West Virginia Educators Flood State Capitol to Conserve Public Education From Privatization Plan

This post has been updated.

West Virginia teachers celebrated Tuesday afternoon when they discovered the strike they had staged had assisted force the state House of Delegates to vote down an education reform costs that would have pulled funding away from public schools, redirecting it to personal and charter schools and damaging students across the state. The pro-privatization expense stopped working in a 53 -45 vote.

The victory marks the 2nd time in the past year that instructors in the state have actually utilized civil disobedience to force legislators to invest in public education.

Earlier:

A year after stimulating a nationwide movement of teacher uprisings, teachers from throughout West Virginia flooded the state capitol building in Charleston on Tuesday to fight a costs they alert would drain cash away from public schools and seriously harm trainees.

Despite the inclusion of the extremely pay increases they fought last year to win, the instructors are calling on state lawmakers to decline an education reform expense (S. B. 451) due to the fact that it likewise consists of financing for charter schools and voucher programs which the state instructors union states would pull much-needed funding from public schools.

“By striking, we’re essentially saying, ‘We refuse to take your pay raise under these conditions since we realize how bad privatization will be for our trainees and our schools,'” Jay O’Neal, a instructor in Charleston, informed Jacobin.

Lawmakers in the state Home of Delegates and Senate have discussed different versions of the proposition in current days, the most recent of which would enable 7 charter schools to operate in West Virginia, which presently has none. The expense would also fund 1,000 vouchers for students with unique requires, which critics say actually undermines those trainees as opposed to helping them.

Teachers argue legislators have rushed through the procedure without asking for their input and numerous believe the expense is really punishment for the victory they won throughout last year’s nine-day strike.

“This is not reform, this is retaliation,” Brandon Wolford, a unique education instructor and president of the Mingo County Education Association, told Jacobin. “Nothing in this proposition would make things better for trainees or staff. How does bringing in uncertified teachers [by legalizing charters] help our kids? How does taking public cash and putting it into private hands assistance our schools? Regrettably, the political leaders are listening to the leading one percent rather of listening to us.”

Most school districts revealed Monday thata they would go on strike, after the Senate sent the final version of the expense to the Home. Teachers in the Capitol cheered Tuesday morning as it was revealed that all 55 counties throughout the state had closed schools and that the Capitol structure was at maximum capability.

The teachers’ strike in West Virginia late last winter kicked off the nationwide #RedForEd motion, which most recently has actually taken off in Denver and Los Angeles and is expected to come to Oakland, California this week as instructors across the country need living salaries and an end to corporate tax cuts that take away funding from their students.