The upcoming Day of Action to Defend Public Education - rallies, marches, teach-ins, even political theater - began as an idea on the UC Berkeley campus last fall and has caught fire up and down California, from elementary school to graduate school, and across two dozen states.
On the surface, Thursday's Day of Action seems likely to be an unprecedented show of unity among public education advocates at all levels who are angry that politicians and university officials with fingers on purse strings are letting the system decay.
"Everybody's coming together," said Callie Maidhof, a student at UC Berkeley, where students have protested tuition hikes, budget cuts and layoffs since last fall.
But some say the event is already scorched by the threat of violence. At an outdoor dance party early Friday, a crowd of Berkeley campus protesters seized a building, torched trash cans, threw bottles and got into an angry confrontation with police.
Hostilities unwanted
Students said protesters occupied the building in part to call attention to March 4th, and don't expect the hostilities to be repeated Thursday."It's important not to inject that level of damage into every action, or you'll alienate lots of people who don't want to act that way," said Xander Lenc, a student at the dance party that got out of hand.
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