'It Really Is a Wildfire': Teachers Go on Strike in Oklahoma and Kentucky

[workinclasszero]

'It Really Is a Wildfire': Teachers Go on Strike in Oklahoma and Kentucky
By DANA GOLDSTEIN APRIL 2, 2018

Thousands of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job Monday morning, shutting down school districts as they protested cuts in pay, benefits and school funding in a movement that has grown in force since igniting in West Virginia earlier this year.

The wave of strikes in red states, mainly organized by ordinary teachers on Facebook, has caught lawmakers and sometimes the teachers’ own labor unions flat-footed. The protesters say they are fed up with years of education funding cuts and stagnant pay in Republican-dominated states.

In Oklahoma City, where protesting teachers were gathering at the Capitol on Monday morning, Katrina Ruff, a local teacher, carried a sign that read, “Thanks to West Virginia.”

“They gave us the guts to stand up for ourselves,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/us/teacher-strikes-oklahoma-kentucky.html

[Tess49]

1. OKC is expecting around 30,000 teachers and supporters. There is very little

parking around the Capitol, so local businesses are allowing people to park. Buses are carrying protesters to the Capitol grounds. Very cold here this morning, but it didn't seem to deter anyone. I live about 20 miles from this. Our schools in Norman are closed for the walk-out, as are most around the state.

[gratuitous]

4. They have buses?!

And after all that hard work by Republicans to keep teachers on the ragged edge of starving to death, they still have enough pocket change to rent buses. Look for that to be the pretext for the next round of school cuts.

[Tess49]

6. They may have been donated. Or at very low cost to the riders. They were packed with

passengers, and running back and forth from the parking lots to the Capitol. Not a great distance.

[malaise]

2. There is also trouble in Arizona

You can't have money for guns in schools and not money to pay teachers and provide teaching tools.
America is waking up.
The cons used the internet to steal the WH - others are using it to organizse and rein in these goons.

[TeamPooka]

3. I'm with the Teachers! nt

[Scurrilous]

5. K&R