Oklahoma, Kentucky teachers skip school as frustration boils over
By Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - School teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job on Monday to protest cuts in pay, pensions and benefits, as discontent over years of sluggish spending on public education spilled over in two more U.S. states and threatened to spread.
The walkout shut down schools in Oklahoma, where teachers are among the lowest-paid in the nation. In Kentucky, schools were closed either for spring vacation or to allow educators to protest in the state capital, Frankfort, the state's teachers union said.
The protests come a month after teachers in West Virginia won a pay raise after shutting down schools for nearly two weeks before winning a pay raise. Last week teachers in Arizona also rallied for more educational funding, the Arizona Republic newspaper reported.
"We have found our mojo. We won't let anyone disinvest in public education, we are here for the long haul," Alicia Priest, the head of the Oklahoma Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, told a cheering crowd outside the statehouse that organizers estimated at 30,000.
In a display reminiscent of some of the biggest protest rallies across the country in recent years, teachers carried signs emblazoned with slogans such as "Our students deserve better," and "Public Edu is an investment in our future."
Educators say years of austerity in many states have led to the stagnation of salaries and the hollowing-out of school systems. West Virgina, Kentucky and Oklahoma have Republican governors and legislatures controlled by the party, which has been staunchly opposed to tax increases.
Thousands of protesting teachers and their supporters, many of them bused in from across the state, filled the Capitol grounds and spilled over into the surrounding streets. After the rally, they swarmed halls of the statehouse to press their demands.
Schools in the state's two biggest cities, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, will remain closed on Tuesday as the walkout extends into a second day, officials said. The Oklahoman newspaper listed more than two dozen districts that would be closed for at least another day.
Oklahoma's legislature approved a $450 million revenue package last week to help fund teachers' pay raises in the first major tax increase in a quarter century. Governor Mary Fallin signed the $450 million measure, but teachers say it fell short of their demands.
The teachers want lawmakers to restore funding from budget cuts that have forced some districts to impose four-day school weeks.
Levata Mickelson, a Spanish teacher from Yukon, about 17 miles west of Oklahoma City, said she had to work a second full-time job at Walmart to make ends meet. She said she was protesting to keep teachers in Oklahoma instead of seeing them leave for states with higher pay.
"When I retire, will there be someone to replace me?" she said as educators picketed the statehouse.
According to National Education Association estimates for 2016, Oklahoma ranked 48th in average U.S. classroom teacher salary. Oklahoma secondary school teachers had an annual mean wage of $42,460 as of May 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The minimum salary for a first year teacher was $31,600, state data showed.
Oklahoma's inflation-adjusted general funding per student dropped by 28.2 percent between 2008 and 2018, the biggest cut of any state, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In Kentucky, teachers were incensed by surprise passage of a bill last week that mandates a hybrid pension plan with individual accounts for new hires.
They also were monitoring passage of a budget bill that boosts base school funding and restores transportation funds, local media reported.
"It's really hard to go to work every day when you don't feel your government is behind you," protesting teacher Shelli Stinson told Louisville television station WLKY.
(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown)
