Jesse Hagopian - 'Occupy Education' Debates the Gates Foundation (and Wins)
March 13, 2012 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.
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 doubted the validity of challenging one of the biggest backers of charter schools and standardized testing – but because many expected a no show from the foundation that they would have to simply chalk up as an unexcused absence.
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/13-4
