Linda Lyon writes a blog called “Restore Reason.” She lives in Arizona, after a successful career in the military, and she just stepped down as President of the Arizona School Boards Association.
In this post, she describes legislators prefer revenge to reason. They are furious about the success of the RedForEs movement, and they are lashing out at teachers.
“I don’t believe Arizona’s teachers walked out because they were tired of being paid at a rate ranked 48th in the nation. I believe they walked out because we had some 2,000 classrooms without a certified teacher and class sizes that are 5th highest in the U.S. They walked out, because they know that the number one in-school factor to student achievement is a highly qualified teacher. They walked out because it was way beyond time for someone to take a significant stand. It took 75,000 of them, but their stand significantly moved the needle for Arizona’s one million public school students. To be clear though, even with the additional funding garnered this year, our public schools are still short over $600 million from 2008 levels (yes, a decade ago.)
“Progress though, evidently scares lawmakers like Finchem and Townsend (or gives them a tool with which to scare others) and they are out for revenge. They don’t want teachers who stand up for their students, they want teachers who do what they are told. Unfortunately for them, teachers are citizens first and still do enjoy certain Constitutional protections for protected speech.”
A great post.
Teachers who stand up for their students terrify small-minded legislators.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If teachers that speak out in Arizona are at risk, maybe those of us that have blogs and we don’t live in Arizona can publish their posts that expose the corruption in that state but keep their identify a secret so they can’t be punished by the fascist autocrats that think they own and control Arizona as if it was their own fiefdom and they were Lords and us all serfs that they owned.