These teachers are fed up and speaking out. Over the past year, many states across the country have seen strikes by publication education employees. Arizona. Kentucky. West Virginia. Most recently and still actively, Oklahoma. The teachers aren’t asking for the moon – just slightly higher pay and increased benefits that would allow them to have a better quality of life. As a student who benefitted from thirteen years of public education, I think they deserve that much; however, the state governments seem to disagree. The majority of the strikes have taken days that quickly turned into weeks to have any type of change agreed to by the state governments.
Let’s take a look at West Virginia. In an earlier article, I wrote about the West Virginia’s public school employees s’ strike. At the time of publication, schools had been shut down for four days and the West VA governor had agreed to issue a pay raise for public education employees via new legislation. It ended up taking until March 6th for this legislation to actually be signed; resulting in nearly two weeks of striking and students being out of school.
Another issue is the change being made. Some of the change is not substantial. Look at Oklahoma, the most recent state to strike. Nearly nine days passed before the walkout ended. The strike ended on April 12th with the teachers winning a $6,000 pay raise. While this may sound like a victory, Oklahoma teachers were, prior to the raise being issued, the lowest paid group of public school educators in the United States. Some teachers, according to an article in the New York Times , were not on board with stopping the walkout. They wanted bigger and better changes. This dissatisfaction may hint at a future walkout, but only time will tell.
In a discussion with the president of the Indian State Teachers Association, conducted by IndyStar., the president shines light on another reason that teachers are fed up: not enough pupil funding. Educators want to be able to educate your students (A wild concept, I know.), and they cannot do that to the best of their abilities with inadequate supplies and resources. The public school employees want to be able to do their job, but can’t function without the backing of the very states they try to serve.
Public education has become a battlefield, and it is hard to tell who will win the fight. I hope the employees of public education get what they deserve and are supported by the very states they serve. As people who play such an integral role in our society, it seems only fair for them to be supported and equipped to do their jobs to the best of their ability. It is for sure something to keep an eye on in these upcoming months.
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