Thousands of Chilean students took the streets of Santiago on Thursday to say, "we believe that education is a social right, not a commodity," in a call for greater access to affordable university education, reprising the protests which swept the nation in 2011-2012.

A group of Providence high school students, some with zombie-style makeup, gathered in Burnside Park and paraded to the Westminster Street entrance to the Board of Regents to protest strict NECAP testing that would prevent many students from graduating.

Bill 115, the Orwellian-named Putting Students First Act, was passed in the Ontairo legislature last week stripping tens of thousands of teachers and education workers of their right to collective bargaining. You could hear the clucking of Premier Dalton McGuinty and Education Minister Loreal Broten as they patted themselves on the back saying they saved the opening of the school year for over 2 million elementary and high school students across Ontario.

Students in Montreal and across Quebec today continue their protest against tuition increases and austerity measures in education with a 12-hour ¨“marathon of intensive vindication,” according to organizers. Today will see rolling student protests mostly focused against banks. In Montreal, marches leave from Victoria Square every hour and will each take unique routes through downtown.

About 50 students were suspended Thursday from the all-boys Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit, Mich. for walking out of classes in protest, demanding "an education."

Approximately 100 students walked out of Sardis secondary at noon Friday in support of their teachers. They weren't dissuaded by an announcement at lunch by school administration advising them not to leave school grounds, or by the possibility of "strict disciplinary action," or by a letter to parents on the school district website encouraging their children not to walk out.

Dubbing themselves The Resistance, a group of Bronx students have decided to “Occupy” public education, releasing a 10 point plan for reforming New York City’s public school system. This is exactly the kind of action we need to see across this country; young people seizing the moment and taking the lead in public discourse regarding the issues that are impacting their lives.

As the student strike in Quebec develops, there have been weekly “manif-actions” (action demos) with the goal of economic disruption. Late yesterday morning, a manif action was called to begin at 11:30 am at Square Victoria. There were several thousand people in the streets, some of them self-identified students, student politicians and union members, many not of any particular status. The march went up to the Loto-Quebec building on Sherbrooke and rue City Councillors and set up hard blockades of all the entrances around the building, effectively shutting it down. The building contains the offices of the organization representing university principals and rectors, which supports tuition hikes, and had also been occupied in March 2011.

CHESTER – About 300 students attending Chester High School and Science and Discovery High School walked out of the class late this morning and marched to city hall.