School bus drivers in Greenville, Mississippi, did not report to work for two days to protest their low wages. Apparently they were unaware that the legislature had passed a law in 1985-36 years ago-absolutely prohibiting any strikes by any school employees, including bus drivers.
The local school board debated whether the drivers’ failure to work was or was not a strike. They did not realize that their own board could be fined thousands of dollars each for failing to report the names of those who struck.
One thing is clear: Mississippi loathes the very idea of unions. And another: they “appreciate” their teachers and other school staff but they don’t want to pay them a living wage.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You don’t have a union so you can strike.
You strike so you can have a union.
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By punishing school employees for disobeying an unjust law, authorities reveal their cruelty for all to see.
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The only way it’s going to change is solidarity. Every bus driver – heck, everyone involved in education, even every damn worker in the state – needs to make it clear that if those bus drivers are punished, they will walk too. They can’t fire everyone.
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Good Luck !! First when was the last time you saw solidarity among American workers . Then add the racial dynamic that makes the South .
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Wait I forgot racism in this country never had a border at the Mason Dixon line. The racial divide has been used for a very long time to divide and crush workers.
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It’s so funny that both political parties say they want “working class voters” but neither party ever actually supports working class voters when they try to gain some respect in the workplace. They want their vote! They just don’t want to do anything to earn it.
This is disgusting. We’re really incapable of paying school bus drivers a decent wage and treating them with respect? These ridiculous lawmakers really had to hammer them with firing – a permanent ban on employment- just for speaking up? That’s how they spend their days? Coming up with ways to punish people who drive a school bus? Driving the school bus is more productive than what any of the people who put the law in do.
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The right wing is full of authoritarians. The governor and legislature have passed an “anti-riot” law in Florida. There is no definition of what a riot actually is. The concern is that police will claim a demonstration is a riot which will give them the authority to send more people of color to jail. This law will be challenged in the courts.
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“Land of the free, home of the brave…”
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I’m seeing more and more of this:
“Making computer science courses available for students in traditional public schools
This proposal is the most controversial, as it requires traditional public schools to offer students the option of enrolling in a computer science class. This could mean a course offered by the district (perhaps one of the AP Computer Science courses), an integrated course (a general education class that incorporates computer science principles) also taught by the district, or an approved online class offered by an outside educational provider.”
It’s an ed reform mandate that only applies to public schools. They exempt the schools they prefer- charter and private schools- from the mandates they impose on public schools.
How long is this situation sustainable? Where people who don’t support public schools write all the policy for public schools and exempt their own schools from the mandates they put on ours? Ed reformers, who work every day to replace public schools with privatized systems, also insist on policing every public school in the country.
It’s such a lousy deal for public school students. They get all the gimmicky junk ed reform policy and none of the ed reform support. They should at least be able to make a deal- ed reformers won’t lift a finger to support their schools and in return public schools are free of ed reformers. Seems fair.
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“gimmicky” junk ed — that certainly brings up strange visions of future educational invasions
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Big Tech keeps buying policymakers to foist technology on pubic schools whether it is warranted or not. We need to get politics out of the schools.
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I’d be happy to get profits out of the schools. That’s what’s driving the Big Tech boom.
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Low pay for all people employed in education is a major cause for the low level of academic achievement in Mississippi and similar states.
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Off-Topic:
Maybe I’m too early on this, but I am disappointed in the lack of comments from Florida-based Twitter accounts that are usually super critical of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He signed the sweeping voucher bill into law today.
These accounts, some of which are “organizations” and some that are tied to individuals, are on his tail daily, criticizing him for his COVID policies, voting suppression law, protest law, his $1 billion tax increase, possible links to the Matt Gaetz scandal, Trump-like outbursts at the media, etc. Yet, the only thing so far today in my Twitter roundup is criticism that “he didn’t let all media into the press conference in Hialeah.” That is where the bill was signed. (Last week, he signed the voter suppression law as a Fox News exclusive.) They don’t even mention the privatization bill when talking about certain media being blocked out.
In case I am too early, I will not call out any names, but if I don’t see anything soon, I will post the names of those Twitter accounts. Accountabaloney is the only account that I follow that has posted about it, but it’s an education-focused account, so it doesn’t really count.
If they make the 2022 election all about COVID, Dems are in for a losing battle. They could really gain traction by throwing their full support behind strengthening the quality of traditional public schools.
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Every adult human deserves a livable wage. Every school employee should be on a comparable pay scale. By that I mean paying support staff more, not paying teachers less. We’re all in this together. And, I’m not afraid to admit most paraprofessionals and other support staff I’ve worked with, work “harder” day in and day out than I do.
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