Occupy The Department Of Education Ushers In America’s Angry Spring
No offense, but the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington, DC is not a pretty sight.
Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the National Museum of the American Indian to come face to face with what can only be described as a monument to bland austerity.
It was at the base of this concrete and glass slab that a band of public school teachers, university professors, librarians, parents, and students gathered to speak out against the nation’s current regime of testing students, firing teachers, and closing public schools.
For four straight days, speaker after speaker spoke, shouted, and sang into a microphone placed near the entry way of a building bearing the name of an American president who arguably did more to advance the well being of poor people than any other political leader in American history. The group railed at the building and its occupants – especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The speakers exhorted the audience to chant protestations to the building, turn their backs to it, shake their fists at it, and curse it.
Why so much anger thrown toward a very big, ugly building?
“You’re hurting children!” The crowd shouted. “You’re spreading injustice! You’re harming teachers! You’re ruining schools! You’re shredding democracy! You’re selling out the common good to private corporations!”
These are things, it would seem, worth getting upset about – if it weren’t happening in a capital city where getting upset is viewed as unseemly.
Of course, like most undernon-funded grassroots efforts, the speakers were not vetted through a PR staff that would normally
Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the National Museum of the American Indian to come face to face with what can only be described as a monument to bland austerity.
It was at the base of this concrete and glass slab that a band of public school teachers, university professors, librarians, parents, and students gathered to speak out against the nation’s current regime of testing students, firing teachers, and closing public schools.
For four straight days, speaker after speaker spoke, shouted, and sang into a microphone placed near the entry way of a building bearing the name of an American president who arguably did more to advance the well being of poor people than any other political leader in American history. The group railed at the building and its occupants – especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The speakers exhorted the audience to chant protestations to the building, turn their backs to it, shake their fists at it, and curse it.
Why so much anger thrown toward a very big, ugly building?
“You’re hurting children!” The crowd shouted. “You’re spreading injustice! You’re harming teachers! You’re ruining schools! You’re shredding democracy! You’re selling out the common good to private corporations!”
These are things, it would seem, worth getting upset about – if it weren’t happening in a capital city where getting upset is viewed as unseemly.
Of course, like most undernon-funded grassroots efforts, the speakers were not vetted through a PR staff that would normally