Yesterday morning in Jamaica, Queens, a group of students at August Martin High School walked out of class for about an hour to protest the presence of police in their school.

They weren’t alone in their civil disobedience. They were joined by New York City Council Member Charles Barron, who took time out of his day — and away from his Brooklyn district — to stir the pot.

The students allege that police have been treating them roughly. Those charges, like charges in respect of any police misconduct, should be taken seriously. But the walkout was not intended simply to spur an investigation. Rather, it demanded that police officers be removed from the school entirely.

The Bloomberg administration has determined that, to combat the high crime rates in certain city schools, particularly strong medicine, above and beyond the normal battery of security personnel, is required. August Martin is one of them. Last month, new statistics placed it in the top 10, and second among all Queens schools, in major crimes for each student. The average incidence of assault, burglary, larceny, homicide, rape, and robbery there is five times the city public school average.

Yet Mr. Barron tells us violence in the school — where, last year, a student punched a school safety officer in the face — is an “educational problem” that re quires an “educational solution.” Does the council member find the time to travel to August Martin to speak about its many other obvious educational problems, such as its low test scores? Does he give voice to the hundreds of students in the school who are no doubt grateful that the police presence gives them the sense of security, safety, and stability they need to focus on schoolwork, and who express that gratitude not through protest, but by doing their best every day?

No. He faults Mayor Bloomberg for playing politics by trying to drive down crime rates on campus and insists that an honest answer to violence in schools is more books and better teachers. The irony of encouraging students to leave the classroom in the name of improving their education apparently never occurred to Mr. Barron. He said the protest needed to be “dramatic” enough to get attention. An after-school protest wouldn’t have met the test either, apparently.

Perhaps the next step will be walkouts to protest high standards — or a breakdown in talks between the city and the United Federation of Teachers. If you don’t like what’s happening in the classroom, why, up and leave it. Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on a Monday, these high school students in Queens might have learned a little about math, science, or social studies. Instead, they got a crash course in political grandstanding.