SAN FRANCISCO -- Activists with the Occupy movement joined forces with teachers union members outside a San Francisco hotel Thursday to protest an education conference promoting charter schools, teacher pay for performance and more digital instruction in schools.

Big names in the country's conservative education reform movement were featured at the two-day conference, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and media baron Rupert Murdoch.

Sponsored by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a nonprofit headed by Bush, the summit focused on seniority-based teacher compensation and the ineffectiveness of school boards while promoting the use of classroom technology to reduce labor costs and boost student learning.

About 100 protesters, mostly teachers, picketed outside the Palace Hotel on New Montgomery Street, where about 750 people were participating in the sold-out education summit.

The activists said they were protesting "the selling of public education." They chanted, "Teachers are the 99 percent" while holding up signs reading, "The 1 percent ruined our economy, why should we trust them with our schools?"

Dennis Kelly, president of United Educators of San Francisco, said the people behind the conference are looking to replace teachers with the "techno toys."

"We're suspicious of the intentions of Rupert Murdoch and Jeb Bush when it comes to education," he said. "Their program is all about getting rid of the unions, getting rid of tenure, getting vouchers."

Bush delivered opening remarks Thursday and News Corp. CEO Murdoch was scheduled to give the keynote address today.

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was also scheduled to be a keynote speaker.

Michael Horn, a co-founder of the InnoSight Institute, a nonprofit that promotes technology in education, said he has a big interest in digital learning, which he considers a bipartisan issue.

"We're really trying to say, put students first and politics second," he said.