Yesterday, 33,000 teachers and school service personnel across the state of West Virginia went on strike to oppose the introduction of the state's first charter schools and a voucher program by which to subsidize religious and other private schools that aren't unionized. West Virginia is one of just six states that have (or HAD) banned charter schools. The others are Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and my native Vermont, which boasts among the highest-rated school systems in the nation.
It's part of a larger wave of teacher strikes that have been unfolding this year, first in Los Angeles, California, then in Denver, Colorado, and in Oakland, California as well beginning this coming Thursday, all of which are resisting pressures that have become very familiar to educators worldwide in recent decades: low pay, understaffing, lack of supplies, overcrowded classrooms, the threat of school closings, budget cuts, and privatization. This wave, tacitly supported by the unions (who have now been brought more into subordination to the workers they're supposed to represent), follows on last year's wave of wildcat strikes (i.e. strikes organized by workers outside of the union framework and without union support) by rank-and-file teachers, which arose first also in West Virginia to demand the provision of substantially increased pay and benefits to the state's educators and support staff (West Virginia's were and are the lowest paid teachers in the nation) to be paid for by way of ending longstanding state subsidies to the coal and natural gas companies.
Yesterday's teacher walkout in West Virginia forced the shutdown of schools in all 55 counties. An attempt to open by one district, Putnam County, failed miserably after teachers picketed, and buses and students did not show. Lo and behold that within the day the bill to begin privatizing the state's public school system was tabled indefinitely in the state Senate, meaning that it will most likely never be enacted. The strike continues today, as to make sure of the legislature's sincerity that the bill is, in fact, dead and won't just be resurrected as soon as they go back to work.
Terrified that their states might be next, 15 governors have asked for increased teacher pay in recent days. They should be scared: educators nationwide are poorly paid (especially compared to other professional workers) and deeply unhappy with their working conditions. Last year's wave of teacher strikes were the main factor in organized labor activity soaring to a 32-year high.