Big rally a big waste?

District 299, Alexander Russo’s blog about Chicago Public Schools asked teachers for their impressions of the big anti-violence-pro-school-funding rally at Soldier Field this week. (He also links to all the newspaper coverage here)

Some impressions gathered from the comments:

• “Not much substance that pertained to the kids.”
• “[I]f you were to assess what the kids learned from it, you would find they learned very little.”
• “[O]ur kids were prepped to interact with other students and found that the stadium was as segregated as our fine city.”

While the event wasn’t, according to these witnesses, much good to the students themselves, is it possible it might have some political impact as a showpiece nevertheless? Does that kind of strategy even work to change public or political opinion? 

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