Students, workers, grade school teachers, and professors are marching in defense of public education throughout the country today, with more than 100 events taking place in 32 different states.

Hundreds of people gathered at the state capitol in Sacramento this morning to call on the state legislature to reverse the budget cuts and layoffs that are undermining California’s elementary schools and public universities alike.

Protesters gather March 4, 2010, in Sacramento. Photo by Randy Pench of the Sacramento Bee.

Meanwhile, here in the East Bay, students, teachers, and workers from UC Berkeley, Laney College, Fremont High School, Alameda High, and other local schools have rallied together at the Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland.

Students from Oakland and Berkeley rally to defend public education. Photo from TwitPic/M4NOW.

Demonstrations, sit-ins, teach-ins, and walk-outs are taking place across the country, from Oregon, to Texas, to Vermont (visit Student Activism for a nationwide map of today’s events). Here’s an excerpt from the call to action at the heart of this coordinated National Day of Action to Defend Education:

The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that “there is no alternative” to the cuts. But if there’s money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?

We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education – Pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.

Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.

Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics – such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. – as well as the duration of such actions.

Older Tikkun readers often express nostalgia for the days of SDS protests against the Vietnam War. Some complain that today’s teenagers and twenty-somethings are all politically apathetic and that we never protest or organize. That’s simply not true. Here’s a strong example of a youth-led mobilization that has been going on for months. The list of organizers even includes a familiar name: Students for a Democratic Society, which was resurrected by energetic high school and college students in 2006!

Photo from TwitPic/M4NOW.

The protests have already attracted both local media attention and national attention from the New York Times and Washington Post. You can follow blow-by-blow liveblogs of the protests on Huffington Post and the Socialist Worker, or by following the #march4 hash-tag on Twitter. If you’re looking for breaking news and commentary about the protests, check out Angus Johnston’s Student Activism blog. And for thoughtful debate and analysis about the new political front forming to fight the privatization of public education, check out Reclamations, a newly launched online journal about this topic.

I’ll leave you with Democracy Now‘s interview with Berkeley professor Ananya Roy and Ricardo Gomez, an undergraduate student who started the group Berkeley Students Against the Cuts: