Politics
The Kochs Helped Slash State Taxes. Now Teachers Are in the Streets
The wave of strikes in the past three months is just the latest sign that Tea Party-style austerity is losing favor.
Demonstrators chant in a protest at the Arizona Capitol for higher teacher pay and school funding on the first day of a statewide teachers strike on April 26, 2018, in Phoenix.
Photographer: Ross D. Franklin/AP PhotoThis article is for subscribers only.
On May 16, at least 29 North Carolina public school districts serving 865,000 students closed their doors as teachers walked out. The complaints have become familiar: overcrowded classrooms, teachers forced to hold down two jobs, and textbooks so old that they call the internet new. Some classrooms haven’t had a certified teacher all year, says Mark Jewell, a fifth-grade teacher from Greensboro and head of the North Carolina Education Association.
“We have districts that are choosing between the light bill and toilet paper,” he says. “That’s not normal.”