WMU Student Running for State Board of Education

Even if you're well-versed in Michigan politics, Jacob Woods is a name you probably don't recognize. But he'll appear on the same ballot as Jennifer Granholm and Dick DeVos this November. Woods, a student at Western Michigan University, is campaigning for a spot on the State Board of Education.

Like many other working- and middle-class students, Woods is angry with the direction Michigan's education system has taken. "Thousands of students lack even the most basic educational resources at their schools," he complains. "This is the result of a degenerating system that puts private profits before human needs."

A Socialist Party member, Woods will appear on the ballot as a Green Party candidate. "The Democrats and Republicans in the State Legislature have designed extremely restrictive ballot access laws to keep minor parties off the ballot," Woods explains. "As a result, the Socialist Party has had to find other ways to get its candidates on the ballot every election year."

Though he will appear as a Green candidate, Woods' platform is decidedly rooted in radical social reforms. The first tenet on his campaign website: "Free, quality and universal public education, from pre-kindergarten through post-graduate studies, including open admissions with the abolition of tuition and fees at all public universities."

Free college sounds great, but worries those who follow conservative logic. Critics feel that such programs would inevitably need to be funded through tax increases.

Woods disagrees. "Free education could easily be achieved without any tax increases," he explains. "The Socialist Party of Michigan calls for eliminating the billions of dollars the State hands out in corporate welfare and putting it toward essential social services like education."

Other tenets of Woods' platform include student and faculty representation on all local school boards, free broadband internet access in all educational institutions, non-moralistic sex- and health-education programs beginning in the fourth grade, and unionization for all teachers, lecturers, and graduate assistants.

Though his platform is geared to meet the needs of the average American, Woods is aware of the deep-rooted stigma he faces as a Socialist Party candidate. He says, "Capitalist propagandists have been successful for decades in their attempts to get American workers to equate socialism with Stalinism, but the end of the Cold War and the intensified failure of capitalism to meet basic needs are causing many workers to look beyond these distortions."

"In reality, Socialism and Democracy are one and indivisible," Woods argues. "There is no other political movement that represents the interests of the vast majority-the working class."