{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.04707985697258641, 'fraction_numerical': 0.017878426698450536, 'mean_word_length': 5.264925373134329, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Building Power, Learning Democracy

Many activists across the United States marked April 15, 2010, with “tax day” protests. At Tea Party rallies, demonstrators, almost exclusively White, denounced bloated government and fiscal irresponsibility (“Tea Party Express,” 2010; Zernike, 2010). A very different scene unfolded outside post offices in 13 cities. Young people, primarily Latino and African American, rallied as part of the “SOS: Save Our Schools” campaign. Wearing orange life preservers, the youth spoke about the importance of protecting public education from the financial crisis. They called for increased funding to “bail out schools, not the banks,” and handed out stickers so taxpayers could tell the IRS: “invest my taxes in public education” (Khadaroo & Paulson, 2010). Although calling for more resources to support public schools in general, the youth highlighted the needs of schools in their own communities. Seventeen-year-old Jesus Garcia pointed out that, although “low-income community schools” such as Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles “are the ones failing,” they do not receive the level of funding needed to fully address students’ needs. “We need more than the rest,” argued Garcia, “and we’re not getting that” (Delgadillo, 2010). Garcia and his compatriots gathered outside post offices on “tax day” are members of well-established youth organizing groups. Their “tax day” campaign was the inaugural effort of the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ), a consortium of 20 youth organizing groups across the nation. AEJ-affiliated groups are community-based organizations that serve low-income neighborhoods of color (AEJ, 2011). Most often