MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
The Oklahoma teachers walkout has just ended after 9 days. They got a pay raise and some taxes were raised to cover it, but it could end up being mostly negated because the oil and gas companies resent having to pay any taxes and are already planning a ballot measure to remove them. We'll see how it goes.
For a pretty well off state that isn't dominated by Republicans, ranking 46th in teacher pay is absurd. Though from I recall from my job search, some of the Denver suburbs pay really well. The article says the rural areas are absolutely abysmal.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
It is interesting to see unions start saying, "Hey, what if we just say screw it to your no striking laws? What exactly are you going to do?"
Send in the government like they did in the old days, most likely. Hopefully things don't come to that again.
Yeah, but in the bad old days, the government and the companies eventually LOST and had to throw the unionization crowd a bone to get people back to work. There was no grand victory for the union busters. Their victory came in fits and starts, as new workers forgot how they had got the things they now enjoyed (like weekends), and the deliberate weaknesses engineered into the US union system caused it to rot from within (the union and the company were set up to be in direct conflict in all things, as opposed to the model everywhere else where the Union and the Company are supposed to work together to achieve the best results for both).
When workers fight for their rights, they eventually win, because companies are totally non functional without workers. Companies hold the power only as long as a significant fraction of their workers allow them to. If 40% of people walk off the job, the remaining 60% can't keep up, and the company can't meet its contracts.
The problem was more that traditional union voters abandoned the movements actually fighting for their rights and sided with the corporate overlords over social issues. Blaming immigrants and minorities sells better then going after upper management.
this has been a problem with unions since the days of Samuel Gompers
the AFL didn't organize blacks and that's why they ate shit in the south, and why the CIO was way more successful--they organized integrated unions
With the chants of hundreds of teachers ringing in their ears, Kentucky lawmakers voted Friday to override the Republican governor’s veto of a two-year state budget that increases public education spending with the help of a more than $480 million tax increase.
The votes came as thousands of teachers rallied inside and outside the Capitol, forcing more than 30 school districts to close as Kentucky continued the chorus of teacher protests across the country. The rally took on a festival-like atmosphere in Kentucky as some teachers sat in lawn chairs or sprawled out on blankets. Crosby Stills, Nash and Young’s hit “Teach Your Children” bellowed from the loud speakers.
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin noticed the teachers, too. He told reporters he saw them hanging out with their shoes off, smoking and “leaving trash around.” He bemoaned the “hundreds of thousands of children” he says were likely left home alone because schools were closed and some parents likely did not have time to find child care.
“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” Bevin said, according to a video posted to Twitter by a reporter for WDRB-TV. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them. I’m offended by the idea that people so cavalierly and so flippantly disregarded what’s truly best for children.”
For a pretty well off state that isn't dominated by Republicans, ranking 46th in teacher pay is absurd. Though from I recall from my job search, some of the Denver suburbs pay really well. The article says the rural areas are absolutely abysmal.
Colorado includes such school districts as Douglas County (where I went to high school) which is infamous for trying to give school vouchers to parents to spend on private charter schools. There is a strong anti-education contingent in this state that votes against anything that might improve public schools, and fund the campaigns of school board members who will dismantle districts from within. Teachers unions get the lions share of the blame, naturally.
It's also the state with TABOR, which prohibits spending a budget surplus and requires that it be sent back to taxpayers. This despite a massive wave of population growth in the last four years.
The state budget is dominated by spending on K12 education as a result. The state budget was hamstrung by austerity zealots from the 90s and local politics doesn't really resemble the way the state votes in presidential elections. So there's no real public goodwill for increasing teacher pay.
Mill levies to fund public education routinely get voted down. Last time around, 2 of the 64 districts in the state passed tax increases. The other 62 said no.
With the chants of hundreds of teachers ringing in their ears, Kentucky lawmakers voted Friday to override the Republican governor’s veto of a two-year state budget that increases public education spending with the help of a more than $480 million tax increase.
The votes came as thousands of teachers rallied inside and outside the Capitol, forcing more than 30 school districts to close as Kentucky continued the chorus of teacher protests across the country. The rally took on a festival-like atmosphere in Kentucky as some teachers sat in lawn chairs or sprawled out on blankets. Crosby Stills, Nash and Young’s hit “Teach Your Children” bellowed from the loud speakers.
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin noticed the teachers, too. He told reporters he saw them hanging out with their shoes off, smoking and “leaving trash around.” He bemoaned the “hundreds of thousands of children” he says were likely left home alone because schools were closed and some parents likely did not have time to find child care.
“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” Bevin said, according to a video posted to Twitter by a reporter for WDRB-TV. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them. I’m offended by the idea that people so cavalierly and so flippantly disregarded what’s truly best for children.”
"I’m offended by the idea that people so cavalierly and so flippantly disregarded what’s truly best for children."
I am too. I'm f'n outraged that people would be proactive against the children's best interest.
The children's best interests are served by a properly funded and adequately paid staffed education system.
That someone has so cavalierly and flippantly allowed it to fall due to lack of funding (or if it was a prior administration, failed to arrest that fall), into such a state that teachers, arguably one of the most important non-parent roles in a child's life have to strike so you pay attention, is an indictment on your whole administration, jackass.
This is on you. Anyone who thinks teachers aren't overworked, underappreciated, underpaid and way more self-sacrificing than politicians, at least as a general rule, don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
This f'n guy.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Bevin's mad because his veto is getting overrided. The legislature voted to raise taxes to raise educational spending, and he was having neither happen, as Bevin's probably the only major politician in the country who wants poor people dying in the streets even more than Paul Ryan, but the legislators would rather keep their jobs.
If a significant percentage (say half) did walk out, that would more than double the current number of people incarcerated in the state (currently ~20K). https://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/data/PPP/2018_PPP.pdf (pg 12)
And given that women make up about 3/4 of teaching positions, and about 1/10 of prison populations, that'd make overcrowding significant.
Not to mention the GOP would need to find a crapload of teachers in short order, without paying significantly more than what they're being asked for by the teachers, or everything goes to hell regardless.
Again, it's a hard thing to ask someone to risk jail time, but if enough of them do it, I can't see how the state government could enforce their threat.
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
My wife, a high school educator, said her response to that proposed CO bill is "I would strike even harder than I would have been planning to." I kinda hope they do go full snidely and tie the teachers to the tracks. I mean, I really don't because of the hurt that will cause right away, but the easy GOP Hates Teachers narrative they've created in an election year is hard to pass up.
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
Arguably not. If I understand this kind of "union busting" bullshit, they're still permitted to quit/resign. Just that they can't strike while being employees. That gets around the constitutional rights stuff. And why not just quit enmasse until things improve? Quitting allows the government to punish particular troublemakers by not rehiring them. It's one thing to fire someone. It's another to not hire one back after they quit.
Worth noting that Democrats have the state house and the governor's mansion in Colorado.
Ahhh. So it's a nothingburger. Like the Obama era ACA repeals. Grandstanding for the base, knowing that nothing will come about, and then using that to show "Well, we just need more Republicans!" type argument.
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
As a first responder I know there are well established carve outs that bar us from striking here in New Jersey. There might be a way to get around it.
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My wife, a high school educator, said her response to that proposed CO bill is "I would strike even harder than I would have been planning to." I kinda hope they do go full snidely and tie the teachers to the tracks. I mean, I really don't because of the hurt that will cause right away, but the easy GOP Hates Teachers narrative they've created in an election year is hard to pass up.
This has essentially been the response. Before this announcement, only two districts had canceled classes this Friday, covering roughly 80k students. Now, over 15 districts have canceled classes, covering over 400k students across Colorado. If the state doesn't get the message on Friday, it could get much worse. Colorado on the whole has been a state reluctant to strike, the fact that we are doing this 'day of action' speaks enormously, and should have legislators concerned.
The largest concerns for teachers in Colorado are as follows:
1. Sabotaging of struggling state employee pensions (PERA): The state pension system has not recovered well from the recession due to mistakes. While most recognize that employees will have to pay more into the system to fix this, politicians are opportunistically using this as a chance to weaken the entire system and set it up for further failure.
2. State not living up to funding obligations: Through some legal trickery, the state has been writing an IOU to schools for 10 years, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars at this point. Rather than raising taxes in a strong economy, they're kept them stagnant, such that schools have been unable to respond to Colorado's enormous post-recession growth. This would go a long way towards repairing the nearly 100 Colorado Districts moving to a 4-day school week next year due to funding shortages.
3. Better compensation: The Metro cost of living has risen enormously in the last 10 years, becoming competitive with Seattle costs of living. Educators can no longer afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the suburban communities they serve, not to mention urban. Moreover, the abysmally-low rural educator pay fails to draw educators who can garner much better rural pay in states with similar costs-of-living. Suburban pay scales start around $32k, rural pay scales start around $25k.
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
As a first responder I know there are well established carve outs that bar us from striking here in New Jersey. There might be a way to get around it.
But I would assume that the consequences of breaking that agreement would be losing your job, not ending up in jail.
My wife, a high school educator, said her response to that proposed CO bill is "I would strike even harder than I would have been planning to." I kinda hope they do go full snidely and tie the teachers to the tracks. I mean, I really don't because of the hurt that will cause right away, but the easy GOP Hates Teachers narrative they've created in an election year is hard to pass up.
This has essentially been the response. Before this announcement, only two districts had canceled classes this Friday, covering roughly 80k students. Now, over 15 districts have canceled classes, covering over 400k students across Colorado. If the state doesn't get the message on Friday, it could get much worse. Colorado on the whole has been a state reluctant to strike, the fact that we are doing this 'day of action' speaks enormously, and should have legislators concerned.
The largest concerns for teachers in Colorado are as follows:
1. Sabotaging of struggling state employee pensions (PERA): The state pension system has not recovered well from the recession due to mistakes. While most recognize that employees will have to pay more into the system to fix this, politicians are opportunistically using this as a chance to weaken the entire system and set it up for further failure.
2. State not living up to funding obligations: Through some legal trickery, the state has been writing an IOU to schools for 10 years, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars at this point. Rather than raising taxes in a strong economy, they're kept them stagnant, such that schools have been unable to respond to Colorado's enormous post-recession growth. This would go a long way towards repairing the nearly 100 Colorado Districts moving to a 4-day school week next year due to funding shortages.
3. Better compensation: The Metro cost of living has risen enormously in the last 10 years, becoming competitive with Seattle costs of living. Educators can no longer afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the suburban communities they serve, not to mention urban. Moreover, the abysmally-low rural educator pay fails to draw educators who can garner much better rural pay in states with similar costs-of-living. Suburban pay scales start around $32k, rural pay scales start around $25k.
It's worth pointing out that all of these have the same root - the "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights", better known as TABOR. This law basically makes it near impossible for CO to actually increase revenue through taxes, and as a result has resulted in the state being forced into austerity.
My wife, a high school educator, said her response to that proposed CO bill is "I would strike even harder than I would have been planning to." I kinda hope they do go full snidely and tie the teachers to the tracks. I mean, I really don't because of the hurt that will cause right away, but the easy GOP Hates Teachers narrative they've created in an election year is hard to pass up.
This has essentially been the response. Before this announcement, only two districts had canceled classes this Friday, covering roughly 80k students. Now, over 15 districts have canceled classes, covering over 400k students across Colorado. If the state doesn't get the message on Friday, it could get much worse. Colorado on the whole has been a state reluctant to strike, the fact that we are doing this 'day of action' speaks enormously, and should have legislators concerned.
The largest concerns for teachers in Colorado are as follows:
1. Sabotaging of struggling state employee pensions (PERA): The state pension system has not recovered well from the recession due to mistakes. While most recognize that employees will have to pay more into the system to fix this, politicians are opportunistically using this as a chance to weaken the entire system and set it up for further failure.
2. State not living up to funding obligations: Through some legal trickery, the state has been writing an IOU to schools for 10 years, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars at this point. Rather than raising taxes in a strong economy, they're kept them stagnant, such that schools have been unable to respond to Colorado's enormous post-recession growth. This would go a long way towards repairing the nearly 100 Colorado Districts moving to a 4-day school week next year due to funding shortages.
3. Better compensation: The Metro cost of living has risen enormously in the last 10 years, becoming competitive with Seattle costs of living. Educators can no longer afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the suburban communities they serve, not to mention urban. Moreover, the abysmally-low rural educator pay fails to draw educators who can garner much better rural pay in states with similar costs-of-living. Suburban pay scales start around $32k, rural pay scales start around $25k.
These all seem like eminently reasonable complaints.
How any government can stand idly by while their schools go to 4 days a week is a mystery to me. How do they think people are going to work?
That's a bad move by the GOP in CO, because it removes any potential 'we're thinking about the children!' high ground they might have been able to claim.
Jailing teachers for striking will be even worse for closing schools than striking.
My wife, a high school educator, said her response to that proposed CO bill is "I would strike even harder than I would have been planning to." I kinda hope they do go full snidely and tie the teachers to the tracks. I mean, I really don't because of the hurt that will cause right away, but the easy GOP Hates Teachers narrative they've created in an election year is hard to pass up.
This has essentially been the response. Before this announcement, only two districts had canceled classes this Friday, covering roughly 80k students. Now, over 15 districts have canceled classes, covering over 400k students across Colorado. If the state doesn't get the message on Friday, it could get much worse. Colorado on the whole has been a state reluctant to strike, the fact that we are doing this 'day of action' speaks enormously, and should have legislators concerned.
The largest concerns for teachers in Colorado are as follows:
1. Sabotaging of struggling state employee pensions (PERA): The state pension system has not recovered well from the recession due to mistakes. While most recognize that employees will have to pay more into the system to fix this, politicians are opportunistically using this as a chance to weaken the entire system and set it up for further failure.
2. State not living up to funding obligations: Through some legal trickery, the state has been writing an IOU to schools for 10 years, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars at this point. Rather than raising taxes in a strong economy, they're kept them stagnant, such that schools have been unable to respond to Colorado's enormous post-recession growth. This would go a long way towards repairing the nearly 100 Colorado Districts moving to a 4-day school week next year due to funding shortages.
3. Better compensation: The Metro cost of living has risen enormously in the last 10 years, becoming competitive with Seattle costs of living. Educators can no longer afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the suburban communities they serve, not to mention urban. Moreover, the abysmally-low rural educator pay fails to draw educators who can garner much better rural pay in states with similar costs-of-living. Suburban pay scales start around $32k, rural pay scales start around $25k.
These all seem like eminently reasonable complaints.
How any government can stand idly by while their schools go to 4 days a week is a mystery to me. How do they think people are going to work?
Beyond that, how do they think children will be educated?
If a child goes kindergarten to graduate on a 4 day school week (and there is no obvious increases in either hours per day, or weeks per year, because these are budget, not efficiency changes), that means a graduate has had the equivalency of missing more than two and a half years of education. So a Coloradan graduate is just less than the equivalent of any state running 5 years, a mid year sophomore dropout.
And that's going to make tertiary schooling worse, as the students won't be as prepared, and it's a massive cycle of suck.
That the state government let it get this far, and that they were allowed to (whether it's the electorate, the judiciary or the federal government, I'm not sure on the particulars in this case), is abhorrent.
Christ how the hell can someone live on 32k in a suburban area?
I live in the cheapest hole in the wall studio apartment I could possibly find and I got lucky that it's relatively okay in terms of things not falling apart. Also utilities included, so that's a massive help.
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
As a first responder I know there are well established carve outs that bar us from striking here in New Jersey. There might be a way to get around it.
But I would assume that the consequences of breaking that agreement would be losing your job, not ending up in jail.
My intuition would have agreed, but I was curious so I did some googling.
The whole thing is pretty relevant, but my not legal opinion summary is as follows:
Unless otherwise written in statute (~9 states), public sector unions do not have a right to strike. The understood common law is that they do not have this right, and if the courts decide to they can hold individuals in contempt of court for striking. There is a federal law which applies to federal employees only, which allows criminal penalties including imprisonment for striking, and has been challenged on 1st and 14th amendment grounds and failed. Unless the constitution of the state in question provides greater protection, it seems likely that state laws criminalizing public sector strikes and imposing jail time would stand.
Even cheap childcare with sufficient hours to take a job is going to be like, $800 a month. And thats cheap! So about $10k a year if you live somewhere with cheap childcare. If you have two kids under 5, then you and your spouse are both teachers then your spouse is effectively earning $5k after paying for childcare.
If you have 3 kids, then sending your spouse to work is effectively paying $5k a year so that once your kids are in proper school your spouse will still be at full earning potential.
If I was a teacher in one of the 'strikers go to jail' states then I probably wouldn't strike, but what I would do (since all these states seem to be introducing 4 day weeks) would say that the school day will be structured like this...
1) Each weekday will have an 80% chance of school
2) Each morning, at 6:30 am each school will randomly decide whether there will be school that day or not
3) If there is no school that day, the school will be closed, no buses will run and no programs will happen
4) If there is no school on Friday, all sports are cancelled for that school that weekend. No practices or games may occur.
5) Any number of days in a row may be 'no school'
Effectively from the parents perspective its a continual strike.
If I was a teacher in one of the 'strikers go to jail' states then I probably wouldn't strike, but what I would do (since all these states seem to be introducing 4 day weeks) would say that the school day will be structured like this...
1) Each weekday will have an 80% chance of school
2) Each morning, at 6:30 am each school will randomly decide whether there will be school that day or not
3) If there is no school that day, the school will be closed, no buses will run and no programs will happen
4) If there is no school on Friday, all sports are cancelled for that school that weekend. No practices or games may occur.
5) Any number of days in a row may be 'no school'
Effectively from the parents perspective its a continual strike.
How any government can stand idly by while their schools go to 4 days a week is a mystery to me. How do they think people are going to work?
Beyond that, how do they think children will be educated?
If a child goes kindergarten to graduate on a 4 day school week (and there is no obvious increases in either hours per day, or weeks per year, because these are budget, not efficiency changes), that means a graduate has had the equivalency of missing more than two and a half years of education. So a Coloradan graduate is just less than the equivalent of any state running 5 years, a mid year sophomore dropout.
And that's going to make tertiary schooling worse, as the students won't be as prepared, and it's a massive cycle of suck.
That the state government let it get this far, and that they were allowed to (whether it's the electorate, the judiciary or the federal government, I'm not sure on the particulars in this case), is abhorrent.
It's because they don't give a shit. Their politics begin with "Got mine" and end with "Fuck the libs" and there is nothing in between. Unless they are threatened with losing their jobs (as could be the case in Kentucky and West Virginia, where they folded) they wouldn't care about anything.
The bigger thing is that education is one of the few public services that has not been thoroughly looted by the private sector yet. There's a ton of money there that greedy assholes want to steal. Have to break public education as a concept to get at it though.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Colorado teachers are also going on strike, but the meth lab of democracy has the far more insane conspiracy theories about their own strike. The strike is actually a dastardly plot to legalize marijuana in Arizona!!!!
I have a feeling that Colorado's strike might be more successful, sooner.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
That has to violate the first and 13th amendments. Work this job or we will jail you because you chose to go into teaching is a massive violation of rights.
So it looks like the strike is going to continue, but we're probably going to be seeing some public sentiment turning against the teachers because they'd been communicating schools would be open again tomorrow and now they're not.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Arizona's teachers strike is ending. The governor just signed a 9% raise for teacher pay for next year and 5% for the next two years.
And North Carolina's teachers might be next to strike. A quick list of grievances from the article:
North Carolina teachers earn 5 percent less, on average, than they did before the recession when numbers are adjusted for inflation.
Our state today spends 12.2 percent less per pupil than it did before the recession, ranking 39th in the nation.
Teachers have lost due process rights, longevity pay and pay increases for graduate degrees. New hires after January 1, 2021, will not enjoy retiree health benefits.
Legislators removed the cap on charter schools, 173 of which are currently adding substantial fiscal pressure to cash-starved districts.
We’ve lost nearly 7,500 teacher assistants because of state budget cuts, crippling teachers’ abilities to differentiate instruction and manage behavior.
Health insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Teachers responsible for insuring their families now pay an average of nearly $10,000 a year.
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Colorado next, at least on Monday.
For a pretty well off state that isn't dominated by Republicans, ranking 46th in teacher pay is absurd. Though from I recall from my job search, some of the Denver suburbs pay really well. The article says the rural areas are absolutely abysmal.
this has been a problem with unions since the days of Samuel Gompers
the AFL didn't organize blacks and that's why they ate shit in the south, and why the CIO was way more successful--they organized integrated unions
http://www.wkyt.com/content/news/Gov-Bevin-guarantees-child-was-sexually-assaulted-because-of-Friday-school-closures-479743093.html
Colorado includes such school districts as Douglas County (where I went to high school) which is infamous for trying to give school vouchers to parents to spend on private charter schools. There is a strong anti-education contingent in this state that votes against anything that might improve public schools, and fund the campaigns of school board members who will dismantle districts from within. Teachers unions get the lions share of the blame, naturally.
It's also the state with TABOR, which prohibits spending a budget surplus and requires that it be sent back to taxpayers. This despite a massive wave of population growth in the last four years.
The state budget is dominated by spending on K12 education as a result. The state budget was hamstrung by austerity zealots from the 90s and local politics doesn't really resemble the way the state votes in presidential elections. So there's no real public goodwill for increasing teacher pay.
Mill levies to fund public education routinely get voted down. Last time around, 2 of the 64 districts in the state passed tax increases. The other 62 said no.
I am too. I'm f'n outraged that people would be proactive against the children's best interest.
The children's best interests are served by a properly funded and adequately paid staffed education system.
That someone has so cavalierly and flippantly allowed it to fall due to lack of funding (or if it was a prior administration, failed to arrest that fall), into such a state that teachers, arguably one of the most important non-parent roles in a child's life have to strike so you pay attention, is an indictment on your whole administration, jackass.
This is on you. Anyone who thinks teachers aren't overworked, underappreciated, underpaid and way more self-sacrificing than politicians, at least as a general rule, don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
This f'n guy.
Colorado GOP trying to jail teachers who strike.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/384420-colorado-bill-would-punish-teachers-who-go-on-strike-with-jail-time
According to the Colorado Department of Education, there were just over 54K teachers last year.
https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/countofteachersbydistrictethnicityandgender2017-18pdf
If a significant percentage (say half) did walk out, that would more than double the current number of people incarcerated in the state (currently ~20K).
https://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/data/PPP/2018_PPP.pdf (pg 12)
And given that women make up about 3/4 of teaching positions, and about 1/10 of prison populations, that'd make overcrowding significant.
Not to mention the GOP would need to find a crapload of teachers in short order, without paying significantly more than what they're being asked for by the teachers, or everything goes to hell regardless.
Again, it's a hard thing to ask someone to risk jail time, but if enough of them do it, I can't see how the state government could enforce their threat.
Ahhh. So it's a nothingburger. Like the Obama era ACA repeals. Grandstanding for the base, knowing that nothing will come about, and then using that to show "Well, we just need more Republicans!" type argument.
As a first responder I know there are well established carve outs that bar us from striking here in New Jersey. There might be a way to get around it.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
This has essentially been the response. Before this announcement, only two districts had canceled classes this Friday, covering roughly 80k students. Now, over 15 districts have canceled classes, covering over 400k students across Colorado. If the state doesn't get the message on Friday, it could get much worse. Colorado on the whole has been a state reluctant to strike, the fact that we are doing this 'day of action' speaks enormously, and should have legislators concerned.
The largest concerns for teachers in Colorado are as follows:
1. Sabotaging of struggling state employee pensions (PERA): The state pension system has not recovered well from the recession due to mistakes. While most recognize that employees will have to pay more into the system to fix this, politicians are opportunistically using this as a chance to weaken the entire system and set it up for further failure.
2. State not living up to funding obligations: Through some legal trickery, the state has been writing an IOU to schools for 10 years, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars at this point. Rather than raising taxes in a strong economy, they're kept them stagnant, such that schools have been unable to respond to Colorado's enormous post-recession growth. This would go a long way towards repairing the nearly 100 Colorado Districts moving to a 4-day school week next year due to funding shortages.
3. Better compensation: The Metro cost of living has risen enormously in the last 10 years, becoming competitive with Seattle costs of living. Educators can no longer afford even a 1-bedroom apartment in the suburban communities they serve, not to mention urban. Moreover, the abysmally-low rural educator pay fails to draw educators who can garner much better rural pay in states with similar costs-of-living. Suburban pay scales start around $32k, rural pay scales start around $25k.
But I would assume that the consequences of breaking that agreement would be losing your job, not ending up in jail.
It's worth pointing out that all of these have the same root - the "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights", better known as TABOR. This law basically makes it near impossible for CO to actually increase revenue through taxes, and as a result has resulted in the state being forced into austerity.
These all seem like eminently reasonable complaints.
How any government can stand idly by while their schools go to 4 days a week is a mystery to me. How do they think people are going to work?
Jailing teachers for striking will be even worse for closing schools than striking.
It's tough as fuck. I did it for 8 years with a family of three and later four.
If a child goes kindergarten to graduate on a 4 day school week (and there is no obvious increases in either hours per day, or weeks per year, because these are budget, not efficiency changes), that means a graduate has had the equivalency of missing more than two and a half years of education. So a Coloradan graduate is just less than the equivalent of any state running 5 years, a mid year sophomore dropout.
And that's going to make tertiary schooling worse, as the students won't be as prepared, and it's a massive cycle of suck.
That the state government let it get this far, and that they were allowed to (whether it's the electorate, the judiciary or the federal government, I'm not sure on the particulars in this case), is abhorrent.
Usually it's argued away as "yeah but what about their S/O, since household income means two earners!"
I live in the cheapest hole in the wall studio apartment I could possibly find and I got lucky that it's relatively okay in terms of things not falling apart. Also utilities included, so that's a massive help.
My intuition would have agreed, but I was curious so I did some googling.
http://www.atg.wa.gov/ago-opinions/right-teachers-and-other-employees-strike
The whole thing is pretty relevant, but my not legal opinion summary is as follows:
Unless otherwise written in statute (~9 states), public sector unions do not have a right to strike. The understood common law is that they do not have this right, and if the courts decide to they can hold individuals in contempt of court for striking. There is a federal law which applies to federal employees only, which allows criminal penalties including imprisonment for striking, and has been challenged on 1st and 14th amendment grounds and failed. Unless the constitution of the state in question provides greater protection, it seems likely that state laws criminalizing public sector strikes and imposing jail time would stand.
Also, not really if you have kids.
Even cheap childcare with sufficient hours to take a job is going to be like, $800 a month. And thats cheap! So about $10k a year if you live somewhere with cheap childcare. If you have two kids under 5, then you and your spouse are both teachers then your spouse is effectively earning $5k after paying for childcare.
If you have 3 kids, then sending your spouse to work is effectively paying $5k a year so that once your kids are in proper school your spouse will still be at full earning potential.
1) Each weekday will have an 80% chance of school
2) Each morning, at 6:30 am each school will randomly decide whether there will be school that day or not
3) If there is no school that day, the school will be closed, no buses will run and no programs will happen
4) If there is no school on Friday, all sports are cancelled for that school that weekend. No practices or games may occur.
5) Any number of days in a row may be 'no school'
Effectively from the parents perspective its a continual strike.
Teachers aren't making the call on that.
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It's because they don't give a shit. Their politics begin with "Got mine" and end with "Fuck the libs" and there is nothing in between. Unless they are threatened with losing their jobs (as could be the case in Kentucky and West Virginia, where they folded) they wouldn't care about anything.
I have a feeling that Colorado's strike might be more successful, sooner.
tell it to taft-hartley
Apparently AZ teachers had been saying it looked like they'd be back at work tomorrow, so the legislature decided to fuck off with the deal.
So it looks like the strike is going to continue, but we're probably going to be seeing some public sentiment turning against the teachers because they'd been communicating schools would be open again tomorrow and now they're not.
And North Carolina's teachers might be next to strike. A quick list of grievances from the article: