Just gathering that crowd was one purpose of the rally. Organizer Julie Quist (wife of former gubernatorial candidate Allan Quist) said, "We want to make it clear to the public that people who oppose the Profile of Learning are not alone. One of the things people are encountering when they go to their school boards and principals is that they’re being told that everywhere else people think it’s wonderful, and they are the only ones who don’t. That is not true. There are people opposing it all over the state."

The Profile of Learning is an ambitious statewide plan which, for all practical purposes, imposes a state-mandated curriculum on local school districts. Critics of the Profile say it dumbs-down the curriculum, emphasizes socialization over achievement, undercuts the principle of local control of education, and substitutes political correctness for core knowledge learning.

"This thing is a bureaucrat’s dream and a parent’s nightmare," said Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council. "For the sake of our kids and their education, legislators should admit this is heading in the wrong direction. Let’s stop it before it swallows our children."

"This is an awesome and far-reaching deception," said Renee Doyle, who recently resigned from the Maple River, Minnesota School Board because of the Profile of Learning. Doyle, who told the crowd that she initially defended the Profile of Learning, said that the public is being deceived by "pages of bureaucratic propaganda. Profile of Learning standards are not ‘high standards,’" she warned. "Don’t be deceived by puffery and unsubstantiated claims."

Doyle described the educational program as a state-mandated program which will turn the educational system into a "labor resource for a planned economy" and asked people to officially demand the elimination of the Profile.

"They don’t care how much it costs. They don’t care if it works," said State Senator and Lieutenant Governor candidate Gen Olson, who has championed local control of education in her legislative career. "This is about control."

"The Profile in Learning is an expensive experiment in education that will do serious harm to our children’s future," Tom Prichard said at the rally. "It’s a bad state education mandate that should not be forced on Minnesota’s students by non-elected bureaucrats. Our students cannot afford to have their education serve as an experiment for a few education bureaucrats."