Fountain of youth $takes
School pays to be activists
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A progressive activist group in California is paying students $1,400 each to become racial and social justice warriors — with the school district forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the “propaganda” programs, according to a report.
The Long Beach Unified School District funneled nearly $900,000 for a one-year contract to Californians for Justice (CFJ), a “youth-powered” nonprofit that provides education and organizing on racial justice issues, according to the agreement obtained by the Free Press.
The hefty contract, which runs until June 2024, includes $60,200 for 33 students and 10 families or parents to get $1,400 each to participate in CFJ’s training programs.
The agreement states it is to “provide assistance to teachers, administrators and selected students in building strategies to support cultural understanding and change.”
On its website, CFJ boasts it has “trained hundreds of youth of color in Long Beach to be community leaders and organizers.”
The group explains it “provides leadership development opportunities throughout the school year and summer to ensure our youth leaders gain the political education and valuable organizing skills they need to lead social justice movements.”
‘It’s so fun! You get paid good, you can have a fun time,” one student participant gushed in a recent video on the CFJ Instagram.
A spokesperson for the Long Beach district — which, at 65,500 students, is that state’s fourthlargest — told The Post that the stipends of “up to $1,400 per student and family” are “internships.”
It is to ensure “equitable participation in CFJ programs, embracing diverse perspectives in education,” they added.
Four teachers from the Long Beach district, however, told the Free Press they had serious reservations about CFJ’s work. “I am shocked and horrified at such a fact,” another teacher said of the stipends.
This isn’t the first year that the Long Beach district has partnered with CFJ. Since December 2019, the district has paid the group nearly $2 million to work with them, according to the Free Press.
In addition to the Long Beach district, CFJ is also contracted by Fresno, Oakland and San Jose.
From June 2020 through June 2023, the Fresno Unified School District paid the activist organization $150,000 for leadership programming, the Free Press said, citing public documents.