As thousands of teachers in Arizona and Colorado mark their second day of walkouts Friday, there are also rumblings of possible strikes in other states, with educators throughout the country demanding more funding and higher pay.
Teachers in Arizona will brave 98-degree heat to march to the state Capitol for the second time this week. In Colorado, educators will also march to the state Capitol and they’re using their personal days to do so, leading roughly 30 school districts to close as a result. Only one school district in Colorado voted to officially go on strike, but they cannot take action until the state’s education agency decides by May 4 whether to try to broker a resolution with teachers.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced a proposal earlier this month to raise teacher pay by 20 percent by 2020, but teachers have said that amount is insufficient. Ducey said on Wednesday that he won’t offer the educators anything more, according to the Arizona Daily Star. “And it’s time to move on,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, Republican lawmakers introduced a measure that would forbid public school teachers and unions from going on strike and threatening them with fines, jail time, and termination if they violate the terms. The measure has little chance of becoming law, but its introduction alone highlights the hostile environment in which teachers find themselves.
Following teacher actions in West Virginia, Jersey City, Oklahoma, and Kentucky in recent weeks, Colorado and Arizona have become the latest battlegrounds for education funding. But they likely won’t be the last. Louisiana, North Carolina, and Nevada are all experiencing disputes over education funding. As ThinkProgress’ Casey Quinlan previously reported, in most of these states, school funding is still far below what it was before the Great Recession of 2008.
Here’s a look at where walkouts and strikes could happen next:
North Carolina
Nearly 800 teachers in Durham have requested personal leave on May 16 to travel to the state legislature to call for higher school funding, pay raises, and reductions in class size, local NBC affiliate WRAL reported Thursday.
The Durham Association of Educators said they would request that the Durham Public Schools board cancel classes on that day.
A 2017 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) listed North Carolina as one of seven states which, since the Great Recession, not only cut general funding — which supports elementary and secondary schools — but also enacted income tax rate cuts costing the state $3.5 billion a year, making it “nearly impossible for North Carolina to restore these education cuts, let alone make new investments.”
Today, North Carolina ranks 40th in the country when it comes to education funding, 43rd when it comes to per-pupil funding, and 35th when it comes to teacher salaries, with average pay only recently breaking the $50,000 mark long promisedby state lawmakers.
Louisiana
The Louisiana Federation of Teachers is currently surveying its teachers to determine their willingness to go on strike to win “significant pay raises.” The results of the survey are expected to be released next month, but many educators have already expressed frustration over their salaries, which ranks as one of the lowest in the country.
According to the CBPP, per-pupil funding in Louisiana dropped more than 12 percent from 2008 to 2015. Like North Carolina and other states, tax cuts are largely to blame. Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) cut income taxes and increased corporate tax breaks, leading state revenue to drop dramatically.
The state consistently ranks last in the country when it comes to quality of public education.
Nevada
Talks of rallying in Nevada have started gaining traction, with at least one school district calling on lawmakers to find a solution to the school’s poor funding and low salaries.
While strikes are illegal in Nevada, teachers at the Clark County School District in Las Vegas were frustrated during a press conference Thursday, asking state officials to use extra funding from the state’s recreational marijuana tax to fund higher wages. Currently, that money goes to the state’s “rainy day” fund, and not to the schools.
“In states such as Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky, teachers associations are rallying and protesting to the governors and legislators at state capitols because that’s where the money for raises comes from,” said Linda E. Young, of the Board of School Trustees, according to a local NBC affiliate. “It’s time for us to rally together in Nevada to give our teachers and other employees the raises they deserve…”
Nevada is one of six states that drastically cut capital spending used to build, renovate, and equip schools with resources. Between 2008 and 2015, Nevada cut capital spending by a whopping 82 percent, according to the CBPP. The state’s student-to-teacher ratio also rose during that time, from 18:3 to 21:2. Per-pupil spending in Nevada ranks in the bottom 10 in the country.
This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on April 27, 2018. Reprinted with permission.
