{"id":359547,"date":"2018-05-03T16:45:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T15:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-right-lashes-out-at-uprising-teachers\/"},"modified":"2018-05-03T16:45:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T15:45:55","slug":"the-right-lashes-out-at-uprising-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-right-lashes-out-at-uprising-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right Lashes Out at Uprising Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"
As mass teacher walkouts and protests ebb in Arizona<\/a> and Colorado<\/a>, bold new actions are ramping up<\/a> in North Carolina. This spring\u2019s teacher uprisings may well last through the end of this school year.<\/p>\n

On the whole, teachers across the nation have strung together an impressive series of victories, including salary raises<\/a>, pension reforms<\/a>, and school funding increases<\/a>. And teachers have vowed<\/a> to take their unmet demands into November elections to contest their opponents at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

But the instincts of retribution that tend to drive<\/a> rightwing politicians and their operatives have already spurred them to craft ways to strike back against teachers.<\/p>\n

Rightwing Retributions<\/h3>\n

Even during the walkouts, Republican lawmakers and their supporters have tried to intimidate and silence teachers. But these teacher uprisings have a widely accepted moral standing that will be very difficult for their opponents to undermine, despite the big money aimed at opposing teachers.<\/p>\n

Leading into the two-day teacher walkout in Colorado, Republican legislators introduced a bill<\/a> that would lead to fines and potentially up to six month\u2019s jail time for the striking teachers. The bill was pulled,<\/a> when it became clear even some Republicans weren\u2019t too keen on the measure.<\/p>\n

In Arizona, a libertarian think tank sent letters<\/a> to school district superintendents threatening them with lawsuits if they didn\u2019t reopen closed schools and order striking teachers to return to work. It\u2019s unclear how or whether<\/a> the threat will actually be carried out now that teachers are back on the job.<\/p>\n

In West Virginia, where teachers used a nine-day strike to secure a five percent raise, Republicans have vowed<\/a> to get their revenge by cutting $20 million to Medicaid and other parts of the state budget to pay for the increase. No doubt, when the axe falls on these programs, Republican lawmakers will be quick to blame the \u201cgreedy\u201d teachers.<\/p>\n

In Kentucky, Republican Governor Matt Bevin accused<\/a> striking teachers of leaving children exposed to sexual assaults or being in danger of ingesting toxic substances because teachers weren\u2019t at school. Now that the uprising has ended, Bevin has turned his revenge<\/a> against teachers into an effort to take over the largest school system in the state and take away local control of the schools.<\/p>\n

A Zero for DeVos<\/h3>\n

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, in her contribution to the right-wing backlash against teachers, has spurned<\/a> the strikes as being about \u201cadults\u2019 interests,\u201d and scolded teachers for not thinking about \u201cwhat\u2019s best for kids.\u201d In her recent, closed-door meeting with Teachers of the Year from across the country, she \u201cexpressed opposition to teachers going on strike for more education funding,\u201d HuffPost\u2019s Rebecca Klein reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the Arizona Teacher of the Year asked the Secretary about her views of the strikes, DeVos reportedly told her she preferred that \u201cadults would take their disagreements and solve them not at the expense of kids and their opportunity to go to school and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor her to say at the \u2018expense of children\u2019 was a very profound moment,\u201d one of the teachers told Klein. \u201cThat is so far from what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rightwing Messaging Guide<\/h3>\n

Indeed, the Right\u2019s counteroffensive to teacher uprisings extends beyond the affected states.<\/p>\n

The Guardian reports<\/a> about a \u201cmessaging guide<\/a>\u201d conceived by a network of libertarian think tanks that conveys tips for how to portray the walkouts as \u201charmful to low-income parents and their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The manual, entitled \u201cHow to Talk About Teacher Strikes<\/a>,\u201d has \u201cdos and dont\u2019s,\u201d including the claims, \u201cTeacher strikes hurt kids and low-income families,\u201d and, \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that teachers are protesting low wages by punishing other low-wage parents and their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guide is provided by the State Policy Network, a network of 66 rightwing think tanks<\/a> funded by the Koch brothers, the Walton Family Foundation, the DeVos family, the Bradley Foundation, and other conservative megadonors.<\/p>\n

Other talking points included in the guide are to \u201cemphasize the damage done to \u2018good\u2019 teachers by the strikes\u201d and counter claims of education funding cuts by calling out money being spent on \u201cred tape and bureaucracy\u201d and \u201cadministrators and other non-teaching staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Union-Led Shenanigans\u2019<\/h3>\n

This advice from SPN is already being taken to heart by conservative operatives like the Center for Education Reform, a pro-privatization organization and SPN member pushing<\/a> for charter school and vouchers.<\/p>\n

In a press release, CER warns<\/a> of the \u201ctrue nature of these protests and ramifications of supporting union backed rallies, walkouts, and strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release quotes CER leader Jeanne Allen saying, \u201cthe real fight\u201d is not whether teachers are paid well enough and schools are adequately funded but how to \u201censure money follows students and doesn\u2019t continue to get wasted on a bloated bureaucracy and top-heavy school districts that have grown dramatically faster than enrollment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen also riffs off the SPN manual by claiming walkouts are \u201cunion-building activities, pushing charter school teachers to follow them, while at the same time fighting to limit the growth of charters, impose restrictions and, worst of all, fighting to make sure charters are funded at lower levels than traditional schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its weekly newsletter, CER smears<\/a> the walkouts as \u201cunion-led shenanigans\u201d and argues, \u201cThe unions want to make teacher pay a defining issue. But it\u2019s not, or at least it shouldn\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Real Defining Issue<\/h3>\n

What is happening, which is hard for these critics to undermine, is that teachers are not making their pay<\/a> the defining issue of their uprising. Contrary to what Betsy DeVos asserts, they\u2019re focused on improving the lives of their students.<\/p>\n

Indeed, they are asking for<\/a> what their students really need: Teachers who aren\u2019t distracted, stressed out, and spiritually spent because of poor wages and lack of affordable healthcare or retirement security. Schools that aren\u2019t bereft of teaching materials, textbooks, and safe and functioning facilities; and full support of public services that have positive impacts on how well students achieve in schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mass teacher walkouts and protests ebb in Arizona and Colorado, bold new actions are ramping up in North Carolina. This spring\u2019s teacher uprisings may well last through the end of this school year. On the whole, teachers across the nation have strung together an impressive series of victories, including salary raises, pension reforms, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":359548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-359547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}