FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Thousands of Kentucky teachers filled the streets near the state Capitol in Frankfort on a cold, overcast Monday to rally for education funding.
Teachers and other school employees gathered outside the Kentucky Education Association a couple of blocks from the Capitol chanting “Stop the war on public education” and holding or posting signs that say “We’ve Had Enough.”
“We’re madder than hornets, and the hornets are swarming today,” said Claudette Green, a retired teacher and principal.
The rally is happening after hundreds of teachers called in sick Friday to protest last-minute changes to their pension system.
Teacher unrest is not just limited to Kentucky. Educators in Oklahoma were gearing up Monday to march on their state capital as well. Earlier this year, teachers in West Virginia walked off the job for nine days to secure a 5 percent pay raise.
Teachers have rallied several times during this year’s legislative session to protest the pension bill, but Monday’s event is shaping up as their biggest event as many districts are on spring break.
Republican lawmakers passed a pension overhaul Thursday that preserves benefits for most workers and does little in the short-term to address the state’s massive debt. The move was done in response to one of the worst-funded public retirement systems in the country and in defiance of a powerful teachers union that vowed political retribution.
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has not yet signed the bill, but last week tweeted his support, saying public workers owe “a deep debt of gratitude” to lawmakers who voted to pass it.
During Monday’s rally, some teachers, angry at lawmakers who supported the bill, chanted “Vote them out.”
Melissa Wash, a first grade teacher form Gallatin County who has been teaching for 19 years, said she voted for Bevin, but now plans to become a Democrat. To the lawmakers who voted for the pension overhaul, she said: “You better not count on another year in office.”
Erica Sudduth, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Kenton County, said frustration has been building for years.
“What used to be the way my grandmother used to teach, things used to be different, things used to be a lot simpler. And for years they have been adding more and more and more on to teachers and we have been putting up with all of it. We have held our tongue this whole time and now it is just coming to a boiling point.”
GOP War On Teachers.
I dunno… Kentucky, Oklahoma and West Virginia, seem to be the one that pays worse to it’s teachers, but they also have the largest number of people that hate public education (when not education at all).
They don’t want public education, they abhor having to pay for it. Maybe they should do away with public education, after all those places can’t get more retrograde than they already are.
Please don’t tell me what I want. And you’ve clearly never been to Louisville or Lexington if you believe these cities are so retrograde. Instead of trashing all of us who live in these states, why don’t you try supporting and encouraging those of us standing up to these assaults?
I know. And I understand that local GOP politicians in Kentucky love “sticking it” to the “liberals” in Louisville. They certainly are outnumbered big time. I drove through KY last summer and one thing that I noticed is that churches seems to be competing on who has the largest cross.
Part of my frustration is that I do believe that public education, warts and all, is the most important institution for holding society together. Fundamentalist Christians have done their best to undermine it, and in the places where they are the most pious is where they spend the least in education. In OK entry level teachers get 31K, 41K after 10 years.
The damage has been done already, and it may be best if the state wide system of public education is abolished, and every community pays for it’s own. Contrary to what the wingnuts believe if Louisville or Lexington didn’t have to subsidize the rural parts of the state, they would have much better funded schools.
That’s very true. We get bled for our tax dollars to support communities that treat us as the great satan and do everything in their power to undermine every bit of good we do. It’s extremely frustrating, especially when those of us fighting the good fight get lumped in with rest of them.