Published on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 by Common Dreams
'Occupy Education' Debates the Gates Foundation (and Wins)
“Gates Foundation you will fail / Education is not for sale!”
The chants of some 150 teachers, students, parents and Occupy Seattle activists reverberated off the windows of the global headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – a leading promoter of a corporate brand of education reform—announcing we were ready for our scheduled debate about the schools as part of a national call to "Occupy Education" on March 1st.
Advocates of public education outside the Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle, Washington this month. (Photo: Kristin Hutchinson)
Advocates of public education outside the Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle, Washington this month. (Photo: Kristin Hutchinson)From Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland, California, to the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., Occupy activists schooled the nation with experiential learning demonstrations with the instructional objective of making education a right for the 99 percent, not a privilege for the 1 percent. In Seattle, when our spirited march for education arrived at the Gates Foundation, many of the event organizers were as nervous as kids before a high-stakes test--not because they