Hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of San Diegans upset about the state of California's public education gathered for a vociferous protest rally just outside the Centro Cultural de la Raza at Balboa Park at 3 p.m. yesterday. The rally was part of a countywide campaign to spotlight concerns about public education at all levels.

After almost an hour of speeches and slogan-chanting, the demonstrators briefly closed the southbound portion of Park Boulevard as they marched downtown, where they regrouped at Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger's San Diego office on Front Street. The marchers -- who included schoolworkers, college and high school students, and concerned parents and citizens -- were preceded and accompanied by a slow-moving squad San Diego police cars with lights flashing. 

Some concurrent education rallies in California resulted in clashes with the law. At the University of California at Davis, police used tear gas to prevent marchers from entering Interstate 80. In Oakland, around 150 demonstrators were arrested by police and one protester was injured while a major freeway was closed on both directions for an hour. However, the San Diego/Balboa Park rally was mostly peaceful and proceded without incident. 

The rally was part of a countywide and statewide  "Day of Action for Public Education" that included teach-ins, classroom walkouts, demonstrations, and other events seeking to galvanize support support for public education -- and to express how state and local budget cuts have harmed Californians.  One noted aspect of the day's events was that they encompassed the concerns both of K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions, all of which have been hit hard by California's fiscal crisis. 

The Balboa Park rally was hosted and organized by a diverse coalition of student, worker, union, and activist groups. The diversity was reflected in the speeches, some of which incorporated attacks on America's Middle East Policy and calls for a Socialist Revolution along with pleas for more education. Most focused on education, including Doug Porter , who described what was happening in San Diego and California as an "all-out assault on education" and asserted that California has fallen to last place among the fifty states in its support of accessible public education for its people. 

Porter is founder of Educate for the Future, a group of parents, students, administrators, and teachers that is planning a regional campaign over the next weeks and months to make elected officials aware of citizen feeling (or outrage) over continuing cuts in education funding. It plans to organize another large rally in Balboa Park on May 8.