Link I was wondering what the heck was going on this afternoon in downtown Oakland. A section of Broadway between 13th and 15th Streets was closed to traffic due to a protest. Students and educators from public schools and universities are marching down today from UC Berkeley all the way to City Hall in downtown Oakland to protest State budget cuts. There's always something weird going on near my workplace.
The only thing that would get Kentucky students out in the streets is if the UK or UofL board of trustees fired Calipari or Pitino.
Man, I graduate and the fun really gets started! Seriously though, I'm so glad I got out before this last year. My friends who haven't yet hate me for it.
So is that why coming out of the High School I was working at there were people with signs and cars coming and honking? I just wonder what this is going to accomplish. It seems like this "Day of Action" is planned around the same time each year (Early to mid-March) and it kind of falls on death ears. I'm just glad I graduated when I did, even though I don't like what is going on with Tuition and the education budget. I would love to hear good solutions to this instead of all this protesting but for some reason I doubt it.
I knew it was all your fault! You must have really done a number on your school if tuition is being raised.
It was a mess when I left downtown Oakland. Police cars were running in opposite directions on one-way streets, rerouting normal traffic. I found out later that some demonstrators got on the freeway (880). Seriously, WTF would that accomplish? As much as I'm dismayed by the State's actions to cut spending, what the hell is wrong with people?!? It seems there's some civic demonstration going on, it always far from peaceful and orderly.
Yeah, I work near the capital and there were protests going on there as well as the local universities. I have some friends who went to the protests.
Day of Action or Day of Thuggery? I was just watching the news, and yes they show most of the bad stuff and there were probably many areas that were peaceful, but I find the whole thing a bit counter productive. Like Drone said about people taking over a freeway, or the brutality of the Police Force, or shutting down a university. On the latter thing, you pay tuition so you can shut down the campus, not get the education, and not allow the teachers who are still fortunate enough to be there to teach? There's something like this every year for what feels like the last 5 years. What does it prove. The budget is still in shambles, the Legislature and Governor (And Meg Whitman, SHUT THE HELL UP WITH YOUR STUPID COMMERCIALS ) are a bunch of duchebags, and nothing really is going to get accomplished. I understand the right to protest, but with the disorder, brutality, and chaos and inconvenience, is it really worth it?
Don't worry, you can blame it on me. Tuition had more than doubled from when I started to when I left. I'm pretty had that I was able to get grants for my last year. And students at Berkeley couldn't wage a meaningful protest to save their lives.
The thing is, the article makes it sound like the cuts are largely affecting colleges and other higher education institutions. That's not the case. Our public K-12 school systems are just as badly affected as the universities. We're going into our third year of severe teacher layoffs, with no end in sight. I feel very fortunate to work for a charter high school (which receives federal funds, not state funds), so my job is fairly secure, but I have two teacher friends who've already been pink slipped. One is living in fear these next couple weeks, waiting to find out if she'll be another casualty of this mess. It's a horrible time to be working in education in the state of California...it really is.
My wife is a third grade teacher. They've had so many cuts and lay-offs, now they're down to furlough days. It's bad out here, that's for sure. The cupboard is bare.
Agreed. All levels of public schools are affected. And, tomalak, there were also peaceful, "family-friendly" protests around California yesterday, which they showed on the late-night news.