For Teachers, Red States Resemble Underdeveloped Countries

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

2018 may very well go down in history as the year in which public-school teachers in Republican-controlled states finally became fed up and rebelled. So far this year, statewide teachers strikes have taken place in Oklahoma and West Virginia. Teachers have been protesting in Kentucky as well, and a statewide walkout is being considered in Arizona.

When Oklahoma’s teachers strike entered its second week on April 9, teachers in that very Republican state had a long list of grievances. The minimum starting salary for teachers in Oklahoma is only $31,600 (the lowest in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), they haven’t had a raise in ten years, many teachers must take a second or third job in order to make ends meet, classrooms are overcrowded, and striking teachers have been using Facebook to post photos of everything from crumbling textbooks to broken chairs in classrooms. In fact, Laurissa Kovacs (a middle school teacher in McAlester, Oklahoma) received over $44,000 worth of donated supplies from Facebook users after posting a photo of a broken chair and explaining that she has had to bring in chairs from home because there weren’t enough usable ones in her classroom.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/for-teachers-red-states-resemble-underdeveloped-countries/


November 2018 cannot get here fast enough