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Arizona: Governor Ducey Refuses to Meet with Teacher Leaders as Strike Looms

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2018 //
18

 

Governor Ducey refuses to meet with teacher leaders to discuss their demands, as teachers prepare for mass walkouts to protest cuts in funding and low salaries.

“The governor’s statement comes less than a week after a request by Noah Karvelis of Arizona Educators United and Joe Thomas of the Arizona Education Association “to begin a negotiation process to resolve the #RedForEd demands.” Those include not just a 20 percent salary increase to compete with neighboring states, but also restoring education funding levels to where they were a decade ago.”

Ducey has offered a 1 percent raise, added to an earlier 1 percent raise.

Categories Arizona, Resistance, Teacher Pay

John Thompson: On the Front Lines in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2018 //
9

 

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reports here  on the continuing walkout:

 

Like most Oklahomans, I misjudged the crowds of 35,000 teachers at the state Capitol. Reading between the lines of press coverage, and listening to people inside the Capitol, I assumed that a deal would probably be struck after a week (at the latest.) On Friday, however, I kept running into former colleagues, who had always been extremely a-political, and saw their fervor. Regardless of what their leaders sought in terms of reaching an agreement, it finally dawned on me that teachers have just begun to fight.

Nobody was surprised, however, when Republican legislative leaders struck back. A week into the walkout, Rep. Chuck Strohm (R-Tulsa) attacked the Oklahoma Education Association and teachers seeking an increase in education funding. He attributed the walkout to “the OEA [which] had to come up with a new reason for existing.” Strohm asserted, “Today, teachers are crying for more money from the legislature to reduce class sizes when the real problem is the education establishment whose sole purpose is to grow their kingdom.”

Strohm wants wages to be driven by free market competition. He says that the current salary schedule “is the essence of Socialism.” He believes “the problem stems from the fact that we live in a culture of handouts without any accountability.”

http://chuckstrohm.com/inside- the-captiol/

Neither was it a surprise that the conservative Oklahoman started the next week with a misleading headline, “Dark Money Group Funding Pro-Teacher Ads.” It followed the money for pro-teacher television ads to Oklahoma’s Children Our Future, the 501(c)(4) whose chief funders were former Senator David Boren and the Tulsa-based Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, and which advocated for a penny sales tax increase to save our schools. The Oklahoman hasn’t bothered to investigate the really secretive investments by conservatives like ALEC, the Koch brothers and Betsy DeVos.

http://newsok.com/article/5590115?slideout=1

Players and Money Behind Penny Sales Tax Campaigns

As the walkout’s second week began, DeVos also weighed in with the “hope that adults would keep adult disagreements and disputes in a separate place, and serve the students that are there to be served.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/04/09/betsy-devos-to-oklahoma-teachers-serve-the-students/?utm_term=.169205f6f00f

But the Sunday Oklahoman’s lead story sent the more pointed message. It listed the needs of other state agencies: Oklahoma Department of Human Services had to cut $108 million from its budgets, with much of it due to the unnecessary loss of federal funds; the Department of Mental Health has lost $133 million, and reduced services to 73,000 persons suffering from mental illness; Higher Education has been cut $122 million; the Transportation Department has lost $500 million in the last two years; and the Department of Corrections is asking for $1 billion.

http://newsok.com/state-agencies-say-they-have-funding-needs-too/article/5589886

Of course, the question is whether teachers are selfish adults who put their needs over children and the rest of the state, or whether these multiple crises are due to the legislature, the governor, and their secretive out-of-state funders, cutting taxes for the rich.

Clearly, education supporters are winning the battle of the narratives. Even though Gov. Mary Fallin compared teachers to teenagers and tried to link the crowds to Antifa, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol describes them as the “best protesters ever.” On Sunday, a prayer vigil at the Capitol drew hundreds of supporters. Monday morning, 150 female attorneys marched in support of teachers. Thousands of education supporters marched from Edmond, Del City, and Norman. They will be followed by veterans, students marching on Tuesday, and the arrival of the marchers from Tulsa.

Fact check: Antifa, paid protesters and death threats at the Oklahoma teacher walkout

OHP on teachers at state capitol: “Best protesters ever”

Monday’s turnout was much greater than last week’s. The Tulsa World reported that schools serving about 500,000 of the state 690,000 students remain closed. Sometimes it looked like all of those kids joined the rally!

Seriously, the number of students at the Monday rally was far, far greater than the first week. And it is great hearing the kids explain why they chose to attend, and how they love the civics lesson they are participating in. My favorite sign was carried by a student, “My textbook is twenty years older than me.”

Similarly, a couple of teachers volunteered that their 6th grade student spoke inside the Capitol. He decided completely on his own to research the issue of Oklahoma and national teacher salaries.

Prayer vigil draws hundreds to Capitol Sunday night

Girl Attorney group recruits 150 female attorneys to advocate for teachers

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/over-students-statewide-out-of-school-monday-as-walkout-continues/article_eb4dcbe5-24f8-5b99-b7f1-e77a77faf40d.html

By the way, the determination of teachers, as well as parents and school boards, to keep up the fight is due to both the state’s budget cuts and the effects of corporate school reform. From FY2010 to 2017, the average inflation adjusted Oklahoma teacher salary plummeted by $8,150. As the state’s teacher salaries declined to 49th in the nation, the average salary dropped to a level ($45,245) that is virtually identical to the average pay preceding the 1990 strike.

Because of Oklahoma’s “Education Spring,” 3/4ths of the salary decrease has been corrected, but reversing the damage done to students will take a long campaign. Extreme tax cuts for the 1% drove Oklahoma over the edge, but we must tackle the corporate school reforms that also undermined the teaching profession.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.asp

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/08/grading_the_education_reformers.html

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/9/17214924/oklahoma-teacher-strike-tax-cut-rich-charts

This battle must lead to a conversation about what happens when teachers and students are treated like lab rats. Whether we are talking about the weird idea that extreme budget cuts will produce transformative economic growth, or the idea that market-driven experiments will create transformative student performance increases, we need to start treating the education sector with respect. And a teacher’s sign asks the key question about the task, “If Not Now, When?”

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Oklahoma, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Billionaire Secretary DeVos Rips Poorly Paid Oklahoma Teachers for Failure to “Serve the Kids”

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2018 //
36

Billionaire Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who never worked a day in her life for pay until she was named Secretary of Education by Trump and who never had to worry about paying a mortgage or a meeting a car payment, lashed into Oklahoma teachers for their failure to end their strike and get back to work “serving the kids.”

No doubt her butler and her chauffeur are paid more than the average teacher in Oklahoma, even without a college degree.

Her criticism will  likely stiffen the spines of striking teachers.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Oklahoma, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Bill Maher Comes Out Swinging for Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2018 //
27

 

The late night talk show host comedian Bill Maher takes on the hypocrisy of politicians who refuse to pay decent salaries to teachers. 

As his evidence, he cites the story of a teacher in Arizona whose story went viral. 

In one of Maher’s best lines, he quotes Sarah Palin, who said that teachers will get their reward in heaven, but says Maher, the rent’s due here on earth.

Count this as a big victory for the teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, who have gotten the nation’s attention and taught the public a lesson.

Categories Teacher Pay, Teachers

Jan Resseger: Why Teachers Are Walking Out, Part 2

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2018 //
18

Jan Resseger has an excellent roundup of the conditions that are driving the walkouts in “right to work” state.

The walkout is a very effective tool. No teachers, no school.

Nothing drives a legislature crazy as much as a wildcat strike because they can’t sit down with a union leader and tamp down the rage and expectations.

It seems that the rightwing strategy of passing “right to work” laws and going to court to reduce dues-paying members (the upcoming Janus decision in the U.S. Supreme Court) has backfired. Unions channel teacher demands. Despite these laws, teachers can still walk out, close down the schools, and win their demands, as long as they stay united. West Virginia, with its long history of militancy, started the movement. Now Oklahoma. Now, Kentucky. Who is next? Arizona? New Mexico? The Deep South states, where salaries are abysmal?

What was the trigger? Was it the student activism that followed the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School? Did the mass demonstrations inspire teachers to say to themselves, “enough is enough”? Pay me a living wage or I won’t teach. The straw that broke the camel’s back. The last straw.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Unions

Why Teachers Are Walking Out: GOP Economic Policy of Starve Government, part 1

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2018 //
26

 

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?

 

Categories Teacher Pay

BREAKING NEWS! Teacher Celebration in Oklahoma!! April Fools Day.

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2018 //
16

 

John Thompson, a teacher and historian in Oklahoma, has a news flash!

 

The massive Oklahoma Teacher Walkout and Capitol Rally is scheduled for 10:30am Monday, but due to a last minute settlement, it will now be a victory lap. Thousands of teachers will still be coming from across the state. However, an agreement reached during a couple of secret meetings at the Devon Energy Tower and the Chesapeake Energy Corporation headquarters will transform what had been a black eye for Oklahoma in terms of national press coverage. The state’s international reputation will now be an asset for economic development. The rally has been rebranded as Disruptive Innovation: Okie Style.

No new funding was authorized Saturday night, but a spokesman for oil tycoon Harold Hamm announced a package of reforms, prescribed by the Broad and Walton foundations and Silicon Valley partnerships, that will raise $1 billion per year for cradle to career education. The early education and pre-k to 12 component will be funded through a Pay for Performance bond issue. Education providers will be compensated for the increases in measurable outcomes that they produce. School supplies with bargain basement prices will be purchased through a Walmart/Amazon/GoFundMe collaboration.

Similar saving for higher education will result from a Facebook/Cambridge Analytica personalized learning initiative. Tenure for university professors will no longer be an expensive method for protecting academic freedom because lessons will be fact checked by the Republican National Committee and the Heritage Foundation.

Some may wonder why state employees have maintained such a low profile during the budget crisis, but that is because they will benefit from a venture philanthropy innovation financed by ALEC, and that is the way they roll. It will be a win-win breakthrough. Oklahoma will be the first state to completely privatize its health, welfare, criminal justice, and law enforcement functions. Employees can expect a doubling of take home pay through performance incentives.

Even better, choice will rule. Institutions can sign up for meeting the outcomes that they choose. For instance, prisons can commit to either reducing inmate population and recidivism, or increasing prison population within the same units and budgets, as long as gains are properly documented. Social and health care workers can choose to either improve prenatal care and offer holistic multi-generational, holistic, state-of-the-art services in an aligned manner, or they can coordinate with others to make the cradle to prison pipeline flow more efficiently.

Please keep in mind that pizza, tee shirts, and other swag will be provided to teachers by the EPIC Charter CMO. The hope is that former Sen. Tom Coburn, who returned to the Capitol last week to campaign against taxes, will return as a volunteer handing out the goodies. The best view of the extravaganza will be at the overflow sites for the thousands of rally participants seeking to avoid the traffic. All downtown hotels that receive Tax Incentive Financing (TIF) subsidies will offer free viewing spaces. The most prestigious venue, the Scott Pruitt wing of 21c Museum Hotel in Film Row, will likely require early registration.

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!

Good luck to Oklahoma teachers!

Categories Oklahoma, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Washington Post: Why Oklahoma Teachers Are Likely to Strike

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2018 //
29

 

The Washington Post writes here about Oklahoma’s abysmal treatment of teachers and a decade of budget cuts. 

Teachers are working second jobs to make ends meet. Some have to resort to food pantries at the church to feed their families. It is amazing that anyone wants to teach in a state that treats teachers so disrespectfully.

“Oklahoma teachers are among the nation’s lowest paid, and ­despite the governor and lawmakers approving a $6,100 raise this week, educators pledge to walk out Monday if their full demands — including restoration of budget cuts — are not met. For a decade, little has been done to address the plight of the state’s teachers. It is a situation that has forced many to take second jobs, rely on food pantries and donate their plasma to pay the bills.

“The revolt in Oklahoma comes amid a wave of teacher protests that have no recent parallel in the United States. In West Virginia, educators stayed out for nine tense days before winning a pay raise. In Arizona, teachers are threatening to strike unless the state gives them a 20 percent salary increase. In Kentucky, educators shut down at least 20 school systems Friday as they converged on the state capitol to protest pension reforms. “Don’t make us go West Virginia on you,” one protester’s sign read.

“Earlier this year, educators in Oklahoma turned heartbroken — and desperate — as the legislature failed to boost their salaries. Then, about 1,000 miles to the east, West Virginia’s teachers walked off the job, and leveraged a 5 percent raise after shutting down schools. Suddenly, whispers about the possibility of a strike in Oklahoma grew to a full-throated roar, even as teachers agonized over whether they should leave their students behind.

“We had been talking about it forever,” said Randi Cowan, a third-grade teacher in Tulsa who earned $33,746 last year and lives in a home built by Habitat for Humanity. “But then somebody else did it and . . . it just ignited our fire.”

“As in West Virginia, educators in Oklahoma have reached a breaking point, fed up with stagnant wages and cuts to education funding. The idea of a walkout began to gain traction in mid-February after a proposed salary increase failed to win enough support among lawmakers. A ­superintendent circulated a petition asking colleagues if they would support a teacher walkout.

“Then a 25-year-old social studies teacher, inspired by what happened in West Virginia, began a Facebook group titled “Oklahoma Teacher Walkout — The Time is Now!” It has ballooned to 70,000 members, including educators from Oklahoma and West Virginia and supportive parents.

“Educators — backed by the state’s teachers unions — demanded a $10,000 raise for themselves and a $5,000 raise for support personnel. They are also asking the state to restore budget cuts and boost spending on schools by $200 million over three years. If they do not get what they want by Monday, teachers in about 140 school districts — including some of the state’s largest — plan to walk off the job.

“In 2016, Oklahoma ranked 49th in teacher pay — lower even than West Virginia, which was 48th. The average compensation package of an Oklahoma teacher was $45,276 a year, according to the National Education Association, a figure that includes a high-priced health plan and other benefits. That’s far less than educators in neighboring states, making it difficult — for many districts, impossible — to find and keep qualified teachers.

“Oklahoma’s 2016 teacher of the year, Shawn Sheehan, decamped for Texas last year, joining many other teachers who sought higher-paying jobs…

“The state’s funding crisis began at least a decade ago when the recession hit, leading lawmakers to take a cleaver to education spending. Even after the state’s economy recovered, long-standing tax cuts and plunging oil prices constrained state revenue and depleted education funding. In this deeply conservative state, lawmakers have resisted raising taxes — and doing so requires a three-quarters majority of the legislature.

Adjusted for inflation, the amount the state spends per student has fallen nearly 30 percent over the past decade, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.”

Thank you, West Virginia teachers for showing the way.

Teachers of Oklahoma, you have our support and admiration!

Categories Oklahoma, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers and Teaching

Jacobin: The Reasons for a Teachers’ Strike in “Right to Work” Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2018 //
22

 

Eric Blanc wrote a comprehensive and excellent article in Jacobin about the dire condition of public schools in Oklahoma. Given the legislature’s indifference, even hostility, to public schools, he says it is Oklahoma’s turn to strike.

State legislators haven’t been able to find enough money to pay for public schools, but they have found it easy to divert money from their resource-starved public schools to pay for charter schools.

Blanc says that the purposeful gutting of public schools has been the project of free market fundamentalists. But it did not start with them.

I urge you to read the whole article. Here is an excerpt.

He writes:

 

Demanding major increases in pay and school funding, Oklahoman educators are set to strike on April 2. The similarities with West Virginia are obvious. In a Republican-dominated state with a decimated education system and a ban on public employee collective bargaining, an indignant workforce teetering on the edge of poverty has initiated a powerful rank-and-file upsurge. But history never repeats itself exactly. To strike and win, Oklahoma workers will have to overcome a range of distinct challenges and obstacles.

Years of austerity have devastated Oklahoma’s education system, as well as its public services and infrastructure. Since 2008, per-pupil instructional funding has been cut by 28 percent — by far the worst reduction in the whole country. As a result, a fifth of Oklahoma’s school districts have been forced to reduce the school week to four days.

Textbooks are scarce and scandalously out of date. Innumerable arts, languages, and sports courses or programs have been eliminated. Class sizes are enormous. A legislative deal to lower class sizes — won by a four-day strike in April 1990 — was subsequently ditched because of a funding shortage. Many of Oklahoma’s 695,000 students are obliged to sit on the floor in class.

The gutting of public education has been accompanied by a push for vouchers and, especially, the spread of charter schools. There are now twenty-eight charter school districts and fifty-eight charter schools across Oklahoma. “Is the government purposively neglecting our public schools to give an edge to private and charter schools?” asked Mickey Miller, a Tulsa teacher and rank-and-file leader. For Christy Cox — a middle-school teacher in Norman who has had to work the night shift at Chili’s to supplement her low wages — reversing these school cuts is her main motivation to strike: “The kids aren’t getting what they need. It’s really crazy. Though the media doesn’t talk about this as much as salaries, I feel that funding our schools is the primary issue.”

Pay, of course, is also a central grievance. Oklahoma’s public school teachers and staff haven’t gotten a raise in ten years – and state workers have waited nearly as long. Public school teacher pay is the forty-eighth worst in the nation. Like in West Virginia, many teachers are unwilling or unable to work in these conditions. Roughly two thousand teaching positions are currently filled by emergency-certified staff with no teaching degrees and little training. Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), the state’s main teachers’ union, explains that “our teacher shortage has reached catastrophic levels because it’s so easy for teachers to move to Texas or Arkansas, or even to another profession, and make much more money.”

Those teachers and staff who stay in state are often forced to work multiple jobs. Micky Miller’s experience is not atypical. During the day, Miller teaches at Booker T. Washington high school in Tulsa. After the school day is over, he works until 7:30 PM at the airport, loading and unloading bags from Delta airplanes. From there, he goes on to his third job, coaching kids at the Tulsa Soccer Club. “I have a master’s degree, and I have to work three jobs just to make ends meet,” he noted. “It’s very difficult to live this way.”

The roots of this crisis are not hard to find. Taxes have not been raised by the Oklahoma legislature since 1990. Due to a right-wing 1992 anti-tax initiative, a supermajority of 75 percent of legislators is now needed to impose new taxes. Yet the need for a supermajority was not a major political issue until very recently, since there has been a strong bipartisan consensus in favor of cutting taxes. Some of the first major tax breaks for the rich and corporations began in 2004 under Democratic governor Brad Henry and a Democratic-led Senate. One recent study estimates that $1 billion in state revenue has been lost yearly due to the giveaways pushed through since the early 2000s.

Republicans swept into the state government in 2010 and promptly accelerated this one-sided class war. Governor Mary Fallin and the Republican legislature have slashed income taxes for the rich. They have also passed huge breaks for the oil and gas companies — not a minor issue in a state that is the third-largest producer of natural gas and fifth-largest producer of crude oil in the country. Even the fiscal fallout of the 2014 oil bust did not lead the administration to reverse course….

 

Please click on the link link and keep reading.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Oklahoma, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Oklahoma: Will Teachers Walk Out on April 2?

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2018 //
16

Even the threat of a statewide walkout has its effects.

Politico reports:

 

OKLAHOMA LAWMAKERS SCRAMBLE TO STOP TEACHERS’ STRIKE: A plan to hike teacher pay moving through the state Legislature won’t stop a statewide teacher walkout planned for Monday, the Oklahoma Education Association told Morning Education. State senators are expected to consider a package today passed by the House that would boost teachers’ pay by $6,000 on average, with smaller raises for school support staff and state employees. The bipartisan deal represents “a great step in the right direction,” said association President Alicia Priest, but it is not sufficient to keep teachers in the classroom on Monday.

– “Because the hole is so deep, and because our employees and the students that we serve have been neglected for so long, we have to see the process to the finish line,” Priest said. “We will be walking out on Monday.” She added that after a decade of steep school funding cuts, the union is asking for pay raises and funding boosts that would span two or three years.

– The union said it rejected the plan for teacher raises because it falls short of teachers’ $10,000 ask, and because teachers in districts that pay higher salaries would get only a portion of the raise. Priest added that the bill doesn’t include the raises the union pitched for school support professionals, cafeteria staff and others. And it doesn’t include substantial boosts for district budgets. More details from NewsOK.

– The legislative proposal received a warmer welcome from the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers, which represents roughly 2,600 public school teachers in that city. “We’ve always said we want an adequate and substantial pay raise. This is in that ballpark,” union President Ed Allen told Morning Education. He added that his union would poll members today on whether to continue with the planned walkout. “Everybody wants more money, but this is substantial. I think our membership is going to say, ‘This is a good deal. Let’s take it, and keep working to get more.'”

– So far, 156 of the 512 districts in Oklahoma have agreed to close schools in support of the walkout. Another 17 are still considering resolutions to close schools, while one has rejected the walkout, according to a tracker run by the Oklahoma Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association. The districts that will close Mondayenroll about 70 percent of students in the state, according to the union’s tally.

– It remains unclear whether the walkout will continue beyond Monday. If so, it would run into standardized testing windows set by the state for students in elementary school through high school. An administration of the ACT test for juniors is planned for Tuesday.

– Further west, in Arizona, teachers plan to gather today at the state Capitol to announce their demands of the governor and state lawmakers. According to the Arizona Republic, there is no immediate plan to strike. More here.

 

 

Categories Oklahoma, Resistance, Teacher Pay
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