This is a historic moment. Teachers are walking out and standing together to confront hostile legislatures.
Paul Waldman writes in The Washington Post that teachers are walking out because of the predictable failure of GOP economic policy of starving government of resources.
Just look at the chart he includes showing average teachers salaries in blue and red states.
New York, California, Massachusetts, and D.C. (all blue) have the highest salaries.
South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and West Virginia (all red) have the lowest salaries.
Who will walk out next?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
https://barkingdoggerel.blog/
After decades of cuts and demeaning restrictions,
Our teachers are finally expressing convictions.
First West Virginia, now the Okies, Kentucky,
America’s teachers are getting quite plucky.
Done with the budget cuts, now they are walking,
Since words didn’t work, let their feet do the talking!
LikeLike
You can’t really compare salaries without comparing cost of living. New York, Massachusetts, California and D.C. may have the highest teacher salaries, but they also have the highest cost of living. How does the cost of living compare in Mississippi?
LikeLike
To answer that , it very much depends on where in these states a person works and lives . At the end of a career a high wage worker in Metro NYC is far wealthier than his counter part in a low tax low wage state . That even among teachers varies by location a Nassau county suburban teacher is earning way more than a NYC teacher a stones throw away . That is a reversal from the 70s .
LikeLike
It definitely makes a difference, although the states listed as having the lowest salaries also tend to be low on the salary adjusted for cost of living scale.
But it is interesting that CA, with one of the highest average teacher salaries drops to 25th on the adjusted scale. And Hawaii, 17th on the salary scale drops to dead last on adjusted scale.
Where do teacher salaries really go furthest?
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-06-01-graph-where-do-us-teacher-salaries-really-go-the-furthest
LikeLike
Interesting information. So the issue isn’t really quite so red vs. blue.
LikeLike
I am glad that someone brought this up. Comparing salaries, without considering cost-of-living is meaningless. Alaska teachers make salaries higher than North Dakota, but Alaska has a much higher cost of living. Thanks for this info.
LikeLike
It’s clearly complicated by the cost of living issue, and not just between states but within them as well as Joel points out.
Also, I’d also like to see the median salaries.
One interesting thing is that Betsy DeVos’ home state is at the top of the list for adjusted public school teacher salary, though I doubt that has anything to do with Betsy, sincd she does not even like public schools.
LikeLike
But it is interesting that Wyoming (a red state) is number 4 on the adjusted list, ahead of all the blue states but 3 (mi, IL, PA)
So, as you say, there is no cut and dried relationship.
LikeLike
Another interesting fact: Texas and Massachusetts have almost the same adjusted teacher salary and are 13th and 12th on the list, respectively.
And Vermont, Bernie Sanders’ home state, is down near the bottom (with almost the same adjusted salary as West Virginia)
Wake up and smell the Vermont coffee, Bernie!
LikeLike
Wyoming’s higher funding comes primarily from oil and gas fracking. Funds schools, but screws up the environment. In some places, wells have been so corrupted by fracking that the water coming out of the tap lights on fire.
LikeLike
Fracking is horrible. It polluted the ground water and kills animals and people who drink the water. See the stunning documentary GASLAND
LikeLike
Thanks, threatened.
It had occurred to me that maybe the oil and gas money played a role.
Texas may be a similar case.
But hey, at least they spend some of the money on teachers.
LikeLike
How much will it take for people to realize that the GOP is NOT working to help anyone except to make the wealthy wealthier?
…………
msnbc: The national significance of Oklahoma’s teacher walk-out
The Associated Press published a striking piece a couple of weeks ago on Oklahoma’s politics and the real-world impact far-right policymaking has had in one of the nation’s reddest red states.
When the GOP took full control of Oklahoma government after the 2010 election, lawmakers set out to make it a model of Republican principles, with lower taxes, lighter regulation and a raft of business-friendly reforms.
Conservatives passed all of it, setting in motion a grand experiment. Now it’s time for another big election, but instead of campaigning on eight years of achievements, Republicans are confronting chaos and crisis. Agency budgets that were cut during the Great Recession have been slashed even deeper. Rural hospitals are closing, and teachers are considering a statewide strike over low wages. […]
Oklahoma’s woes offer the ultimate cautionary tale for other states considering trickle-down economic reforms….
The national significance of Oklahoma’s teacher walk-out: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-national-significance-oklahomas-teacher-walk-out
LikeLike
In many red states there has been a continuous assault on the federal government. Most of the political ads emphasize “conservative values.” Small government that stays out of the individual’s way is a value in conservative areas. Many people in these conservative areas are often brainwashed to vote against their own interests. The size of the government is less of an issue than having a government that works for people. The teachers walking out in states that are defunding public education are shining a much needed light on the problem. BTW I don’t consider North Carolina or Florida as blue states as they both have led the way in regressive policies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will the nation finally see ALEC goals clearly: one state at a time = red governors, red legislators, decimation of public services
LikeLike
Read Gordon Lafer, “The One Percent Solution.” One State at a time, the ALEC plan to buy and kill democracy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we need to add the following, many republican states have had issues with the Democratic Party as it relates to family values which include issues about sex education, abortion, homosexuality, freedom of religion, gun rights, and immigration. They see the Democratic Party as one who opposes what many have held as moral values. Many in republican states feel that their traditional values are being disregarded and in some cases trampled on. While they may agree with the Democratic Party on economic issues, they break with them on moral grounds. They feel the Democratic Party does not hear them and often feel ridiculed by them. The Obama administration and Hilary Clinton were particularly bothersome to many who do not call themselves republicans or democrats. I live in such a state and these issues are often vocalized.
LikeLike
What is “moral” about denying young people accurate information about their bodies and ways to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancies? What is “moral” about, after denying young women such information, then turning around and forcing them to bear and deliver said unwanted pregnancies? What is “moral” about teaching children to hate people on the basis of who they love? What is “moral” about arguing for the right to own weapons of mass destruction? What is “moral” about denying people their humanity based on what country they were born in, even if they’ve been in this country most of their lives since birth? Why should we hold onto these “traditional values”? WWJD?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some people love the unborn but are contemptuous of the born.
LikeLike
It can be tough to get thru to public school parents because they have a snapshot impression of schools. They enroll their child at 5 and how the schools are just IS- they don’t have anything to compare it to.
Teachers have a much longer view, because they’re there year after year and can see the slow decline caused by chronic lack of funding.
Our newest parents here wouldn’t even know we used to have field trips and a stronger music/art program and after school programs. They never experienced those things. They don’t know they’re gone. My children are spread out so I saw it happen.
Teachers can say “five years ago it was like THIS and now it’s like THIS”. Our younger parents weren’t in the schools five years ago.
The teachers are great and I give them all kinds of credit for picking up the slack left by lawmakers who refuse to do their jobs, but public school parents have to start voting on public schools. Teachers can’t do this alone.
LikeLike
I live in a test centric state. I hear parents all the time blaming the teachers because the kids scores aren’t high on the BS tests. They blame the teachers for the poor curriculum. They never bother to find out that the curriculum was not produced by the teachers teaching the subject matter. The teachers pull everything off the mainframe from the local BoEd. It’s satisfying when I can prove to 1 single parent that XYZ is being done in school A and school B and school C all at the same time. It is satisfying when I can prove that a single test given on day X is the same exact test given in every school throughout the county on about the same day. Nope….they just blame it on those lazy, over paid teachers. When they complain, my answer is usually that there can’t be that many really bad teachers in our “world class” school system.SMH
LikeLike
Constructive criticism of public schools is great and welcome, but if public school families continue to put people in office who DO NOT VALUE the schools their children attend they will continue to get results like this.
Public schools were the dead-last priority in Oklahoma. It shows. It will continue to show until they elect people who value public schools.
You cannot hire people who are ideologically opposed to the whole notion of “public schools” and end up with strong public schools. It just isn’t going to happen.
They don’t want your schools to be strong! They want your schools to be weak, so they can replace them with a voucher system. You can’t get from that A to your B.
If your kid is in a public school and you hire a governor who spouts the “failing government schools” mantra and spends all of his or her time promoting vouchers and charters, how do you think that will go for your child’s school? Not well! That’s not gonna be good for that school!
LikeLike
This CANNOT all be about the money. I know the wages are low and they always have been low, but the old song and dance of having 3 months off, professional days, health insurance will come to a head and haunt the movement if the talk is only about the money. Teachers need to demand autonomy and respect for their career choice as well as what is right for children in regards to curriculum and testing. Teachers need to have a NATIONAL walkout week to make everyone stand up and take notice. I would stand hand in hand with teachers if they decided to do this.
LikeLike
I agree. For years federal laws/regulations have argued for serious interventions in “low performing schools.” How about low performing state legislators and wacko policies that rob schools of financial support? I think that a really sophisticated system should be designed to rate state support for public education, including names of legislators who are fact-challenged and hostile to public schools, masters of cutting corporate taxes and crying there is no money for public schools. It would also be great for some collective action from other public service workers.
LikeLike
To specify “low performing state legislators” would be redumbdant.
LikeLike
Michigan!
LikeLike