Tag: Virginiatown, California

So far in 2019 strikes have broken out in Los Angeles and Oakland in California, Denver in Colorado and in Virginia and West Virginia, notching up notable wins in terms of pay raises and better working conditions. Kappier explained classrooms in Oakland’s school district are too large, her history textbooks are outdated, schools in the district don’t have nurses, adequate staffing of counselors, no librarians, and music and art programs are non-existent at some schools in the district. The issues facing public schools in Oakland are similar to other school districts across America where teachers led a 30-year high in strikes in 2018. A common theme of these walkouts is drastic declines in public funding schools, where many states have not replenished cuts made to public education during the 2008 economic recession. Leachman co-authored a November 2017 report that found 29 states were funding less per student in 2015 than they were in 2008. Last week, teachers in West Virginia went out on strike again for two days to protest a bill being pushed in the state senate that would tie teacher pay raises to funding for charter schools. “The issue last year was mainly over benefits. “At the school I’m at, the students are lucky enough to have one parent. “That translates to a classroom where kids don’t have a lot of prospects, they don’t have a lot of hope and it’s very difficult in terms of teaching them because a lot of their basic needs are not met.” Around 31,000 teachers in Los Angeles started off 2019’s strike wave in the nation’s second largest school district, walking out for seven days before settling on an agreement that included a pay raise, increase of support staff, and a plan to reduce class sizes to mandated caps. So the only reason to allow a strike is to test the strength of the union.