# data[].attributes.body
The Utah Education Association is Utah's largest teacher association and works hard to monitor legislation and other factors that may affect public education. It is also a great resource for teacher protection. Read through this website and tell me if you would consider joining UEA.

# data[].attributes.body
Teacher Advocacy is not just a recent problem, but one that has existed since the beginning of time. Take a look at this timeline teacher strikes in the United States. Why do you think this is a still an issue today and there aren't any changes being made?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With Chicago school teachers having completed their third day of striking, impacting an estimated 350,000 students with no agreement in sight over Mayor Rahm Emanuel's demand for tougher teacher evaluations; this might be a fitting time to review a brief history of teacher labor unrest in the United States.

* The National Education Association (NEA) founded in 1857 encouraged professionalism and strongly discouraged collective bargaining or striking through much of the 20th century.

* The Chicago Teachers Federation was founded in 1897.

* Women comprised 86 percent of the teachers in urban schools in 1920, up from 59 percent in 1870.

* The American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was founded in 1916 and today represents 1.5 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide.

* The AFT membership rose from 22,000 in 1941 to 42,000 in 1947 or 4.5 percent of the workforce.

* The first single salary schedule for teachers, (which provides salary increments according to a teacher's years of experience and number of college or university units and degrees), was developed in the Denver, Colorado school system in 1920. By 1931, 22 percent of school systems used the single-salary schedule, and in 1941, it was 31 percent.

* Due to perceived anti-patriotism among AFT's leadership, especially among some of its more prominent members who opposed the U.S. entry into World War I, the American Legion targeted many teachers as being ``disloyal'', pushing for their dismissal and even pushed schools to include lessons on dutiful patriotism in their curriculum.

* Concerned that teacher unions known for ``contemptuous and rebellious'' attitudes toward authorities might pass similar characteristics on to impressionable children, Chicago School Board president, Jacob Loeb, in 1917, passed the infamous ``Loeb Rule,'' which prohibited Chicago teachers from joining trade unions.

* Political repression, and lack of support for the right to strike; this in addition to the Great Depression led to the stagnation of teacher salaries through much of the 1930s, including teachers taking on larger workloads and class sizes, while state governments slashed school budgets .

* With teacher strikes rare during much of the 1930's, the Chicago teachers in District 1 in 1936 led a protest in front of the Board of Education when they defaulted on their salaries.

* Wartime inflation after War World II resulted in economic hardships for many teachers nationwide as they found much of their income eroded. According to historian Marjorie Murphy, during the war years, the average real income of industrial workers rose 80 percent while teachers' real income fell 20 percent.

* By 1943, teachers went on strike in 12 states. Their militancy paid big dividends as the average teacher salary increased by 13 percent since the end of World War II.

* Post-war strike fever was sparked first by Norwalk, Connecticut teachers in September 1946, who successfully won increased pay along with their union being recognized. New Jersey teachers also staged a short strike in 1946. The biggest and most successful teachers strike, by far of that year took place in November in St. Paul, Minnesota when teachers went on a five-week strike which eventually led a pay increase beginning in April, 1947.

* The Condon-Waldin Act law passed by the New York State Legislature in 1947 called for the immediate firing of employees if they struck and were prohibited from reinstatement under a three-year pay freeze and five-year probation.

* In Buffalo, NY in 1946-1947 teachers struck and won major concessions when other labor unions struck in support of the teachers; Minneapolis teachers also struck in May, 1948 winning a pay raise despite the school board attempting to lock them out.

* Also in 1948, AFT locals in San Francisco, California, and Jersey City, New Jersey, w o n pay raises after combative teachers struck.

* The post-war strike wave prompted a number of state legislatures to pass harsh anti-strike laws for public employees, including in Delaware where a bill was passed which would impose a $500 fine and one year in prison for any public employee who struck.

* Teachers in Providence Rhode Island hit the streets for a week in 1950 and won a historic basic contract, one of the first in the nation for teachers.

* During the 1950's, with the menace of the Cold War filling the air and many teachers being accused of ``subversion'', teacher militancy was practically nonexistent through much of the decade; one of the lone exceptions being in New Jersey where there were a total of nine strikes through the 1950's.

* By 1959, Wisconsin was the only state with collective bargaining legislation.

* The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) was founded in 1960 as Local 2 of the now 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

* On November 7, 1960, the UFT with its 50,000 public school teachers launched a one-day strike to convince New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., and the board of education to hold an election that would give teachers to right to choose a collective bargaining unit. Their demands were met in June, 1961.

* In response to the successful New York City strike, between 1961 and 1965, there were as many as six public school teacher strikes nationwide.

* In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10968, giving federal employees collective bargaining rights, and providing momentum for similar changes in state laws.

* In 1963, AFT repealed its ``no-strike'' pledge; and by early 1965, AFT locals secured collective bargaining rights in Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia.

* By 1968, AFT locals had become the collective bargaining agent for teachers in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Kansas City, Cleveland, Newark, Toledo, St. Louis, New Orleans, Washington, DC, and a number of other cities.

* During the 1960's, 22 states passed laws granting collective bargaining to local and state employees.

* In 1968, the San Francisco Federation of Teachers (SFFT) staged a one-day walkout that won salary increases, improved benefits, smaller class sizes, including the hiring of 300 new teachers under a union-negotiated affirmative action plan.

* Thousands of New York City teachers, more than 54,000, went on strike in 1968 during the height of the city's racial tensions when the black school board of Ocean-Hill-Brownsville, a Brooklyn district at war with many of its teachers, dismissed as many as 13 teachers and administrators who were predominantly white and Jewish and were represented by the United Federation of Teachers. The UFT demanded the reinstatement of the teachers. The strike dragged on for 36 days before the local board finally agreed to reinstate the dismissed teachers.

* May, 1969: Chicago teachers go on strike for the first time in the city's history. The strike was resolved after one day when teachers agreed to an increase in salary of $100 a month, raising starting pay of teachers to $8,400. The contract also guaranteed regularly assigned teachers wouldn't be dismissed, established the maximum allowed students in each course, and guaranteed that no educational programs would be eliminated.

* In 1970, Newark teachers w o n a modest pay increase with the board agreeing to hire 252 teachers' aides to take over many of the "nonprofessional duties."

* January, 1971: The second strike by Chicago teachers lasts for four days before agreeing to an 8 percent pay raise, making them one of the best paid in the country.

* On January 10, 1973, unable to reach an agreement on higher wages, smaller classes and a shorter school year, Chicago teachers strike for the third time in four years. The strike lasted two weeks.

* The nation witnessed a marked increase of teacher militancy during the 1970s, as teachers' unions began to push for more of a voice in educational policy.

* By the end of the 1970's, collective bargaining agreements covered 72 percent of public school teachers.

* Between July 1960 and June 1974, the country experienced over 1,000 teacher strikes involving more than 823,000 teachers.

* Nationwide, there was decline in teacher strikes in the 1980s and 1990s, but also saw increased political activism in teachers' unions.

* October 4, 1987: The Chicago Teachers Union agreed to end their 19 day strike, the longest in the city's history, after winning a four percent pay increase in the first year, with any raise in the second year contingent on funds received by the Chicago school board. The agreement also included reductions in class size in some schools. It was the ninth strike in the Chicago Public Schools system in 18 years.

* There were four Chicago teacher strikes between 1980 and 1987 due to the local and state government's failures to fund salary increases and school improvements.

* Skyrocketing health care costs led to a number of teacher strikes nationwide by the late 1990's.

* September 10, 2012: Chicago teachers, some 26,000, the third largest school district nationwide, go on strike for the first time in 25 years with the most contentious issues splitting the two sides apart centering on a new teacher evaluation system and health care benefits.

* According to the Chicago Tribune, there were 10 teacher strikes throughout Illinois in the 2001-02 school years, but since then, the state has had just five since 2007-08.

* The longest teachers' strike in Illinois history took place in the town of Homer in southeastern Champaign County that lasted from October 16, 1986, to June 23, 1987, an eight-month strike which swallowed up a staggering 156 school days, beating the record once set in Cleveland, Ohio in the 2002-03 school year which lasted 62 days.

* Since the 1960's, there have been well over 3,000 teacher strikes which have lasted more than one day.

* Full-time and part-time public school teachers in 2007-08, some 76 percent of public school teachers were female, 44 percent were under age 40 and 52 percent had a master's or higher degree.

* Among both males and females, 83 percent of public school teachers were White, seven percent each were Black or Hispanic, one percent each were Asian or of two or more races, and less than one percent each were Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaska Native in 2007.

* The average salary for full-time public school teachers in 2010-11 was $56,069 in current dollars (not adjusted for inflation). In constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars, the average salary was about three percent higher in 2010-11 than in 1990-91.

Source: ``Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History; `` Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education, 1929-70'' By John F. Lyons; National Center for Education Statistics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Brief History of Teacher Strikes in the United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With Chicago school teachers having completed their third day of striking, impacting an estimated 350,000 students with no agreement in sight over Mayor Rahm Emanuel's demand for tougher teacher evaluations; this might be a fitting time to review a brief history of teacher labor unrest in the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
Currently, there are several teachers going on strikes in order to advocate for themselves. I found this article talking about why exactly these teachers are going on strike, but it's not just because they want more money, but because they need more money. Do you agree with these teachers that went on strike? What would you do if you were in their situation?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here's Why West Virginia Teachers Are On Strike

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The governor signed a law last week increasing teacher pay 2% in July. Teachers say that's not enough.

# data[].attributes.body
We all know that teachers go on strike and we have read about why they go on strike, but this article takes a deeper look into strikes and how they affect our community. This also takes a look into what exactly a strike looks like.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
[ CORRECTION: March 14, 2018: The original version of this post incorrectly stated the number of strikes held in Pennsylvania in 2015. The correct number is 6.]

There have been a lot of teachers' strikes this fall.

Teachers in East St. Louis, Ill., remain on strike through more than two weeks of school closures. The key sticking point is a district proposal that would double the number of years it would take for teachers to reach the top of their salary schedules. A two-week strike in Scranton, Pa., ended last Tuesday after paraprofessionals and teachers secured a two-year agreement containing a 2.7 percent raise. An eight-day strike also came to a close earlier this month in McHenry County, Ill. These strikes follow others that have been resolved in Seattle, in Pasco, Wash., and Prospect Heights, Ill., earlier this fall.

A casual observer may think there have been an inordinate number of teachers' strikes this year. An Education Week Teacher analysis of public school teachers' strikes over the past six years, however, shows that the pace of such strikes hasn't increased or decreased significantly. And considering how many school districts there are, strikes are rare occurrences, attention-grabbing though they may be.

"Strike" can have a hard definition to pin down. For instance, a boycott of a standardized test by teachers in Seattle in 2013 didn't involve a cessation in other teaching duties. There were a series of one-day strikes in Washington state earlier this year to protest a lack of state funding, but then faculty returned to work. Teachers in Jefferson County, Colo., participated in a "sickout" last October over possible changes to the AP U.S. History curriculum; students there staged walkouts as well, all of which led to multiple school closures.

But for this analysis, Education Week Teacher used news archives to examine organized, sustained actions that involved the threat of indefinite public school closures. Or, more informally, a know-it-when-you-see-it approach.

How Many Teachers' Strikes Have There Been, and Where?

Here are the number of teachers' strikes between 2010-15, by state:

2015, 2014 and 2012 have had the most strikes in recent years:

To re-emphasize an earlier point: There are several thousands of public school districts in the United States where bargaining takes place, so 13 strikes in one year represents a minuscule amount of negotiation failure. And yet: Every strike is a disruptive event that affects an entire community-parents who may have difficulty tending to their children during work hours; students who might depend on school for at least one solid meal per day; teachers who would rather be teaching; and the community as a whole that schools support. Strikes are important events.

How Laws and Politics Influence Strikes

While almost all of the 55 strikes in our studied time period were by teachers affiliated with one of the major national teachers' unions, more strikes were initiated by affiliates of the National Education Association than the American Federation of Teachers, by about a 4-to-1 ratio. (One likely reason being that the NEA is much larger than the AFT.)

There was a similar lopsidedness in terms of calendar timing, with only one-third of the strikes occurring in a month other than August, September, or October. Those are months when contracts often expire—and they are also around the time when the school year starts, potentially bringing more attention to the issues at stake.

There are also a couple reasons for why some states have many more strikes than others.

First, every state has separate laws about the legality of public-sector striking. Most states don't allow teachers to strike, as they consider teachers to be essential public personnel.

Washington, which has had dozens of strikes in the past several decades, outlawed public-sector strikes, but there's just enough theoretical vagueness in the law that teachers have nevertheless gone on strike there. Pennsylvania and Illinois both allow strikes; in the former's case, state law dictates how long strikes are permitted to last, to ensure that students still have 180 days of instruction per school year. Illinois passed a law in 2011 to limit the permissible terms of a teachers' strike.

Illinois' strike count may have more to do with a convergence of factors somewhat unique to the state's political climate in 2012, as teachers began to assert themselves more following years of cost-cutting derived from the Great Recession, as the Chicago Daily Herald has reported.

As for why Pennsylvania leads the way, a spokeswoman for the department of education stayed mum: " Labor contracts and disputes are a local matter and the department does not intervene or comment on any labor negotiations or disputes." But Wythe Keever, assistant communications director for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said that the aforementioned state law may cut short negotiations before a long-term solution is found.

"The law's goal is to encourage earlier bargaining and settlements but the law lacks any meaningful type of closure," Keever said via email. "There is no point at which both sides must reach an agreement, so in a new calendar year, if a contract agreement has not been reached, the bargaining process simply resets and begins again."

Another part of the problem for Pennsylvania has been education funding generally. This year, a major impasse has left districts uncertain about their financial futures; administrators in Scranton pointed to that as a reason they had difficulty bargaining. And Pennsylvania's budget in previous years has been, to put it generously, a sticky situation.
Education Week's Maya Riser-Kositsky and Rachel Edelstein contributed research to this story. More on teachers' strikes:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding Teachers' Strikes: Where They Happen and How Often

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CORRECTION: March 14, 2018: The original version of this post incorrectly stated the number of strikes held in Pennsylvania in 2015. The correct number is 6.] There have been a lot of teachers' strikes this fall. Teachers in East St. Louis, Ill., remain on strike through more than two weeks of school closures.

# data[].attributes.body
Oklahoma is another state where teacher strikes have recently sparked. These strikes are once again centered around funding, but also around conditions in schools. This viewpoint is from someone on the legislative side of these strikes. What do you think about the comments he has to say?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Oklahoma's lieutenant governor reacts to teacher walkout

# data[].attributes.body
We always talk about how being a teacher is so much more than just teaching. We are mentors, role models, and therapists all in one. How important do you think it is to advocate for teachers especially when their job is more than it is made out to be?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The statewide strike began nearly two weeks ago in protest of a plan to give teachers a 2 percent raise this July and 1 percent in each of the next two years, after years of stagnating pay and rising health insurance costs. The State Senate has since approved a 4 percent pay increase, but the teachers have been holding out for 5 percent, the amount the State House passed.

Teachers in the state earn an average of about $46,000, $13,000 less than the national average. In only three states do teachers earn less: Mississippi, South Dakota and Oklahoma. In the last week, 40,000 people have joined a Facebook group calling for a walkout of Oklahoma teachers.

But some West Virginia lawmakers have expressed concern about the cost of the raises. While the state's cost of living is in the middle of the pack, the state is poor: Its median household income of $43,385, according to Census Bureau estimates from 2016, placed it 49th in the nation, ahead of only Mississippi.

West Virginia has the nation's fourth-highest unemployment rate and an opioid overdose death rate that is more than three times the national average. All of this plays out in the classroom.

"I can't tell you how many students we have being raised by grandparents because of parents' drug addictions," said Jay O'Neal, a seventh-grade English teacher and a leader of the strike. While the immediate demand is for higher pay and more affordable health insurance, "it's just part of a broader problem teaching here, dealing with the effects of poverty."

At Mr. O'Neal's school, Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston, teachers use their own money to stock a closet for students whose clothes are dirty or do not fit, or who come in wearing shorts when it is freezing outside. At faculty meetings each year, they draw some children's names off an "angel tree" and provide them with Christmas gifts, because otherwise they would not get any.

Recently, Mr. O'Neal said, teachers have noticed that some students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., have been coming to school unmedicated and disrupting an entire class; the teachers suspect parents are selling their children's medications.

Since the mid-19th century, it has generally been the women who have been expected to do this kind of difficult, nurturing work. That gender divide played a big role in early teacher activism.

Today, about 75 percent of teachers in West Virginia and across the United States are female. When teachers first unionized in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, 97 percent were women, and they were paid little more than maids.

Policymakers did not see that as a problem. Instead, they wanted to devote their extra funds to recruiting male teachers, who they thought would be tougher, and thus better able to control those massive, 60-student classes.

The women teachers got angry, launched their federation, and within several years had secured a raise. They shocked the nation's elite by marching, in petticoats, alongside Teamsters and other male unionists.

Margaret Haley, a founder of the Chicago Teachers Federation, was inspired by Susan B. Anthony and other suffragists, just as today, some West Virginia teachers have come to activism through the 2017 Women's March, the #MeToo movement or Black Lives Matter.

The politics of teacher strikes shift over time, but in every generation, their leaders have forged ties to broader social movements. Many of the union leaders who led the nation's most famous - or infamous - teacher strike, in New York City in 1968, were first active in the civil rights movement, including the 1963 March on Washington and Freedom Summer in 1964. Nevertheless, when black and Latino activists pushed for community and parent control of struggling schools, including the right to remove teachers, the union went on strike to protect teachers' tenure rights.

The seven-day teacher strike in Chicago in 2012 came a year after Occupy Wall Street, and rode a wave of dissatisfaction with elite influence in public education. Teachers won a raise and successfully pushed back against Mayor Rahm Emanuel's desire to evaluate teachers based on their students' test scores.

Today in West Virginia, policymakers have their own ideas about how to improve schools. The State Department of Education has revamped vocational education, while the Republican-controlled Legislature has debated weakening teachers' seniority protections and providing parents with tax incentives to pay for private school tuition.

But striking teachers are asking that first, the state Legislature consider the basics: the salaries and benefits that they say will keep them from fleeing the state. Terry Moe, a Stanford political scientist and often a critic of teachers unions, said that West Virginia teachers were not asking for anything radical.

"A 5 percent raise is not much," he said. "There's a good case to be made that West Virginia ought to put more priority on education, and they're not. Maybe this is a fight that needs to be had."

President Trump has suggested one way teachers could earn more - by agreeing to become armed, in order to protect students from school shootings, like the one that killed 17 people in Parkland, Fla., last month.

Ms. Hilliard's school, Spring Mills High School, has had drills and lockdowns to prepare faculty and students for threats such as a potential school gunman. Recently the school ran a "code red" drill that she thought was real, because teachers were not warned in advance. "It was nothing short of terrifying," she said.

"Our job descriptions are expanding," said Ms. Hilliard, who opposes the idea of arming teachers, which West Virginia currently does not allow.

"It becomes, 'Lay down your life if you have to.'"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fighting Poverty, Drugs and Even Violence, All on a Teacher's Salary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The statewide strike began nearly two weeks ago in protest of a plan to give teachers a 2 percent raise this July and 1 percent in each of the next two years, after years of stagnating pay and rising health insurance costs.

# data[].attributes.body
Now that we have talked about the past and present, what do these teacher strikes mean for us in the future? Take a look at this article and tell me what you think.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Across the country, angry teachers are in revolt and their communities are rallying around them. Beginning with the successful teachers' strike in West Virginia and spreading to Oklahoma and Kentucky, educators are exiting the classroom to stage protests to demand higher pay, better working conditions and more funding for their schools. There are rumblings Arizona could strike next.

The protests show more than the power of collective organizing, they reinforce what is arguably the most potent socio-economic force at work today - the power of women. While a teacher strike is not a women's strike in the strict sense, women constitute more than 75% of teachers nationwide. Like so many gendered professions, teachers are notoriously underpaid and undervalued.

In a poverty and opioid crisis-stricken state like West Virginia, underpaid teachers are relied upon to carry out the care work typically placed on the shoulders of women in the home. The fact that the teachers continued to pack lunches for children from low-income families during the strike highlighted the extent of their burden.

As one striking teacher told The New York Times: "In West Virginia we deal with high levels of poverty and the opioid epidemic...But then there are the smaller things, like kids who come in and they don't have support at home and they just need someone to care about them and love them." A strike organized around this sort of labor and its recognition is political action around women's work.

The discontent driving this wave of strikes is part of a broader resurgence in women's civic engagement. As Jean Harris, a professor of political science and women's studies at the University of Scranton, reminds us: "Women have a long history of labor activity, even before they had the right to vote". What America is experiencing now is "a pattern of heightened participation by women of all ages, in all occupations and on all kinds of issues."

In the wake of the Women's March and #MeToo, women are stepping forward demanding that their voices be heard. They are deeply concerned about issues like education, health care, gun control and reproductive rights. A record number of women are running for office in November (see WILTW February 1, 2018). Given the momentum and energy of this female activism, comparisons are being drawn to 2010, when massive opposition to Obamacare gave birth to the Tea Party.

Striking teachers are not only fighting for themselves, they are also fighting for children. They point to crowded classrooms, battered facilities and textbooks so old they advise pupils to ask school librarians about "this new thing called the internet." In many cash-strapped districts, teachers spend their own money to make sure their classroom have basic supplies, such as pencils and paper. This is a nearly impossible fight for state legislators to win, especially in the social media arena.

Funding cuts to public education have been vicious in the wake of the 2008 recession. This reality is now coming home to roost. In 2015, the latest year for which comprehensive spending data are available from the U.S. Census Bureau, 29 states were still providing less total school funding per student than they were in 2008.

As of the current 2017-2018 school year, at least 12 U.S. states have cut "general" or "formula funding" - the primary form of state support for elementary and secondary schools - by 7% or more per student over the last decade. Seven of those 12 - Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina and Oklahoma - enacted income tax rate cuts costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars each year rather than restore education funding. One of these - Kansas - repealed some of the tax cuts earlier this year and increased school funding, but not enough to satisfy the state's Supreme Court, which recently ruled that the funding is unconstitutionally inadequate.

Increasingly, teachers are emerging as the good guys - champions of the working class, victims of soaring health care costs and failed trickle-down policies. As one teacher organizer in Kentucky told Jacobin magazine in an interview:
"This is a struggle of regular working people. I'm not anything, not a labor organizer. I'm just a mom that got really pissed off - and really tired of getting kicked by the people in power. This movement is what America should be. Nobody is going to change the world for you. If you're waiting for superman, he's not showing. You have to be your own hero."
Looking ahead to the November elections, politicians from both parties will jockey to position themselves on the side of teachers. Women, one could argue, are better suited to take up this mantle.

The strikes also signal a sea change in labor relations. Teachers in West Virginia proved that even under hostile conditions for labor - the state that does not officially recognize collective bargaining or the right to strike - winning is possible when workers are willing to take risks and stage dramatic and militant actions. The heavy lifting has been done by rank-and-file teachers, empowered by social media, not the unions. As Harold Meyerson wrote recently for The American Prospect:
"Indeed, it's clear that Facebook provides workers with a form of mobilization that both complements and eclipses unions' own capacities. West Virginia has only 75,000 dues-paying members in all of its unions, and only a fraction of those are teachers - yet nearly every one of the state's 20,000 teachers walked off their jobs. In Oklahoma, a state with a unionization rate of just 5.5 percent, and where all unions claim a bare 84,000 members, a Facebook page called "Oklahoma Teacher Walkout - The Time Is Now!," started by one rank-and-file teacher, has 55,000 members and has been the key instrument for building support for a strike."
Despite being an illegal wildcat strike, the West Virginia teachers' strike was ultimately successful because of the mass public support it enjoyed. Unlike 10 years ago, when striking workers had a difficult time gauging public support, teachers striking can now tell in real time how supportive their friends and neighborhoods are when they post picket-line photos on social media.

More importantly, strike leaders in Oklahoma and Kentucky are able to use social media to communicate directly in real time with teachers in West Virginia to learn lessons to better prepare themselves for their strikes. This is a lesson that will become all the more important following the Supreme Court's decision in Janus v. AFSCME, a case that is likely to defund public-sector unions across the country.

The striking teachers are not the only ones taking to the streets. First, there was the Women's March. Last month, the survivors of the Parkland shooting led a day of protest bolstering the fight for gun law reform. What these groups have in common is that they are all broadly making the point that the political system and those in power are failing them  - be it in the ability to offer basic education, affordable health care, or keeping kids safe in classrooms.

It may be recalled that the string of wildcat strikes that broke out across the U.S. in 1934, including general strikes in San Francisco and Minneapolis, emboldened the Democrats to enact the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) one year later. The NLRA gave workers the legal right to bargain collectively. A year after NLRA, the Democrats enacted Social Security and a raft of other progressive legislation.
"Indeed, what the Republican governors and legislators of Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona are now discovering is that, contra the GOP's Grover Norquist nostrums, their constituents actually don't want a government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. They at least want their kids to get an adequate education and want a government that helps them afford medical care and old age." The following article was originally published in "What I Learned This Week" on April 5, 2018. To learn more about 13D's investment research, please visit our website
Despite strong anti-union sentiment in Washington, public support for unions, as measured by both Gallup and Pew, is now the highest it's been in years. Among millennials, the approval rating for unions is 76%, a clear reflection, as was their support of Bernie Sanders, of the economic travails that this generation has encountered - employment insecurity, student debt, affordable housing, etc.

What will it mean if women and young voters turn out in record numbers this fall? The teacher strikes might be a good barometer. As The American Prospect suggests:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What America's teacher strikes tell us about the power of women, the future of labor and what the...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Across the country, angry teachers are in revolt and their communities are rallying around them. Beginning with the successful teachers' strike in West Virginia and spreading to Oklahoma and Kentucky, educators are exiting the classroom to stage protests to demand higher pay, better working conditions and more funding for their schools.

# data[].attributes.body
Although a couple years old, I feel the ideas that Ms. Michalec shares are pertinent today. I would love to hear your input on this.
First of all, I love how she says that advocacy is a shared responsibility. It truly is!
This quote also really stuck out to me: "Consequently, we must commit to being more visible and more vocal by sharing stories from our classrooms. Only we can share an honest vision of our students’ needs." This being visible and vocal does not require us to be rude. Simply sharing our experiences, good and bad, with those around us will help them truly understand what we do and they will want to help. Knowledge leads to understanding; if they don't know they won't understand.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Role of Advocacy in Public Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As the 2014-15 school year ended, I found myself engaging in the practice of intentional reflection. Like most practitioners, I am always eager to assess where my successes and shortcomings have occurred as they affect the quality of my students' instruction.

# data[].attributes.headline
This clip goes with Sam's article on the history of teacher strikes. It talks about the good and bad that go along with striking.

# data[].attributes.subject
This clip goes with Sam's article on the history of teacher strikes. It talks about the good and bad that go along with striking.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
utube history of teacher strikes - Yahoo Video Search Results

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The search engine that helps you find exactly what you're looking for. Find the most relevant information, video, images, and answers from all across the Web.

# data[].attributes.body
I am responding to Rowdy's article: The role of advocacy in public education. This clip gives further support on the importance of teacher advocacy and ways to do it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Advocacy in Action: Speaking Up for Students and the Teaching Profession

# data[].attributes.body
Hey Robinie! I am responding to your comment on  shutting down schools in Oklahoma. This video clip gives a very different perspective.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Some Oklahoma schools have 4-day weeks to make up for low teacher pay

# data[].attributes.body
I saw this as I was scrolling through Facebook the other day. It is amazing how just a simple post on social media has brought about so many donations. I admire this teacher for advocating for herself and her classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Donations Pour In After Photo of Oklahoma Teacher's Broken Chair Goes Viral | NowThis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Full interview with Gov. Bevin on teacher rally

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Full interview with Gov. Bevin on teacher rally

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Budgets are tight and Congress is under extreme pressure to keep funding to a minimum. Tell Congress that education cannot absorb any more funding cuts!

# data[].attributes.body
These are the results of a survey completed in 2016 regarding the importance and public image of teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
What if we were to treat doctors the same way we treat teachers?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A good friend and colleague who is now in Chicago first gifted me with this parable. It's been in my thoughts lately as my wife pursues her medical degree. In fact, she and I have talked about this at length, and when making comparisons between how physicians and teachers are treated, she is just as astounded.

Parallels are occasionally noted between medical training and education, especially the capstone clinical experiences present in both professions. Let us pretend that physicians of all specialties were held to similar measures of accountability and enveloped with the same kinds of discourses that we see in education reform debates. What might that look like, and how would the general public, in addition to doctors, feel about that?

It would not take a skilled social scientist to observe that, despite exceptional achievements in treating disease and diagnostic technologies, for example, the medical profession is failing. It has failed in its tasks to disseminate good information about health, quash misconceptions, fight corporations and health lobbies that keep people sick, and prevent high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, particularly in low-income populations. What do we do about this? Well, I have a few proposals listed in no particular order:

We must begin to hold all physicians accountable, regardless of specialization, to certain quantifiable measures of health, namely cholesterol levels, blood pressure, weight, and BMI. All patients assigned to a physician must meet specific annual minimum standards of health. Bad doctors will be those who do not meet their patients' annual minimums, and they may be subject to certain penalties if the health scores of their patients do not improve in a reasonable amount of time.

It will be mandatory for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as all of the major governing bodies in medicine, to set a goal for reaching universal health and well-being in the United States. That is, a target year will be identified in which every person will achieve the ideal values in cholesterol, blood pressure, and BMI. Future targets may include assessments of mental health. A specific interval of time will also be determined to assess all patients for these values. Although pharmaceuticals may be used to stabilize or improve health outcomes, the patient must not be on any medications at the time of assessment unless approved by an official of the administrative body of the national health assessments.

Quantifiable variables will be utilized to evaluate all practices and hospitals. All of this information will be made public. Additionally, medical schools will be evaluated based on the quantifiable health of patients in the care of their graduates. Medical schools will subsequently be ranked based on the health outcomes of their graduates' patients regardless of specialty. Given more advanced statistical models, these numbers could ultimately be used to assess the impact of pre-medical programs at the undergraduate level.

In certain high needs areas, such as family practice, emergency medicine, or in practices in low income areas, alternative routes to being licensed will be provided. Moreover, data will determine what skills are necessary to impart in the curriculum of such programs. For instance, if a certain community prevails in specific medical conditions over others, then time will not be wasted covering rare conditions so that alternative programs can operate expeditiously.

Barriers to participation will be lowered in certain instances, in the form of direct subsidies or significant tax exemptions, for the opening of small hospitals or short-term care centers by private organizations or motivated members of the community.

Any hospital or practice is subject to a turnaround plan if minimum health requirements are not met. Should the facility not meet those requirements of minimum annual health, the entire staff will be terminated and reconstituted with more competent practitioners. Moreover, staff may be required to enroll in continuing medical education in advanced and remedial level re-licensing courses, including basic physics, chemistry, and biology.

In addition to in- or out-of-network information and basic demographics, an online data warehouse will be established that will provide all health data and outcomes for every licensed physician in the United States, regardless of specialty. The individual physician's education, license information, and health outcomes of patients will be listed. Should in-network physicians be deemed unfit for local health care consumers, the Federal government, with matching funds by health providers, will offer subsidies for consumers to see other practitioners.

Finally, a certain percentage of any and all physicians' patients will be assigned to them, care of those who qualify will be fully covered by providers. This will ensure adequate racial, income, and overall demographic diversity of clientele. The annual minimum health outcome data of these patients will also be included in the physician's overall quality.

Did I miss any? What if we indeed held doctors and other professionals to the same bloat and condescension that we currently hold teachers? I can predict some of the responses that physicians might make: "We can't control what our patients do or eat outside of our offices to maintain minimum levels of health. Also, these variables -- BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure -- are limited and don't adequately measure a healthy person. And one other thing, you can't expect us to be evaluated based on all patients equally, regardless of family history, poverty, and other complications." As an educator, my sentiments exactly!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
what if we treated doctors the way we treat teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
site:www.huffingtonpost.com shaun johnson treating doctors like teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
site:www.huffingtonpost.com shaun johnson treating doctors like teacher

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
what if we treated doctors like teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What If We Treated Doctors The Way We Treat Teachers?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A good friend and colleague who is now in Chicago first gifted me with this parable. It's been in my thoughts lately as my wife pursues her medical degree. In fact, she and I have talked about this at length, and when making comparisons between how physicians and teachers are treated, she is just as astounded.

# data[].attributes.body
Found this and thought it was interesting especially after the discussion we had in class today. Teachers need to be involved in knowing the issues, finding an advocacy group, and gaining support for the cause. There are links on the web page to advocacy groups. A great starting place if you want to get involved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Listen to my interview with Anthony Cody (transcript):

The current climate in U.S. public schools is tense. And that's putting it mildly. Changes in policies and practices over the last decade have created conditions under which teachers feel attacked and threatened, conditions that have shifted tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources toward raising test scores. When I talk with teachers about this shift, their response is often one of hopelessness. They describe how frustrated they are, how impossible it is anymore to just teach, but the conversation often trails off after that, ending with a shrug and "What can you do?"

The good news is, you can do something. All over the U.S., teachers, students, and parents are organizing to fight the policies that are wreaking havoc on education. And slowly but surely, they are succeeding.

How are they doing it? And how can you get involved? How does an ordinary teacher - with no background in political action or revolutionary activity of any kind - become an activist?

To learn more, I turned to education activist and blogger Anthony Cody. A former science teacher with over 20 years of experience, Cody is a co-founder of the Network for Public Education, a group that advocates for policies that support strong public schools. He has spent the last seven years writing and engaging others in a dialogue about education policy and reform, first on his Education Week blog, and now on his own independent blog, Living in Dialogue. His 2014 book, The Educator And The Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges The Gates Foundation , clearly and eloquently explains how the Gates Foundation has been a major influence on our current state of test-driven corporate reform. But Cody doesn't just write about the Gates Foundation: In 2012, he engaged in a public dialogue with representatives of the Gates Foundation over five key questions on education reform. This conversation is discussed in the book, followed by specific recommendations for untangling the current mess we're in.

Anthony agreed to help me answer the question "What can you do?" He talked with me about some ways teachers can become more active in changing education policy and making a difference in the quality of their schools. Here's a brief summary of his suggestions:

1. Learn about the issues. The first and most crucial step toward getting active is learning about the issues themselves. Anthony provided me with a comprehensive list of sources for learning more - these are listed in the Education Activist's Starter Kit below.

2. Find a network. You don't have to start from scratch: All over the country, groups have already been hard at work advocating for change. Linking up with one will immediately give you a lot of options for getting active. A list of some good ones has been provided in the Education Activist's Starter Kit below.

3. Gather support. Acting alone is risky, especially for teachers. So before taking any kind of public action, find others in your school or city to stand with you.

This collection of resources has been gathered to help anyone who's ready to learn more about the issues and start taking action. Although many, many other good resources exist, these will give you a good start. Click here to download a PDF of this kit.

Organizations

FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing
fairtest.org
FairTest promotes fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial evaluations of students, teachers and schools and works to end the misuses and flaws of testing practices that impede those goals. Their site contains resources for taking action, connecting with other activists, learning about the issues, and following all relevant news from across the country.

Blogs

Books

A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who in the Implosion of American Public Education
Mercedes K. Schneider
Whereas American public education is a democratic institution, its destruction is being choreographed by a few wealthy, well-positioned individuals and organizations. This book investigates and exposes the handful of people and institutions that are often working together to become the driving force behind destroying the community public school.

The Educator And The Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges The Gates Foundation
Anthony Cody From the Common Core to test-based teacher evaluation systems cropping up around the country, to the rapid expansion of semi-private charter schools, the Gates Foundation has had a huge, largely invisible influence on public education in 21st century America. Can a teacher challenge the wealthiest man in the world? Anthony Cody, who spent 24 years working in the high poverty schools of Oakland, California, has done so here.

More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing
Jesse Hagopian, editor
A collection of essays, poems, speeches, and interviews-accounts of personal courage and trenchant insights-from frontline fighters who are defying the corporate education reformers, often at great personal and professional risk, and fueling a national movement to reclaim and transform public education.

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools
Diane Ravitch
An incisive, comprehensive look at today's American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools.

Teachers' Unions
The American Federation of Teachers
The National Education Association
nea.org Citizens United aft.org
Download a PDF of this Starter Kit:
Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education
Educators alarmed by some questions on N.Y. Common Core tests, Carol Burris and Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, April 19, 2015
Teachers of Conscience
New York Activists Organize a RoboCall for Opting Out, Deb Escobar, Lorri Gumanow, Lisa Kollmer, and Lily Alayne Owen, Living in Dialogue, April 11, 2015

Performance Assessment: The Alternative to High Stakes Testing
Website of the New York Performance Standards Consortium

Stay in touch.
Join my mailing list and never miss another post. You'll get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to my interview with Anthony Cody (transcript): The current climate in U.S. public schools is tense. And that's putting it mildly. Changes in policies and practices over the last decade have created conditions under which teachers feel attacked and threatened, conditions that have shifted tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources toward raising test scores.

# data[].attributes.headline
I thought this was interesting to see what some of the teachers are going through in oklahoma.. 29 textbooks for 87 kids..wow!!!

# data[].attributes.subject
I thought this was interesting to see what some of the teachers are going through in oklahoma.. 29 textbooks for 87 kids..wow!!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Oklahoma teacher strike: 'I have 29 textbooks for 87 pupils' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.body
I mentioned this in class. This teacher crosses the Arizona border to California every day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
CLOSE

YUMA - It's inching toward 6:30 a.m. as Rene Castillo steers his Honda Accord onto Interstate 8, a radiant sunrise in his rearview mirror as he begins his daily commute.

Castillo grew up here. Graduated from Yuma High School. And after earning his degree, he came home to teach at San Luis High School.

He expected to spend his career there.

But after going six years in the Yuma Union High School District without a pay raise and only minor salary increases in other years, Castillo, 34, began to look elsewhere.

He found that with a one-hour commute he could double his pay, to nearly $80,000.

So each morning Castillo's 12-year-old Honda, with 195,000 miles and shaky brakes, rolls across the Arizona state line, past vegetable and alfalfa crops, through the tiny communities of Felicity and Holtville, to El Centro, Calif., where he teaches history at Southwest High School.

"Truly, public education is not valued."
Gina Thompson, Yuma High School District Superintendent
"I didn't want to just do it for the money...But then you realize there are other places that are good, and they make me feel valued. I miss San Luis, but I'm happy where I'm at.

"Now, I'm able to get my brakes fixed. Now, I can afford to not have roommates and be able to pay my rent," said Castillo, who ironically, rents rooms to two Yuma teachers.

Castillo isn't alone.

Arizona educators increasingly fled the state between 2014 to 2016 for similar jobs in neighboring California, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, according to U.S. Census data compiled by The Arizona Republic. (Data for 2017 and 2018 is not yet available.)

The departures followed years of stagnating wages for teachers, making Arizona teachers among the worst-paid in the country. As hundreds of educators have quit in frustration, Arizona schools are hiring under-qualified, inexperienced teachers to fill in the gaps.

In total, about 730 Arizona educators left each year between 2014 and 2016, with California accounting for more than half of the defections. That migration was a nearly 37 percent increase from the eight preceding years, which saw an average of 534 educators leave Arizona for neighboring states each year, Census data shows.

The Yuma High School District has lost at least 10 teachers to California districts in recent years, said Superintendent Gina Thompson.

"It's hard, just really hard to watch. But how do you argue against it?" she said.
#REDFORED COVERAGE:
'Valued and rewarded'

The spike in departures coincided with the first two years of Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's administration.

Now, as Ducey prepares to seek a second term, he faces an outcry over teacher pay as educators hold rallies at the Capitol and staged walkouts aimed at gathering public support to raise school funding. Similar protests in other states have led to strikes.

"I didn't want to just do it for the money...But then you realize there are other places that are good, and they make me feel valued. I miss San Luis, but I'm happy where I'm at."
Rene Castillo
Teachers have called on Ducey and the Republican-controlled Legislature to immediately raise their pay by 20 percent.

Ducey has made no indication he'll meet their demands.

Patrick Ptak, Ducey's spokesman, said the governor "believes teachers are the biggest difference-makers out there" and "should be valued and rewarded for their hard work."

In 2018, the median pay for Arizona teachers is $46,949, a 4.6 percent increase from 2015, or about $2,000 per year. That includes funding from the Ducey-backed Proposition 123, which settled a court ruling that the Legislature had under-funded public schools during the recession.

Ptak said Arizona teacher pay ranks 43rd in the U.S. and is rising. Teachers, however, dispute those figures, saying Arizona teachers rank dead last or near the bottom in pay on an inflation-adjusted basis.
OKLAHOMA TEACHER STRIKE:
"The governor's goal is to pass a budget in the next few weeks that continues to increase our investment in public education," Ptak said. "We will continue each year to put more resources into K-12 education to better serve our teachers and students."

Ducey's office declined to comment on Arizona teachers leaving for better-paying jobs in neighboring states.

Arizona losing 'good teachers'

But that story is playing out around the state.

The 2014 Coconino Teacher of the Year, Jeff Taylor, recently announced he will leave Flagstaff High School at the end of the year because of low pay and inadequate funding.

"I'm just frustrated because I don't think things will change in this state and if they do, they won't change in time to make me stay," he told the Arizona Daily Sun.

Robin Edgerton, a special education teacher, left the Lake Havasu School District three years ago for a higher-paying teaching job in Needles, Calif.

Edgerton said her pay has nearly doubled compared to what she was paid in Arizona, to about $70,000 a year.

"And I still have room to move up," she said. "The cap here is about $100,000 a year....It makes you feel more appreciated. California cares about its teachers.

"I went from living paycheck to paycheck, to where now I can buy a house," she said. "With Arizona pay, it never would have happened."

MORE: Teachers post deteriorating classroom images on social media

Edgerton said other teachers from Lake Havasu have joined her in making the 40-plus mile commute.

Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, said it's disheartening that Arizona is losing good teachers to neighboring states.

Thomas, however, doesn't blame them. Teacher salaries in neighboring states can be "life changing," he said.

'You can either do this, or do well in school'

Castillo wasn't willing to wait and see if Arizona would significantly boost teacher pay.

"I'm just frustrated because I don't think things will change in this state and if they do, they won't change in time to make me stay."
Jeff Taylor, 2014 Coconino Teacher of the Year
He made his move to El Centro in late January, as Arizona teachers started publicly protesting their pay.

Castillo said he didn't want to leave.

His brother, Cesar, had recruited him to teach in their hometown in late 2006, right after Rene graduated from Arizona State University with a secondary education degree.

Rene Castillo, one of six children born to migrant farm workers, said his parents, who only attended elementary school, insisted that their children work hard in school or there would be consequences.

He recalled one time when he was doing poorly in his classes, his father pulled the family car over next to a lettuce field. He gave his son a knife and told him to start culling lettuce. The field was muddy and Rene was wearing brand-new shoes.
AZCENTRAL OPINIONS:
"My dad put the fear of God in me. He said 'you can either do this, or do well in school,'" Rene Castillo said.

He and his four brothers all earned degrees from ASU. Their sister took advanced courses after graduating from high school.

'You had to do more with less'

Rene Castillo spent 11 years at San Luis High School, teaching English and World History while coaching boys golf and baseball with Cesar.

The brothers built a strong baseball program, with a half dozen of their players earning college scholarships, Rene Castillo said.

After six years in the Yuma Union High School District without a single pay raise, Rene Castillo, 34, found that with a one-hour commute he could double his pay to nearly $80,000 by teaching in El Centro, Calif. He walks on campus at Southwest High School on March 27, 2018. (Photo: Tom Tingle/The Republic)

Leaving those athletes, he said, was difficult. He cried as he broke the news to them that he was taking the job in California.

But he said there wasn't much financial reward in Yuma. During his decade-plus there, his salary increased by $9,000, to $39,000 a year, despite having a master's degree.

"The cap here is about $100,000 a year....It makes you feel more appreciated. California cares about its teachers."
Robin Edgerton, special education teacher
And pay wasn't the only problem.

He said Yuma, like many Arizona districts, suffers from a teacher and substitute teacher shortage. When a colleague was sick, staff members would often fill in because the district couldn't find a sub.

It was also typical for some of his colleagues at San Luis to have 45 students in a class, he said. In California, the class sizes are much smaller.

"To sum it up, you had to do more with less, and you were not compensated," Castillo said.

On most days, he commutes with three other teachers who left Yuma for jobs in El Centro, and he knows of others who have gone elsewhere in California to each.

Thompson, the Yuma superintendent, said she was sorry to see Castillo go. But she understands it.

Teachers will continue to leave until the Arizona Legislature makes a commitment to adequately fund public education, she said.

"Truly, public education is not valued," Thompson said.
Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478 or on Twitter @charrisazrep.
Read or Share this story: https://azc.cc/2GDxEts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yuma teacher doubles salary by leaving Arizona to teach in California

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CLOSE YUMA - It's inching toward 6:30 a.m. as Rene Castillo steers his Honda Accord onto Interstate 8, a radiant sunrise in his rearview mirror as he begins his daily commute. Castillo grew up here. Graduated from Yuma High School. And after earning his degree, he came home to teach at San Luis High School.

# data[].attributes.body
We’ve talked a lot about strikes and poor teaching situations, but what about teacher advocacy concerning bullying? What happens when parents, students, or administrators bully teachers? This article focuses on parents as the bullies – the different types of bullies and how to deal with them. What are your thoughts?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Over the last 30 years, we have, between us, consulted to more than 2,000 schools, independent and public, in the United States and internationally. Our school visits have given us a deep appreciation for the range and complexity of challenges schools face and for their capacity to master evolving problems. With one glaring exception: For the past 20 years, each of us has encountered a relentless increase in educators' frustrations in dealing with difficult parents.

The absolute level of concern is not the same everywhere, and in many schools administrators hasten to say that "most of our parents are fine." We believe them. But every school we visit - every single one - reports more frequent and more severe problems with parents. In this article, we offer some thoughts about the roots and context of the general trend, but our focus is on coping with the small minority of the most difficult: those who bully the school. These parents are habitually rude or demanding or disrespectful, engaging in personal attacks on teachers and administrators, demeaning and threatening them. They repeatedly violate the school's policies, values, and norms of conduct.¹

Types

Bully parents come in three basic types: the Righteous Crusader, the Entitled Intimidator, and the Vicious Gossip. The Righteous Crusader is perhaps the most confusing for teachers because she claims to have identified a moral problem and attacks the school for failing to address it. We had a call once from a head of school who said, "I have three mothers who are relentlessly challenging my teachers about a supposed bullying problem that does not exist, that no one else sees." All educators are potentially vulnerable to the charge of failing to protect children because it cuts to the heart of their mission. Teachers can thus be easily threatened by a charge as mild as, "My daughter says you don't like her," to one as extreme as a false accusation of sexual abuse. A major international school recently had two of its teachers jailed for 10 months on an unbelievable - and entirely unsubstantiated - charge of sexual assault by a parent who was either disturbed or attempting to extort money from the school.

Entitled Intimidators make no bones about what they want: special treatment for their child. They demand that rules be waived, exceptions made, policies upended. They want teachers they dislike fired. A parent recently told his daughter's school that he would not re-enroll her without a guarantee that a particular child would not be placed in her section. His rationale? "The school owes me. I was president of the parents' association for two years." (In this regard, the phrase, "As you know, I'm married to a member of the board," almost always marks the start of an attempt at bullying.)

From Independent School Bulletin, November 1953

Individualized Instruction

I would not conclude this paper without affirming that there is a time and place for the lecture method. My plea is that its use is all too frequent and that its quality and value are frequently poor and dull. The younger the child the more difficult it is to teach him by this method. And even with older boys and girls, the lecturer should stimulate the higher processes of the mind, rather than reiterate facts and expositions. These relatively lower processes - the acquisition of skills, facts, expositions, and models - can be had by observation and reading. And in this age of television and radio, set so frequently as they are to a low-grade intelligence, and keyed to an over-stimulation of the emotions, something must be done to preserve and cultivate higher reading quotients on the part of children. The comics, the radio, and television for

The breaking of the lock step in secondary education will not be easy from the point of view of administration, but somehow ways must be found of accomplishing the goal. Instead of narrow curriculums, broader curriculums with a larger number of electives must be planned; instead of companies and platoons marching through a prescribed course or unit at a uniform pace, variations of pace as well as of pattern must be designed. Present systems of recording marks, credits, honors, and awards will be strained to a point where principals and deans will be tempted to revert to the former plan of uniformity for all. Public relations will be tested, especially so when parents do not comprehend why their sons and daughters are being assigned to a particular course-content or to a pace somewhat different from that of other boys and girls. In place of a ladder having uniform rungs all of one color, the ladder must be one of varying rungs, perhaps or more than one color; and in many situations there must even be more than one ladder.

If the private schools of today, and the public schools too, in so far as their resources permit, are to cultivate an aristocracy of intellect and are to offer opportunities to their pupils in proportion to their gifts, the problems arising from lock step organization must be solved, individual instruction must replace group instruction whenever possible, and the pupil must be placed in a setting that permits more activity and less passivity in the learning process.

-From "Lock Step versus Individual Instruction," by A.L. Lincoln, retired faculty member, The Lawrenceville School (New Jersey)

The Vicious Gossip has what we psychologists call a character problem, one that plays itself out in continually finding fault with the school or with teachers and broadcasting her complaints, often to a group of vigilantes that she recruits. Sometimes she has a valid concern and has identified a genuine teacher weakness or administrative failing. It is her exaggeration of the issue - the relentless, destructive quality of her storytelling to other parents, her repeated gathering of what Richard Chait, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has called the "Volvo caucus in the parking lot" - that qualifies it as bullying. We have both talked with teachers who have been victims of such campaigns and who end up feeling defamed and victimized.

Roots

Many factors contribute to the rise in bullying among parents. Three stand out: an epidemic of anxiety; a culture of competitiveness and loneliness in the upper-middle class; and a failure on the part of school administrators to recognize when they are dealing with personality disorders.

The rising tide of anxiety among parents stems in good part from a trade-off between opportunity and predictability that has grown even more severe in recent decades. To be a confident parent requires, among other things, that the rate of change be slow and that the choices for children be few. How else can parents feel sure that what they know is what their children need to learn in order to live successful, productive lives? But the rate of change - social, economic, technological - keeps accelerating and most parents (and schools, for that matter) want students to have maximum opportunity, to be able to become anything they want. This freedom, unprecedented in human history, has obvious appeal, but it means that certainty and confidence for adults about what's good for children, about how to raise them are in sharp decline. Couple this with a growing uncertainty about future employment, caused by both the financial meltdown of 2008 and the increasing cannibalization of the professional careers by technology, and it's no wonder that growing numbers of parents are apprehensive about their children's prospects and eager for the school to provide guarantees for the future, or that they find it hard to tolerate any evidence that their children's experience is anything but optimal.

This anxiety is often accompanied by isolation from other families and from experience with a diversity of developmental pathways in childhood. Increasingly, the typical independent school parent couple is composed of two professionals. While they have a lot of resources, they may not see much of other people's children, particularly in mixed-age groups or free-play situations, and so they lack a crucial perspective about how children navigate and learn from the normal stresses and challenges of growing up. What they do have is a willingness to advocate for their children. The combination of anxiety, inexperience, and a tendency toward advocacy can lead to ferocious overreactions.

Finally, independent school educators tend to give parents, their tuition-paying customers, the presumption of good mental health. Unfortunately, this is not always warranted. In every school, some parents suffer from genuine personality disorders, which means they may be high functioning in many respects, but in certain areas of life consistently distort reality. Although all of us who are parents can lack perspective when it comes to our own offspring, a few have a profoundly distorted view of their children or a deeply rooted mistrust of institutions, notably the school. Too often, it takes months of parental misbehavior for administrators to recognize that they are dealing with serious psychopathology that will not yield to normal intervention.

Special Vulnerabilities of Educators

Increases in bullying behavior by parents are one side of the equation; vulnerabilities of educators are the other. Independent school teachers tend to be a highly conscientious group. They thrive in the company of children and try to accentuate the positive. They have a strong service ethic and have chosen a career that is much closer to that of the clergy than to, say, anything corporate. The benefits for students are obvious. But all this means teachers are easily made to feel guilty, that they haven't done enough for students. It also means, as we have noted elsewhere, that they are extremely conflict avoidant. Hence, when confronted with intense criticism and unreasonable demands, they are easily undone. Many teachers - and many former teachers who are now administrators - find themselves repeatedly trying to placate, persuade, convince, and accommodate Righteous Crusaders, Entitled Intimidators, and Vicious Gossips. To no avail.

Bully Management Basics

Dealing with bully parents begins with a twin perspective: First, that bullies are externalizers; second, that they almost always need to be handled by administrators, not classroom teachers. Bullies blame outward; they show little capacity for self-observation. They almost never ask themselves, "Am I doing something to upset people or that keeps them from seeing things my way?" Trying to reach them through extended rational discussion is fruitless. No matter how intelligent they may be, bullies demonstrate arrested social/emotional development. In this they resemble certain students. Educators will rarely go wrong by treating a bully parent exactly the way they would an outrageous and aggressive high school student.

The ideal approach can be summarized in three words: "limits, limits, limits." Bullies deserve thoughtful attention and an invitation to be reflective, but when these don't suffice, they need to know - unequivocally - the minimum nonnegotiable conditions of belonging in the school community. They need to hear, "You have every right to your opinion, but you cannot swear at us," or "We hear clearly that you want us to change your son's grade, but we will not do so."

These kinds of messages can be delivered by a teacher, but almost always, true bully parents must be turned over to an administrator. Period. We counsel teachers that after one terrifying parent-teacher conference, they should never again meet alone with that parent. Managing bullying parents is a job for those who can speak for the school.

The hardest thing for teachers and administrators is to not become defensive in the face of withering criticism. This is easier said than done, but when being accused, it is crucial to hold on to this idea: "Whatever we did, we did nothing to make this person as crazy as he or she sounds at this moment." A lack of defensiveness, combined with a persistent, relentless curiosity about how the parent reached her or his conclusions about a situation, can often calm things. At the heart of any inquiry should be a desire to learn what the parent is hoping for and what his or her biggest fear is. Often, the biggest bullies are, underneath, deeply frightened. Once you set boundaries on their behavior, it may be possible to get to the heart of the matter.

But not always. You can't win them all. When every normal remedy has been exhausted, sometimes the only solution is excommunication. For the health of the school community and the protection of the faculty, it is sometimes necessary to expel a bullying family, even when their children are quite wonderful and completely innocent. No school makes this decision easily. But when it comes to most extreme bully parents, the sooner the better.

Note
1. "Bullying" is now widely misapplied to much normal child and adolescent behavior. We use it here as it is defined in dictionaries: a bully is a "blustering, browbeating person [who is] habitually cruel to others," who "badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people."

Independent Ideas Blog

Summer Reflection: Books to Spur New Perspectives

Three books that may inspire and provoke some interesting conversations in the months ahead.
Read the Post

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Over the last 30 years, we have, between us, consulted to more than 2,000 schools, independent and public, in the United States and internationally. Our school visits have given us a deep appreciation for the range and complexity of challenges schools face and for their capacity to master evolving problems. With one glaring exception: For the past 20 years, each of us has encountered a relentless increase in educators' frustrations in dealing with difficult parents.

# data[].attributes.body
This topic is scary to me. I don't think that the government or people in general really understand what teachers do. Here is another teacher rally for a pay increase that happened just three days ago!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hundreds of educators gathered outside lawmakers' offices in Denver, many of them dressed in red T-shirts from the #RedForEd campaign that started in Arizona. They waved signs touting Colorado's nationwide rank in average teacher salary -- 46 -- and chanted "this is what Democracy looks like."

High participation led the Englewood School District to close after more than 150 educators -- 70% of its workforce -- called in to take a personal day for the rally. Colorado Education Association President Kerrie Dallman said the group hopes more districts will close for its next day of action, April 27.

One teacher from Englewood, Jessica Tarkanian, brought her 7-year-old daughter to Monday's rally. She said she protested to "support our retirement, fund our schools, and make sure we get what we need for our kids."

A teacher at Cherrelyn Elementary School, Tarkanian said she recently moved in with another family to save money and make ends meet. She says she's been teaching for 10 years, but earns the same as a teacher with three years of experience.

"I'm not sure I can do it anymore," she said.

Legislative action

Inside the state Capitol, members of the Colorado Education Association met with lawmakers to register their concerns. The group says insufficient funding and teacher pay is making the job less attractive to college graduates. Consequently, teachers are leaving the profession early, leading to a shortage of fully qualified teachers.

The group ended the day happy with its progress and eager to keep up the momentum, Dallman said.

The state house finance committee introduced a number of amendments to a pension bill, including one to lower the retirement age. Right now, it's 58, but the bill sought to raise it to 65. The proposed amendment is a compromise at 60, Dallman said, one that teachers are amenable to. The bill is still in committee, but Dallman said it was a sign that lawmakers are willing to listen.

"Over 400 educators came to the Capitol today to call for increased funding for public education and a secure retirement -- and we are thrilled that legislators listened," Dallman said.

Englewood School District teacher Becky Moraja said she sees high turnover in her district. It's hard to retain teachers as soon as they become aware of the heavy workload and stagnant salaries, she said. "We want to keep those extraordinary teachers in Englewood and keep the opportunities for our students."

She and her husband, also a teacher, know the struggle firsthand, she said. They recently moved with their two sons into her mother's home to make ends meet, she said. "It was a financial move."

The issues

Colorado's educators have been energized by teacher walkouts and demonstrations in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona, Dallman told CNN. Teachers in West Virginia won a 5% pay raise in March after a nine-day strike.

"Our members are energized and fed up by the constant year-over-year chronic underfunding of our public schools," Dallman said.

The CEA says Colorado educators' average pay has dropped by more than 17% when adjusting for inflation over the last 15 years. In 2016, Colorado ranked 46th in the country for average teachers' salary, according to a report by the National Education Association.

Additionally, Colorado effectively has underfunded its schools by $828 million, the CEA says, because the state hasn't kept up with a state constitutional mandate passed last decade to increase funds each year by at least the rate of inflation.

Raising taxes to make up the money isn't easy, because the state's 1992 taxpayer bill of rights demands that voters approve any tax hikes. In a recent survey, teachers reported spending an average of $656 yearly on school supplies and expenses for students, the CEA said.

Third grade teacher Libby Bucher said she referees and coaches sports on the side to make ends meet. She said she has so much debt she had to stop putting money in her retirement account and cancel her life insurance.

Yet the single mom says she has never thought of leaving teaching. "I don't look at teaching as a job, it's who I am."

Residents join teachers for walk-in

Beyond the state capital, residents of Fort Collins joined educators in a walk-in outside Webber Middle School.

Laura Schachet is a media specialist at the school. She joined others in the demonstration, waving a sign that read, "We ❤️our students & want the CO legislature to fix this!"

"Our generous voters in Fort Collins have historically supported PSD, teachers and support staff. We are asking the State to do so for PSD and all CO districts," said Schachet, a teacher for 18 years.

CNN's Jason Hanna and David Williams contributed reporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
colorado teachers rally for more funding - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Emanuella Grinberg and Sara Weisfeldt, CNN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Colorado teachers rally for more funding

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hundreds of educators gathered outside lawmakers' offices in Denver, many of them dressed in red T-shirts from the #RedForEd campaign that started in Arizona. They waved signs touting Colorado's nationwide rank in average teacher salary -- 46 -- and chanted "this is what Democracy looks like."