Public school teacher strikes are evolving into a movement
Around this time last year, West Virginia public school teachers shocked the world with a remarkably unified labor front. Last year was reactive.
This year they are PROactive.
Teachers spent only a few hours striking before West Virginia's House of Delegates effectively killed a new bill that would pave the way for charter schools and private school vouchers in a state that relies primarily on public education....
In anticipation of the strike, nearly all of the state's 55 public school systems canceled classes for Tuesday.
Republican politicians across the country are looking for revenge on public school teachers for daring to stand up for public education.
However, public school teachers aren't waiting around to be targets, and West Virginia teachers aren't alone. Today it was Kentucky's turn.
Hundreds of teachers wearing red shirts clogged the stairs leading to the House chamber, chanting so loudly they disrupted hearings before the state Supreme Court.
...Statewide teacher groups, including the Kentucky Education Association and KY 120 United, had urged teachers to go to work Thursday. Some districts, including the state’s second largest system in Fayette County, sent delegations of teachers to Frankfort to keep the schools open.
But the call for a “sick out” in some districts spread quickly on social media, forcing administrators to close schools.
Teachers were out in force against a bill for tax credits for attending private schools (and costing public schools $209 million in tax revenue).
Bills attacking school teachers in Oklahoma and Arizona are likely dead.
Last year saw a dramatic increase in the number of strikers, and public school teachers were the primary reason. Denver, Oakland, and Los Angeles teachers have struck so far this year.
That much you may already know.
Now here's something that might surprise you - it's gone global.
Across the world, teachers in dozens of countries across five continents are taking part in a strike movement of unprecedented international proportions.
In advanced and underdeveloped countries alike, teachers are fighting for the same cause: the defense of public education.
Nearly one million teachers struck in Argentina this week.
Nearly 300,000 teachers will walk out in Columbia next week.
Kenya, Mexico, and Iran saw tens of thousands of public school teachers walk out.
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Comments
The battle for the minds of the young
rages on. Government funding cuts coincide with increased propaganda budgets. Who would have thought there is an agenda underway? Good on the teachers to draw a line in the sand.
question everything
Educators...... EDUCATING! Whatta concept!!
These teachers are involved in teaching the most important lesson of their lives, and I strongly suspect that many of them know it.
The lesson:
"When you are underpaid and oppressed, STAND UP and ORGANIZE!"
Power must be taken. It is never conceded without a fight.
Solidarity with the educators!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Can't say I disagree.
America's Cultural Revolution should have happened years ago.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Gov Bevin and the GOP (and enough Dems)
are attacking public schools with every little stick and bullet they can muster. It's obscene here. The Jefferson county schools have come up with a rotation plan so that they can keep the schools open and still have tons of teachers in Frankfort every day.
The legislature is throwing vouchers, pension plan manipulations, cuts in transportation and kindergarten, replacing teachers elected to state committees with Bevin appointees and doing away with parent advisory committees at the local level all out at once. It's a gish gallop of destruction.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
WSWS article says Oakland union bosses sold out
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/05/oakl-m05.html
Sorry, I’m on my phone now.
But read this the other night and my great enthusiasm for this wave of strikes was tempered somewhat, due as usual to the devil in the details. The fine print culture if you will, and the brutish, thuggish antics of union leaders to act in concert with their opponents, instead of for their members. Seems that after the initial favorable press the strikes get this unholy alliance rams something through quickly, proclaim victory for the unions and then move on as if they won.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut