By Corriente Roja Madrid
Public education flooded the streets of Madrid on February 23, 2025. Class unions, political and social organizations, educational personnel, the university community, and students and family members from all levels of the Spanish state’s education system joined the protest.
The more than 20 organizing groups and the 70 who joined the call denounced the abuses and cuts that public services, and education in particular, suffer year after year.
The demonstration started at 12:00 a.m. from Paseo del Prado to Puerta del Sol, under a huge banner with the central slogan: “Save public education. Its privatization, our ruin”.
The unions CNT, CGT, Solidaridad Obrera, STEM and co.bas participated in the demonstration in an inter-union block to denounce “the attack that public education is suffering” and to take “another step” towards “a mass strike” to “dignify, recover and expand” the rights of public education workers and students.
There have been many victims of the austerity and privatization policies of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, which today take the form of budget stagnation, the refusal of the administration to reduce teaching ratios and hours, the refusal to reinstate 5,000 teachers and, in the case of kindergarten teachers, give higher salaries, among other things. However, this did not stop those involved in the protest from pointing the finger at the central government, whom they consider complicit in the continued commercialization of public education and the ceding of resources and spaces to private and charter schools.
Throughout the march, the most chanted slogans were “Public and quality education,” “Madrid, community of precariousness,” “Ayuso, resign,” “Let’s see, let’s see who’s in charge, education in struggle, or Ayuso,” “Workers and students, united we stand,” and “With this ratio, we won’t even work on the playground”, “The teacher who fights is also educating”, among others.
The demonstration in Madrid must be added to other mobilizations that have taken place in different parts of Spain in defense of public education.
Some students denounced the presence of government representatives, reminding them that they are also responsible for the cuts and policies that affect public education. The demonstrators criticized the “hypocrisy” of these parties who joined the protest while their actions continue to be inconsistent with the defense of public education: “Ayuso guilty, governments responsible”.
It is also worth noting the importance of this demonstration, which, after a long time, has reunited the struggle from nursery schools to the university. Each of them has joined the struggle for their own reasons, but all share the idea that unites them today: Madrid’s education system is falling apart, with rates of public investment at the bottom of the Spanish state, while private education continues to receive huge amounts of money.
Finally, it would be very important for the success of the actions on February 23 to serve as a lever to organize and coordinate from the bottom up all the sectors that are currently struggling, so that in the future the response will be more forceful in defense of all public services in Madrid.
