Walkouts, student strikes, and marches shook every level of California’s embattled public education system on March 4. University of California students blocked access to campus entrances at Berkeley and Santa Cruz in the morning. In the afternoon, college students joined forces with K-12 students and teachers in downtown Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles.
The rallies numbered in the thousands—some estimate the gathering in front of San Francisco's Civic Center at 20,000. In Oakland and Davis, hundreds of marchers confronted police after taking their protests onto the freeways.
The call for action against crippling state budget cuts—$17 billion in two years to the state’s education fund—and the UC administration’s crisis of priorities was taken up on every UC and state college campus—and echoed by students, teachers, and campus union activists in 32 states.
A major target is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators who ready their
