John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reflects on the recent statewide walkout and the lessons learned.
The nine-day Oklahoma teacher walkout was the result of two risky, ideological experiments. As the National Education Association’s Jason Walta explains, the work stoppage also previews the dilemmas that are likely to become more frustrating if the U.S. Supreme Court does what is expected and issues an antiunion decision in Janus v. AFSCME .
The first theory which drove teachers out of their classrooms was “Supply Side economics.” Oklahoma replicated the extreme budget cutting that Thomas Frank documented in What’s the Matter with Kansas. Income tax cuts that were tilted in favor of the rich cost the state $1 billion per year. The 43rd richest person on the planet and Trump supporter, Harold Hamm, has further enriched himself by ramming though a reduction of oil Gross Production Taxes (GPT) from 7 percent to 2 percent. Consequently, by 2016, the state agencies that provide the most important social and medical services had been cut by one-quarter to one-third of their 2009 levels.
https://okpolicy.org/the-cost-of-tax-cuts-in-oklahoma/
Secondly, the resulting education cutbacks began as corporate school reform was imposed. In 2009, I was surprised to see how many legislators were bringing a New Yorker Magazine to an interim committee on education policy. It featured Steve Brill’s article on the New York City “Rubber Room,” which claimed that value-added teacher evaluations were a valid and reliable tool for firing “bad” teachers. The legislators believed Brill’s flawed reporting and they bought into the corporate school reformers’ self-proclaimed plan which included the replacement of Baby Boomer teachers with twenty-somethings.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/08/grading_the_education_reformers.html
I emailed Brill and learned he didn’t really understand what value-added models could or could not do, and it became clear that he had not properly cross-examined the reformers’ claim that effective teaching, alone, could close the achievement gap. When completing his book, Brill had to make a dramatic change in the pro-reform narrative. Its hero, a 26-year-old with supposedly superhuman stamina and commitment named Jessica Reid, grew too exhausted to continue at her charter school. Today’s worn-down teaching profession is still enduring the effects of schools being “deputized”” as the agents for overcoming poverty.
https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/from-whence-come-ideas-for-reforming-teaching-practices/
Oklahoma joined almost all of the rest of the nation in passing legislation that allowed it to compete for federal Race to the Top funds. Oklahoma’s grant wasn’t funded, but as in more than forty other states, teachers’ due process rights were compromised. The state spent millions of dollars on standardized testing, computer systems for keeping track of test score increases, and for using an unreliable and invalid statistical model for firing teachers. Veteran teachers (and their higher salaries) were often pushed out so newbies could be socialized into bubble-in accountability.
http://newsok.com/article/3432650
Reformers didn’t bother to inventory the capacity that would be required to implement such a half-baked agenda. They simply imposed huge workloads on teachers and administrators trying to comply with dubious mandates. Unions were hard-pressed to merely minimize the damage done.
The experiment failed, and the law was repealed, but the money and energy squandered in the reckless experiment are gone forever.
And that brings us to the ways that the Oklahoma walkout and other teacher revolts in “Right to Work” states preview a new resistance for a post-Janus world. Harold Meyerson recently recalled his old wisecrack, “‘China has strikes but no unions; America has unions but no strikes.’” These teachers’ rebellions show that the United States is “becoming more like China every day.”
http://prospect.org/article/what-teacher-strikes-mean
The Oklahoma walkout epitomizes what could be great and what is worrisome about the new era of political activism which is likely to counter Janus. It was a grassroots uprising, organized on social media. As the National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia says, this is the “education spring.”
Teachers are challenging a system that had been created by the decades-long campaign to shrink government to the size where it can be strangled in the bathtub. Oklahoma unions and other traditional advocates for progressive causes are stymied by the 3/4ths legislative majority which is required to raise taxes. And term limits mean that the legislature lacks institutional memory. Most lawmakers weren’t in office in 2010 when the fateful decisions were made to gut the progressive tax system and to impose corporate school reform on educators.
In the long run, interactions between a youthful teaching profession and the newbies in the legislature are likely to produce better outcomes. Both groups are now frustrated, but they should recall the advice American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten offered on the first day of the walkout. Weingarten said that in every job action, there is “always a moment of truth.” She also said that it is “as important to find a way back in as it is to find a way out.”
At the end of the first week, it looked like a way back to work had been found. The legislature passed $40 million in additional taxes. When combined with the already agreed upon $6100 average pay raise, 95% of the teachers’ demands would have been met. But the fervor of the teachers at the Capitol meant that union leaders couldn’t call off the work stoppage. Besides, plans had already been made for the next week.
On Sunday, a prayer vigil at the Capitol drew hundreds of supporters. Monday’s crowd was far bigger than the 30,000 to 35,000 people who came to each of the first week’s events. Thousands of education supporters marched from Edmond, Del City, and Norman. The next day, marchers arrived from Tulsa. On Thursday, the Moore schools reopened but hundreds of teachers stayed out of class and marched to the Capitol. Had the walkout ended after one week, teachers could have proclaimed an unambiguous victory, but those and other consciousness-raising accomplishments would not have happened.
Many rank-in-file teachers are frustrated with the decisions to return to school, but several key points must be emphasized. First, it took both the threat of a walkout and an initiative petition to raise the Gross Production Tax to persuade the legislature to increase the GPT to 5%. Now, energies must be devoted to initiatives that would raise it all the way back to 7%, as well as defeating an initiative that would defund the pay increase. Both efforts have great potential for building unity among education allies and dividing their opponents. (The same applies to the need for citizen actions to end the constitutional requirement for a 75% majority to raise taxes, and to curtail extreme gerrymandering.)
http://oklahomawatch.org/2018/04/13/ballot-questions-could-boost-teacher-pay-or-put-raises-at-risk/
Moreover, none of these victories would have been possible without the support of local school boards and district administrations, not to mention students and parents. As it became clear that no new money would be appropriated, teachers needed to support their allies in keeping the rest of the school year from degenerating into chaos.
http://www.oklahoman.com/article/5590781?access=17a8dbf82012571d5b94781d849851c5
Just as important, teachers should remember the needs of state employees who pulled out of the walkout just before the OEA announced its end. The Oklahoma Public Employees said, “Recent discussions focus solely on education funding and exclude public safety, veterans’ services, mental health, protective services or any other state agency services.” Given the legal and political complexities of the job actions, that mistake probably was inevitable. But, educators must refocus on the overall needs of their students and families.
http://newsok.com/state-agencies-say-they-have-funding-needs-too/article/5589886
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/02/07/harmful-tax-cuts-helped-fuel-oklahomas-budget-woes
Finally, while understanding that this new, evolving activism won’t always be pretty, we should listen to former teacher, Sen. J.J. Dossett (D-Owasso) who says that teachers had been apathetic but tens of thousands of them became activists. Led by teacher-candidates, hundreds of additional candidates filed for office last week, leaving almost no Republicans unchallenged. So, teachers should avoid recriminations, celebrate a victory, and focus on November.
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