrisburg students about conditions in their school, their views on violence, and how PSU's Nonviolence workshop affected their perceptions.

 
Radio Tlacuache habló con Carlos Garcia, un organizador con Puente y ALTOARIZONA.COM sobre la ley SB 1070 que criminaliza la comunidad latino e inmigrante en el estado de Arizona. Esta ley ha producido muchas propuestas similares en various estados incluyendo Pennsylvania. Garcia nos explica que los problemas que esta enfrentando el estado no viene de inmigracion y que este ley es un reacción que "va a causar mas problemas" para el estado.