Day of Action evinces disdain for education

Day of Action evinces disdain for education:

"The biggest problem with last week's March 4 Day of Action to Defend Education, which was organized to protests cuts in California's education spending: The event showed how little educators and students value education."

After all, if teachers believed that class time is sacrosanct, they would have scheduled the protests for a Saturday, not a school day.
Of course, on a Saturday, educrats in schools like Oceana High in Pacifica or San Francisco's Commodore Sloat Elementary could not have used other people's children as props for their politics. Fewer students would have shown up. So they gave up class time.
Activists have been equally ready to dispense with college course work. Now I understand why University of California students would be angry at the cuts imposed on the UC system in the face of a 32 percent fee increase in the fall.
What I do not understand is the decision to protest the cuts and fee increases by protesting during precious (and expensive) class time. Ditto, as has happened, faculty and students walking out of classrooms to protest classroom funding cuts.
Whom do these actions punish? Not UC executives. Not Sacramento politicians. They punish only those students who care so much about their education that they don't want to miss a day of it.
As one who worked her way through college, I cannot help but see walkouts and weekday protests as proof that many UC students do not value the jewel that has been handed to them. Students could be learning a language, studying the stars or exploring the chemistry of the human body. Instead, they have chosen to chant and obstruct.
That goes doubly for students who engage in violence or vandalism. If UC administrators had any spine, they would make demonstrators prosecuted for vandalism clean toilets for a semester - or forfeit the education they blithely undervalue.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/03/08/EDCK1CCJIU.DTL#ixzz0hgXBDFHI