In the immediate aftermath of the midterm elections, first reports asserted that the teachers’ revolt fizzled at the ballot box. So many teachers ran for the state legislature, they said, and only three or four or five won. But consider, the teachers who entered politics were novices, with no money, no experience, no name recognition. Congratulations to those who dared to enter the political arena! Don’t give up!
The Guardian has a very different take on the role of teachers in the recent election.
Midterms show educators have been swept into office in record numbers
A wave of pro-education energy, spurred by the April walkouts, led to election victories in Oklahoma, Arizona and Wisconsin
The Guardian writes:
A new wave of teachers’ strikes could soon hit US schools, with educators in Chicago and Los Angeles considering walkouts. And after the midterm elections, they will have stronger allies.
Across the country, in Arizona, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, teachers made huge gains in the midterm elections – a movement that grew out of the #RedforEd campaign that saw teachers protesting across the country to reverse years of conservative cuts to public education.
Last April, thousands of teachers across the state of Oklahoma went on strike; making increased funding for education and a seat at the table in education a priority. Now, educators have been swept in record numbers into office in Oklahoma. Earlier this month, 16 educators were elected to the Oklahoma state house; bringing the total number of educators in the state legislature to 25.
The wave of pro-education energy helped Kendra Horn become the first Democrat to be elected from Oklahoma’s fifth congressional district in 44 years and the first female Democratic representative to the House from Oklahoma.
Horn, 42, made education funding a central focus of her campaign and had many teachers going door-to-door on her behalf.
“We saw a greater involvement of teachers than ever before during this political process over the last six months when we moved from the walkout to the elections and teachers found their collective voice and they aren’t going anywhere,” said the Oklahoma Education Association vice-president, Katherine Bishop.
Carri Hicks, a fourth-grade teacher from Deer Valley in the suburbs of Oklahoma City, was one of those striking teachers elected to the state senate on 6 November; flipping a seat previously held by a Republican to the Democratic column.
Hicks said that she saw how the issue of education funding was able to win so many voters for the Democrats.
She said many voters had previously had trouble understanding the link between education cuts and the tax cuts the state gave to corporations and the oil and gas industry. That changed after the teachers’ strike.
“I feel like the walkout really brought those inequities to light and people were much more willing to have that conversation because they understood the magnitude,” said Hicks. “You know, finally, having a united front and coming together shed light on some dark places in our public education system and was powerful.”
In Arizona, where more than 70,000 teachers and their supporters marched on the state capitol in April, teachers made big gains at the ballot box; electing a former college educator, Kyrsten Sinema, as senator, defeating a ballot measure that would have expanded education vouchers in the state and making gains in the state legislature.
Teachers also helped elect 31-year-old school speech therapist Kathy Hoffman as Arizona state school superintendent, the first time in 25 years that a Democrat has held the office in Arizona.
Two years ago, after watching the Betsy DeVos confirmation as secretary of education, Hoffman, a member of the American Federation of Teachers, decided to run for Arizona schools superintendent. Hoffman used her network of teacher activists to defeat better-funded opponents, both Democratic and Republican.
Keep reading!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In New York State parent activists and teachers played a major role in the statewide Blue Tsunami, electing pro public school Dems in traditional Repub strongholds … I expect reining in charter schools, the beginning of addressing equitable school funding and leaving teacher assessments to school districts and collective bargaining
These educators deserve our utmost respect and admiration. They have dared to enter the political snake pit where most of them will face a difficult uphill battle, particularly in red states. The only way to help them is to elect more of them. Union members, both active and retired, need to help them with their campaigns. Unlike the conservatives they oppose, they do not have a great deal of cash so they need many small donors and volunteers to help them. Bless them for their courage and resolve!
The unions should make an effort to get e-mail addresses for retirees and advise them how to vote to save public schools, public employment and public pensions.
The villains, John Arnold, Bill Gates, the Waltons and Koch’s should be named and shamed in the e-mails.
I’m really grateful to the teachers for walking out. It forced politicians to pay attention to public schools.
It’s too bad they had to go to such extreme measures to get attention, but public schools would have continued to be either denigrated or ignored if they hadn’t taken to the streets and garnered some media attention.
Political leaders in the states where they walked out seemed totally taken by surprise- which is a real measure of how little they value our schools or our kids.
How can they NOT KNOW every public school in their state is on life support? That’s more than “out of touch”- it’s “on another planet”.
The Center for American Progress, which is falsely identified as the voice of the left, have been instrumental in keeping the Dem. politicians in the dark via the organization’s advocacy of privatized education.
CAP receives funding from Bill Gates. Open Secrets reports that Corey Booker was the politician to whom CAP gave the most money.
I loved that article. I wasn’t surprised other news sources downplayed the teacher wave. The Guardian is a free and independent news source. It’s the new public press. Probably only a matter of time before some tech billionaire like Powell-Jobs, who just bought Axiom among others, buys it like the hoard of foundations bought public television, so enjoy it while it lasts. — Teaching colleagues, keep running!
Many members of younger generations do not appreciate the power of banding together with colleagues at work to change the system. They have bought into the idea that they are “free agents” who can hop from career-to-career and devise their own health plans and their own retirement plans. If you enter teaching with the notion that it is a way station and not a path you want to commit to for life the idea of pushing back against the forces that want to undercut your wages, hours, and working conditions is alien.
In reporting on the “wildcat strikes” in these states where unions are unwelcome and/or under-appreciated one fact has been overlooked: the teachers who marched together are the teachers who are the most passionate about their work and the most committed to their career. They WANT to teach and are only asking for wages that will enable them to devote their time and energy to making their classrooms the focal point of their life.
MIT’s invitation to a school privatizer to speak (Diane posted about it on Nov. 26th) provoked me to look at the school’s department that is “reimagining and reinventing education in the digital age”. What does the photo array of the group’s leaders and team, suggest? The 12 “leaders” appear to include only two women and no Black representation. The “team” of about 160, seems to employ only 3 Black people.
In contrast, America’s students, which MIT has self-appointed to craft education for, reflect a diverse population preparing for a capitalistic democracy, characterized by a vast number of different jobs. How dare MIT assume the role it identifies for itself, with a “team” so lacking in inclusivity?
Michigan State University and MIT are just two of many schools that permit centers housed at them to avoid disclosure of funders. When reading or listening to output from “universities” or “think tanks with students”, what is a reason that media and the public should assume the work product is anything but shilling for unidentified special interests?