{"id":709,"date":"2018-03-20T12:34:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T16:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=709"},"modified":"2018-03-21T12:37:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:37:55","slug":"their-pay-has-stood-still-now-oklahoma-teachers-could-be-the-next-to-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"Their Pay Has Stood Still. Now Oklahoma Teachers Could Be the Next to Walk."},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0DANA GOLDSTEIN\u00a0<\/span><\/a>

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Students leaving Carver Middle School in Tulsa last week. Teachers in Oklahoma have not had a raise from the state in a decade and are threatening to strike on April 2.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TULSA, Okla. \u2014 When she woke up one morning last week, Tiffany Bell, a teacher at Hamilton Elementary School here, had $35 in her bank account.<\/p>\n

On take-home pay of $2,200 per month, she supports her husband, a veteran who went back to school, and their three children, all of whom qualify for the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program, a federal benefit for low-income families. The couple\u2019s 4-year-old twins attend a Head Start preschool \u2014 another antipoverty program.<\/p>\n

Money is so tight for Ms. Bell, 26, that she had to think twice before spending $15 on Oreos for a class project, in which her third graders removed differing amounts of icing to display the phases of the moon.<\/p>\n

She knew it would be hard to support a family on a teacher\u2019s salary. \u201cBut not this hard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When West Virginia teachers\u00a0mounted a statewide walkout<\/a>\u00a0last month, earning a modest raise, it seemed like an anomaly: a successful grass-roots labor uprising in a conservative state with weak public sector unions. But just a few weeks later, the West Virginia action looks like the potential beginning of a red-state rebellion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Arizona, teachers clad in red, the color of the teacher protest movement, have conducted a series of\u00a0#RedforEd<\/a>\u00a0demonstrations demanding higher pay. In Kentucky, teachers have organized rallies to protest proposed cuts to their pensions.<\/p>\n

And in Oklahoma, where teachers have not had a raise from the state in a decade, they have vowed to go on strike on April 2 if the Legislature does not act to increase pay and education budgets.<\/p>\n

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Left, Tiffany Bell, a teacher at Hamilton Elementary School in Tulsa; right, Becky Atherton Dukes of Carnegie Elementary in Tulsa. Many teachers in Oklahoma believe there is little hope of avoiding the walkout.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All three states are paragons of austerity-minded budgeting, guided by a belief that taxes should be as low as possible to encourage people to spend more and companies to move there and grow. But one result has been a cutback in education, a sector in which a large and popular work force is finding it has labor muscles to flex after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hemorrhaging from a lack of funding,\u201d said Larry Cagle, a Tulsa teacher and organizer of one of several Facebook groups pushing for a walkout. \u201cIf I get fired, I get fired. I will absolutely not back down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahomans are not always averse to paying more for education. Local districts can use property taxes and bonds to pay for structures, and many of the school buildings are beautiful. Webster Middle and High School in Tulsa is a pristinely maintained Art Deco castle. In 2015, Tulsa voters passed a $415 million bond to invest in technology and the district\u2019s physical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

But most instructional costs are covered by the state, where laws and politics make it difficult to raise taxes. And it is inside the classroom that students and parents have noticed the impact of depressed state budgets.<\/p>\n

Webster, where 88 percent of students come from low-income families, has cut its advanced foreign language courses, along with classes in drama and debate. Six miles away, Carver Middle School has rationed paper and there are not enough parts to go around in robotics class, students said.<\/p>\n

About a fifth of Oklahoma school districts, mostly in rural areas, are trying an even more drastic way to save money: a four-day week. (They cannot cut the number of instructional hours, so the school days tend to be longer.)<\/p>\n

Across the state, teachers say they make ends meet by selling their blood plasma, or by working second jobs as luggage handlers, Uber drivers or in lawn maintenance.<\/p>\n

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Students on a school bus outside Carver Middle School in Tulsa. Across the state, teachers say they make ends meet by selling their blood plasma, or by working second jobs as luggage handlers or Uber drivers.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When teachers here last went on strike, in 1990 for four days, they won a raise and limitations on class sizes. But that was\u00a0the last time the Oklahoma Legislature raised taxes<\/a>. In 1992, anti-tax activists successfully organized a ballot referendum to require a three-quarters majority in both the state House and Senate to raise new revenue and today, Oklahoma is\u00a0one of 13 states<\/a>\u00a0that require a supermajority to impose new taxes.<\/p>\n

Research has found\u00a0little direct relationship<\/a>\u00a0between tax cuts and indicators like job creation. Oklahoma\u2019s economy did well between 2001 and 2014, in part because of a boom in oil and gas. More recently, the state\u2019s economy slowed along with\u00a0a decrease in oil prices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But ever since the referendum passed, it has become an insurmountable barrier for attempts to increase school spending. The 1990 class size reductions were scrapped for lack of funds. Since 2008, Oklahoma has cut its per-pupil instructional funding by 28 percent \u2014 the largest cut in the nation, according to an analysis by the\u00a0Center on Budget and Policy Priorities<\/a>, a liberal-leaning think tank.<\/p>\n

The current budget situation is so dire that some superintendents and school boards are supporting, and even helping to organize, the proposed teacher walkout.<\/p>\n

Deborah Gist, who as the hard-charging education commissioner in Rhode Island tried to weaken teachers\u2019 seniority protections and often clashed with their union, is now Tulsa\u2019s schools superintendent and is allied with the Oklahoma union \u2014 the Oklahoma Education Association \u2014 in a fight for more money.<\/p>\n

Dr. Gist said she is unable to attract or retain effective educators because they can earn up to $20,000 more per year by moving to Texas or other neighboring states. Because so few licensed teachers are applying for jobs, Tulsa has relied on emergency certifications to hire more than 100 teachers who lack training in education.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur teachers in Oklahoma are going above and beyond every single day for an unacceptable and unsustainable salary that doesn\u2019t even provide them with a living wage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Carmen Vasquez and her son, Jorge, an eighth grader at Carver Middle School. Ms. Vasquez supports the teachers\u2019 plan for a strike, though she is worried that her husband, a school bus driver, will be out of work.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teachers in Oklahoma earn $45,000 a year on average, the third-lowest in the country; only those in Mississippi and South Dakota earn less, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. They are doing better, though, than many workers in Oklahoma, which has the third-lowest cost of living and where the average teacher salary is about equal to the median household income.<\/p>\n

But teachers, especially those in their 20s and 30s, say they live paycheck to paycheck, without the middle-class stability they expected when they chose teaching as a career, often taking on student debt along the way.<\/p>\n

Becky Atherton Dukes, an art teacher at Carnegie Elementary School in Tulsa, pays $400 per month for health insurance for herself and her daughter. She and her husband, a house painter, are expecting a second child, and their day care costs will exceed Ms. Dukes\u2019s pay. \u201cI love my job,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it would be nice to be able to afford a family vacation or have money for savings.\u201d<\/p>\n