MEET THE ACTIVIST AT THE HEART OF THE U.S. TEACHER PROTESTS
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Because the teachers’ movement is on the rise.
This week, thousands of people descended on the Oklahoma state Capitol, holding signs that declared, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!” and “Give us the tools we need so we can succeed!” It was the latest in a string of teacher walkouts in favor of increased education funding. And if you squinted hard enough at the picket lines in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Illinois and Puerto Rico in recent weeks, you’d have seen the same diminutive 60-year-old New Yorker: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Long one of the most powerful — and controversial — figures in the labor movement, Weingarten has emerged as a face of a nationwide battle for more resources for public education that has taken a bold, even desperate, turn after years of budget cuts by states and school districts. West Virginia teachers won a 5 percent pay raise after shutting down the state’s schools for nearly two weeks. Oklahoma saw its third day of walkouts Wednesday, with educators demanding more classroom funding — even after the legislature tried to avert the walkout with a $6,100 teacher pay raise. Kentucky teachers are storming their Capitol this week to protest budget cuts and pension changes. More states are likely to join in. When asked why teachers are striking now, Weingarten says, “Because the time for passive resignation is over.”
OUR WEAPON IS OUR VOTE, AND OUR MISSION IS THE 2018 ELECTIONS.
RANDI WEINGARTEN
The situation has become so dire in Oklahoma that many public schools have been forced to operate on a four-day week. Textbooks are severely outdated and falling apart, and buildings are in disrepair, including defective heating systems that force kids to bundle up head to toe in the winter. Weingarten says she spoke to an Oklahoma social studies teacher who has kids that are forced to sit on the floor because there aren’t enough desks. “The inequity for kids in this country is real,” she says.
The daughter of a schoolteacher who went on an illegal strike when Weingarten was in high school, the labor leader is rooted in education and activism. Her suburban high school outside New York didn’t want for much — from rigorous coursework to ample extracurriculars — but when she later taught history at Clara Barton High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, she was Continue Reading: Meet the Activist at the Heart of the U.S. Teacher Protests | Need to Know | OZY:
