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Students, teachers, parents, and faculty members took to the streets all across the state of California and the nation yesterday to protest cuts to K-12 schools, colleges and universities. More than 100 events took place in over 30 states in what organizers dubbed the “March 4th Day of Action to Defend Public Education.” Massive state budget shortfalls and subsequent cuts to funding for schools have resulted in teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, fee increases and eliminated programs. The effects of such slashes have been particularly acute in California. In response, demonstrators took to the streets for various actions up and down the state from San Diego to Berkeley. Massive arrests were made in Oakland after student demonstrators marched on Interstate 880 and shut it down during rush hour traffic. Locally in Los Angeles, five hundred students and professors walked out of classes on the campus of UCLA for a midday gathering in Bruin plaza to denounce the reduction of funding for education. Elsewhere in the city, an estimated 2,000 people, some bused in from neighboring communities, turned out to rally in downtown’s Pershing Square before marching on a nearby state office building.

Uprising correspondent Chris Bennett was at the rally yesterday and filed a report.