Teaching Profession News in Brief

Teacher Activism Persists in U.S.

By Madeline Will & The Associated Press — February 26, 2019 1 min read
Teachers and school personnel demonstrate outside the House of Delegates chamber last week at the state Capitol in Charleston, W.Va.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Frustrated about wages, working conditions, and other education issues, teachers are continuing to walk out of their classrooms.

Labor strife spiked last year as teachers in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington state, and West Virginia took to the streets to protest.

Now, just as Denver teachers returned to their classrooms after a nine-day strike, teachers in West Virginia once again went on strike as did their counterparts in Oakland, Calif.

But the flavor of the teacher strikes has changed somewhat. Unlike last year, when teachers across the country shared a similar narrative of crumbling classrooms, unrestrained class sizes, and stagnant paychecks, the strike demands now are far-reaching. Teachers are pushing back against education reform policies like charter schools and performance-based pay. They’re also fighting for social-justice initiatives, like sanctuary protections for undocumented students.

West Virginia teachers, who started it all last spring, walked out again last week in protest of a broad-based education bill that, among other provisions, would have created the state’s first charter schools and allowed education savings accounts for parents to pay for private school. They ended their two-day strike after lawmakers did not act on the doomed measure.

The bill “is now dead. It’s gone,” said Fred Albert, the president of the American Federation of Teachers’ West Virginia chapter. “So our voices were heard.”

In Oakland, meanwhile, the city’s 3,000 teachers, who headed to the picket lines Feb. 21, are demanding a 12 percent retroactive raise covering 2017 to 2020 to compensate for what they say are among the lowest salaries for public school teachers in the exorbitantly expensive San Francisco Bay Area. They also want the district to hire more counselors to support students and more full-time nurses.

A teacher’s starting salary in the district is $46,500 a year, and the average salary is $63,000, according to the district’s teachers’ union. By comparison, a starting teacher makes $51,000 a year in neighboring Berkeley, where the average salary is $75,000.

While the statewide labor actions last year were mostly organized through grassroots Facebook groups, the strikes in major cities have been led by strong unions.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the February 27, 2019 edition of Education Week as Teacher Activism Persists in U.S.

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Teaching Profession 'Here’s a Room. Here’s a Book. Good Luck': Veteran Teachers Reflect on How Their Careers Began
A little bit of support in the first year of teaching can go a long way, and older teachers are willing to mentor their new colleagues.
5 min read
Two female teachers in a school hallway having a discussion.
E+
Teaching Profession The State of Teaching It's 'a Passion, It’s Not Just a Paycheck': Teachers' Advice on Joining the Profession
If you go into the job with open eyes, it's worth it, say five teachers featured in EdWeek's The State of Teaching project.
Fourth grade students have fun interacting in a math class taught by Helen Chan at South Loop Elementary School on Nov. 15, 2023, in Chicago, Ill.
Fourth grade students have fun interacting in a math class taught by Helen Chan at South Loop Elementary School on Nov. 15, 2023, in Chicago.
Jamie Kelter Davis for Education Week
Teaching Profession The Finalists for National Teacher of the Year Have Ideas for Boosting Teacher Morale
The four award-winning teachers also met with U.S. lawmakers to advocate for their education causes of choice.
5 min read
Illustration of hands holding speech bubbles.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
Teaching Profession From Our Research Center Forget the Free Food and Gift Cards. Here's the Kind of Recognition Teachers Really Want
New survey results reveal what teachers and administrators find to be the most meaningful type of acknowledgment from a supervisor.
4 min read
Thank you card inside a brown envelope left on desk
iStock / Getty Images Plus