Thou shalt not steal (from public education)...for now anyway

I look back with fondness on 2018, for lots of reasons. One of the biggest was the unexpected (by me anyway) wave of unrest by teachers and school service workers tired of being insulted and jerked around that resulted in a successful work stoppage that in turn set off a national--and mostly successful--wave of school strikes.

And they've paid for it ever since. The following year, the legislature rammed through laws enabling charter schools, a step mostly supported by enemies of public education and those out for payback, a Venn diagram with significant overlap. In 2021, it passed a so-called "paycheck protection" act, which was more like a paycheck reduction act, that prohibited the withholding of dues from public employee paychecks. In 2022, they shot the moon with a truly horrible False Hope Scholarship Act, that would basically allow parents to take thousands of dollars from public education funding to do whatever they want.

(It was so bad that I even heard Senator Joe Manchin talk about how crazy it was to pay people to take kids out of school at a recent event in McDowell County.)

The case went to court and fortunately today Judge Joanna Tabit overturned the law. The judge was quoted in WV MetroNews as saying 

“The Hope Scholarship Program in my view undermines the free education system by requiring the Department of Education to take funds appropriated by the Legislature and transferring them to the Hope Scholarship Fund, which is then tasked for dispersing funds for private education.

“And in my view, the Legislature has violated its constitutional level obligations regarding public education and funding by enacting House Bill 2013 for the Hope scholarship fund.”

Supporters of the bill plan to appeal the decision, including the state's attorney general, whose greatest recent achievement is blocking federal action on climate change. Nuff said on that.

Still, it's a win for public education today and I'm going to savor it for as long as it lasts. Good court decisions are rare these days.

 

Poll shows strong support for WV teachers

I don't know if WV legislators are paying attention (or if some of them listen to anything but out of state dark money), but a new poll shows solid support for public schools and teachers, up to and including another strike.

Sixty two percent support higher salaries for teachers. That includes 75 percent of self-described liberals, 60 percent of moderates and 57 percent of conservatives.

The most pleasant surprise for me was that 69 percent of those surveyed would support teachers if they went on another strike. And, despite the an aggressive anti-labor drive, teachers and school support workers unions enjoy the support of 55 percent.

This is no surprise, but the poll reveals little support for charter schools, with 40 percent opposing, 25 percent with no opinion, and only 35 percent supporting them.

It's nice to know that even in this toxic political climate, there's still support for workers, their organizations and their right to strike.

Unforced error or deliberate double cross?

The most infuriating thing about the 2019 special session of the WV legislature, which rammed through charter schools and other unwanted education policies, was that it only happened due to the random antics of WV Governor Jim Justice.

On several occasions over the last year, Justice voiced his opposition to charter schools and other nasty aspects of the ominous omnibus bills that were proposed. All he had to do to keep those things from happening was, literally,  nothing.

Had he done literally nothing, the proposals that were defeated in the regular session would go back to wherever bad ideas live until the 2020 regular session. Then there would be time for bills to work their way through the normal legislative process, with plenty of time for committee meetings, debate and amendments.  During an election year.

But noooooo.

Instead, he called for a special session on "education betterment." This allowed foes of public education to short circuit the process and ram bad ideas through. It's a terrible way to make public policy and a betray of the best principles of old-school conservatism, which are all about cautious approaches to change.

Anyone could have seen that coming.

It didn't have to be that way.

The next best thing to do is organize and educate to make sure that the people who made this happen own it. All of it.

Punishing success and the politics of revenge

If you want to know what revenge looks like, you don’t have to look much further than the latest version of the “ominous omnibus” education bill passed by the West Virginia Senate. It seems to me that they want to make an example of what can happen to working people when they dare to fight back — especially if they dare to win.

After all, the 2018 strike by teachers and service workers set off a wave of action by school workers across the country and beyond. Crushing the movement here would send another powerful message.

And maybe some people want to make sure kids in West Virginia grow up without ever seeing people stand together to effect positive change.

Along with some harmless provisions, like a raise for teachers and a boost for mental health, the Senate bill includes measures almost universally unpopular among (non-astroturf) West Virginia stakeholders — like charter schools, which are often run as private schools paid for with public money.

A separate bill rolls in the Trojan horse of education savings accounts, another push towards privatization. Both of those were opposed by 88 percent of people at numerous forums around the state.

On top of that, the bill explicitly states that public employees don’t have the right to strike, that striking could be grounds for termination, that days missed due to strikes will not be compensated and that county superintendents will not be allowed to close schools.

This is the third wave in series of attacks on workers and the organizations that represent them, each targeting a different group.

In the first wave, skilled workers in the building trades took a hit when the state’s prevailing wage law was repealed. The repeal promised taxpayer savings that, according to some reports, never materialized, while depressing wages, increasing injuries and reducing the number of people in apprenticeship programs.

In the second wave, other private-sector workers covered by collective bargaining agreements took their hit with the passage of the misnamed “right to work” law, which is more accurately “right to work for less.” This was challenged in court and is likely to go before the West Virginia Supreme Court soon.

That law undermines industrial democracy by requiring unions to represent all workers, including those who receive the benefits of union membership — typically better wages, benefits and working conditions— without paying dues.

Previously, union membership was determined by democratic elections: if most eligible workers voted in favor of union representation, all were covered. Likewise, if a majority wanted to decertify the union, they could vote on that as well. That’s the way elections work. If “right to work for less” is upheld in court, you can expect to see living standards for working families, union and non-union, decline even more.

Now public employees, particularly teachers and school support workers, are the target. They don’t have collective bargaining rights in West Virginia. If they did, they would have other means for resolving disputes beside work stoppages.

Teachers and support workers in West Virginia have only engaged in work stoppages as a last resort. It’s a rare measure, happening only three times in 156 years, and then only when they feel like they’ve been pushed to the wall. And it’s a sure thing that if they didn’t strike during the last two years, they would have been totally ignored.

As for the legal status of such work stoppages, there’s a saying that there are no illegal strikes, only unsuccessful ones. Since laws are generally made by those with wealth and power, actions that challenge their power are often illegal. Until they’re not. The case of Rosa Parks comes to mind, but examples could be multiplied. It’s always been that way.

My favorite response to the proposed legislation came from Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers union, an organization that from bitter experience knows a thing or two about union busting and how to fight it. His statement said in part, “Teachers and school support personnel already do not have the right to strike in West Virginia, but they ignored that and demonstrated the power of solidarity in each of the last two years. Their fight for better education for our kids remains an inspiration to education professionals across the nation, and the UMWA was proud to stand with them.

“Let me make this very clear: If our state’s education workers believe they need to take to the streets once again, we will be there with them. And if someone comes to arrest them, they will have to go through us first.”

If it does come to that, I’d like to think they’d have to go through some of the rest of us, as well.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston WV Gazette-Mail.)

Mine Workers pledge solidarity with teachers, school workers

In case you missed it, below is a statement from United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts about the WV senate majority's attack on teachers and school support workers (I italilcized my favorite part):

“Once again, the Republican leadership in the West Virginia State Senate have demonstrated that they are mere tools of the radical out-of-state billionaires who pull their puppet strings. No one who actually cares about West Virginia schools, children and families would ever propose such meaningless nonsense, let alone codify it in legislation.

“Teachers and school support personnel already do not have the right to strike in West Virginia, but they ignored that and demonstrated the power of solidarity in each of the last two years. Their fight for better education for our kids remains an inspiration to education professionals across the nation, and the UMWA was proud to stand with them.

“From the Baldwin-Felts thugs at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek to Sherriff Chafin at Blair Mountain to Don Blankenship at Massey Energy, the UMWA has a long history of standing up to union-busting bullies in West Virginia. Mitch Carmicheal and his minions in the Senate are no different, and we will never back down to their kind.

“Let me make this very clear: If our state’s education workers believe they need to take to the streets once again, we will be there with them. And if someone comes to arrest them, they will have to go through us first.”​

Thoughts on strikes

This could be a tweet. In fact it is, but I think it's worth thinking about these days, especially in West Virginia:

Apropos of nothing, I recently heard someone say "there's no such thing as an illegal strike, just an unsuccessful one." Same goes with other "illegal"events...like the American Revolution #55strong #55United #RedForEd

Another attack on public education

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce does a great job of representing the economic interests of its members. It can kill bills with a frown and win without even showing up. That’s been true with both Democratic and Republican majorities.

Of course, this is probably easier to do when one represents the power of organized money. However, those interests aren’t necessarily the same as those of ordinary West Virginians, especially working people, kids, families and those just trying to get by.

For example, the Chamber supported the repeal of a prevailing wage policy for building trade workers on state construction jobs, claiming it would save taxpayers money.

It didn’t.

In fact, a new report suggests that repealing prevailing wage lowered wages for local workers, reduced the number of apprenticeships that open the way to middle-class careers and gave more contracts to out-of- state contractors. On-the-job injuries have gone up by 26 percent since the repeal.

Since 2007, the Chamber supported major business tax cuts on the grounds they’d help create jobs. All told, various state tax cuts and credits favoring business groups or the wealthiest West Virginians have reduced state revenues by $478 million per year. That’s more than enough to lift all West Virginia families above the poverty line. Or to provide free in-state tuition to our colleges and universities. Or fix PEIA. Or deal with students’ mental health issues. Or whatever.

Here’s the kicker: we have fewer jobs now than we did in 2007. And West Virginians are earning less in constant dollars. But some folks did pretty well.

For reasons like that, I suspect the interests of the Chamber might not be identical with those of the 270,000 or so students in the state’s public schools.

The Chamber recently released its report on education reform in West Virginia, which not surprisingly highlights the shortcomings of the school system, supports charter schools (which can function as basically unaccountable private schools paid for with public money) and education savings accounts.

It’s a good strategy. Undermining support for and the legitimacy of public institutions has opened doors more than once to profiting at public expense and eventual privatization.

The report is mostly about money and standardized tests. The intent seems to be to demonstrate that schools are failing despite generous funding.

One thing the report doesn’t do is analyze is the effect of poverty and inequality on educational performance, despite the fact that one in four West Virginia children live in poverty and that we all live in a time of runaway inequality.

(If I was them, I’d probably try to avoid that subject too; it helps avoid certain unpleasant conversations and conclusions.)

The word poverty occurs as a blip four times in the report with no in-depth discussion.

But, as Helen Ladd demonstrated in an article on the connection between poverty and education in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, “Study after study has demonstrated that children from disadvantaged households perform less well in school on average than those from more advantaged households.”

We don’t have to look far to see how poverty can impact standardized measures of educational success. Sean O’Leary of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy recently pointed out the contrasts between George Washington and Riverside high schools in Kanawha County.

GW’s math, reading and science proficiency rates “are 30, 23, and 36 percentage points higher respectively, than Riverside High School’s scores. So what is the difference between the two schools? Only 20 percent of George Washington’s students are eligible for free/reduced lunches, compared to nearly 40 percent for Riverside. Riverside has nearly twice as many low-income students as George Washington. Two schools in the same district with the same policies, and same funding source, with vastly different educational outcomes.

Given all that, how do you expect students in the fourth poorest state in the nation to compare with more affluent states?

Much of the discussion in the Chamber report revolves around numbers from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), which is mentioned 24 times. NAEP data is sometimes referred to as “the nation’s report card.” But, as the Urban Institute argues, “comparing NAEP scores assumes that states serve the same students — and we know they don’t.”

The Urban Institute argues that a more accurate way to talk about NAEP performance is to “use adjusted NAEP scores that account for demographic differences across students in each state.” These adjusted scores allow for students to be compared with those in similar circumstances.

(A full list of those factors includes gender, race and ethnicity, eligibility for free or reduced lunch, English proficiency, special education, age, whether the student was given an accommodation on the NAEP exam, whether the student has various amenities in the home — computer, internet, own room, dishwasher and clothes dryer — the number of books in the home, the language spoken in the home, and the family structure.)

If you adjust for these factors that impact learning and compare our students with others in similar conditions, for example, West Virginia’s fourth-grade math scores rise from 37th to 11th.

Maybe something else is broken ...

There are powerful forces at work in West Virginia to hold public schools responsible for problems they didn’t create. But maybe, it might be more productive to address the real issues that are holding back West Virginia’s kids and communities — even if some people would rather avoid the issue.

A long time ago, Henry David Thoreau observed that “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

Maybe it’s time to change that.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Oh good...not

So now WV senate president Mitch Carmichael wants to push a massive overhaul of WV education policy through the chamber in one day. Golly, what could possibly go wrong?

The Gazette-Mail's statehouse reporter Phil Kabler had this to say in a tweet:

"That Senate leadership is pushing to pass new version of omnibus education bill in one day w/o the House in session seems to add credence to rumor they intend to pass the bill and then adjourn sine die, leaving the House to either concur or allow bill (w/ teacher pay) to die."

The House has a different plan, dividing into four committees to consider different bills.

To state the obvious, and to echo what many education workers have said, this kind of thing should not be rammed through in a special session, whether of one day or longer. Any school reform bills should go through the regular, deliberative process during the next regular session of the legislature.

Time to stop playing games with public education

The results are in.

The West Virginia Department of Education recently sought the input of students, teachers and other school workers, parents and caregivers and other stakeholders about how they wanted to improve education in the state. Over 20,000 people participated.

The goal was to provide information for legislators to consider before the coming special session on education.

The results of the input from public forums, an online survey, and comment cards were published in a 33-page summary titled “West Virginia’s Voice.”

The top priorities are pretty much what you’d expect — unless you’re paid to think otherwise.

Here are the greatest hits:

*There was overwhelming support for increased compensation for teachers and school workers, at a rate of 77 percent of survey respondents and 95 percent for comment cards from forum attendees.

*There’s strong support for public school reforms, such as innovation zones and more flexibility BUT that doesn’t translate into support for charter schools, which basically work like publicly funded private schools: 88 percent of forum respondents were opposed to charter schools, while only six percent supported them.

*If charter schools are unpopular, so are education savings accounts, which would give parents tax dollars for non-public education — by another majority of 88 percent.

*One issue that showed up in different ways in the report was mental health and emotional support for students. The idea of embedding social services in schools was supported by 75 percent of survey respondents and 93 percent of those who submitted comments.

High levels of support were also expressed for increasing the number of student support personnel (counselors, psychologists, and/or social workers).

Educators were also interested in training on how to deal with issues related to trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which is only to be expected given the state’s addiction crisis and persistent child poverty. Tellingly, many educators expressed the need for help addressing the secondary trauma they are experiencing.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which was created by congress in 2000, “Secondary traumatic stress is the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another. Each year more than 10 million children in the United States endure the trauma of abuse, violence, natural disasters, and other adverse events. For therapists, child welfare workers, case managers, and other helping professionals involved in the care of traumatized children and their families, the essential act of listening to trauma stories may take an emotional toll that compromises professional functioning and diminishes quality of life.”

I’m sure that would be the situation experienced pretty much daily by most public school teachers in West Virginia.

While we’re at it, despite the claims of astroturf groups funded by out of state billionaires that West Virginia’s schools are “broken,” 76 percent of public school parents agree or strongly agree that they are satisfied with their child’s school.

My suggestion is that those who want to fix broken things might do better to start with a 100-plus year old colonial economy that has sucked out wealth and resources and left behind poverty, despair, addiction, poor health, and environmental degradation. Or political priorities that have favored unproductive corporate tax cuts over investing adequately in children and families.

Those problems didn’t start in our public schools, although education workers seem to be magically expected to fix them all. It’s no wonder that many state teachers are feeling disrespected and demoralized.

I don’t always agree with conservative commentator Hoppy Kercheval, but I think he was right to say in a recent commentary that “The value we place on public education and teachers is not equal to the outcomes we expect.”

It’s time to stop playing games with public education and bring those values and expectations into alignment.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Getting priorities right for WV's young people

“This could be a really beautiful state, if we fix it.”

Those words were spoken by a young man at a juvenile day report center in Southern West Virginia. They sum up the results of over 100 interviews and surveys of young people conducted over the past year about mental health issues.

They say a lot about how things are now and how they could be.

It’s never easy to come of age — and living in West Virginia has always had its challenges. But today, many young West Virginians are facing a toxic brew of obstacles, from the addiction crisis to the explosive growth of foster care placement to a changing economy to new technology and social media. Then there are the old problems of persistent poverty and misplaced priorities.

Over the past year or so, my co-workers and I conducted a statewide listening project on young people and mental health issues as part of our work with the American Friends Service Committee. We were motivated, in part, by disappointment at the lack of action of our Legislature to address these issues over the past several years. Some of those who helped conduct interviews were themselves high school students concerned about these issues and frustrated by inaction.

It wasn’t a randomized scientific survey, but we did try to interview young people who varied in age, geographic location, race, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation. We also spoke with adults who worked with them. The most surprising finding was strong agreement on several key points:

*Young people here face serious and multiple stressors, and many are dealing with undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues and trauma. “There’s no point trying to talk to somebody who doesn’t understand.”

*Things have gotten worse. Stressors identified included addiction, economic hard times, family stability, poverty, overexposure to social media, bullying and various types of discrimination. “It makes you give up hope. You feel like there is nothing in the world that can change the way things are.”

*Many young people with undiagnosed mental health and trauma issues might wind up facing disciplinary proceedings, such as suspension, out-of-home placement or confinement, or they might wind up engaging in destructive decisions. “We need to figure out the root of the problem, instead of shipping them away. Is it drugs? Bullying? Abuse?”

* Existing systems are not prepared to deal with the situation. “I think more money should be spent on counseling for young people. More community involvement would also be good. Instead of people thinking, ‘oh poor thing,’ people should be thinking ‘what can I do to help this person?’”

*Something needs to be done. “We need more people who care.”

Strange to say, nobody asked for charter schools or education savings accounts or the privatization of public education.

It’s no surprise to me that those same themes showed up in the education forums conducted around the state by the West Virginia Department of Education, in which nearly 2,000 stakeholders participated.

Early in April, state schools Superintendent Steven Paine told WV MetroNews, “Overwhelmingly, there was almost unanimous support for social, emotional supports for students. In other words, recognizing that kids are coming from some very, very difficult backgrounds and some of those needs need to be met before we can address their academic needs. That’s probably the one that stood out the most to me.”

There are several policies the Legislature could enact that might help with this situation. Obviously, one step would be to increase the number of mental health professionals who work in schools. With that investment, it would be easier to assess and address issues before a student is suspended or sent to court.

A worthy long-term goal for our state would be to ensure that students in danger of entering the juvenile justice system are assessed and referred to community-based programs whenever possible and appropriate.

Another could be creating a task force to address juvenile mental health and trauma-related issues. West Virginia has already created strategic plans to address chronic diseases, such as asthma and diabetes. These help stakeholders tackle issues by assessing needed services, setting goals, and assigning responsibilities.

Such a task force could not only identify unmet needs but also highlight success stories and best practices that could be replicated elsewhere.

To state the obvious, we’re losing a lot of young people in the state, but many of those who remain have serious, unmet needs. When the Legislature goes back into special session, I hope they don’t use kids as a political football, but, instead, deal with the real problems.

This really could be a beautiful state, if we fix it.

(This ran as an op-ed in last week's Charleston Gazette-Mail)

What just happened with the 2019 WV education strike, anyway?

West Virginia teachers and school service workers just won another historic victory with their two-day walkout to kill Senate Bill 451, the "ominous omnibus" bill.

If I had to explain what has happened over the last few weeks to an intelligent person from somewhere else relying on memory alone, it would go something like this. Please jump in and correct me where I'm wrong. (Sneak preview: Putnam County bus drivers are heroes!):

1. WV education workers won an historic victory with their work stoppage last year and some people on the losing end (fill in the blanks) never forgave them for that.

2. This session, those same people ambushed the senate with radical ideas about education "deform," which included privatization, charter schools, educational savings accounts, punishments for union workers and such along with benign measures like a 5 percent raise and help with PEIA and retirement. The bad ideas were pushed by out of state big money groups like ALEC and others who want to take down public education.

3. Education workers and allies began to mobilize against this and to come up with alternative ideas.

4. Gov. Justice, to his credit, came  out against the senate bill, admitting it was partly motivated by revenge and pledging to veto it in its current form. Alas, the framers of WV's constitution apparently dozed off at some point and made it possible to override a governor's veto with a simple majority.

5.  The bill was rammed down the metaphorical throat of the senate education committee. And, when it looked like the bill wouldn't make it through the senate finance committee (thanks to the defection of two Republicans), leadership went around it to adopt a rarely used "committee of the whole" to get it through the senate. (Some of us thought of it as a "committee of the hole.")

5. Education workers voted to authorize a work stoppage if and when it seemed like the right thing to do to oppose 451.

6. SB 451 went to the house, which came up with an imperfect but significantly less evil version of the bill.

7. The senate refused to go with the house version and reloaded it with charters, educational savings accounts and other privatization measures.

8. At that point, education workers and their organizations called for a work stoppage which shut down schools in 54 of 55 counties, the outlier being Putnam.

9. Putnam bus drivers, service workers and many teachers heroically defied their bosses to hold the line, even though they may still face sanctions. All honor to them!

10. After one day of striking, the house refused to concur with the senate version, which seemed to kill the bad bill. There was much rejoicing, but nobody trusted the senate, so the strike continued for another day.

11. By day two of the strike, the deadline for reviving 451 passed. On the evening of day two, a return to work was declared by AFT, WVEA and WVSSPA.

12. All of which is to say, this was a truly historic victory! Of course, we can still expect dirty tricks and bad bills in the remaining days of the session. And we as in education workers and families and their allies need to get in front of this and come up with a real plan to improve education with all WV students...in a way that freezes out privatization, charter schools, vouchers, and educational saving accounts and such.

13. But let's face it, y'all. WV just won another historic and inspiring victory for the labor movement and for kids and for working people. Last year's victory continues to inspire teachers and other workers (keep an eye on Oakland CA for the latest example). May this year's victory inspire more of the same.

The die is cast-roll em!

"Alea iacta est!" or, in English, "the die is cast" as in the dice have been rolled. So said Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon on his way to a date with history. It looks like West Virginia has another date with labor history and the dice have been rolled..

As WV senate Republicans seem determined to ram down an agenda of privatization, charter schools, and "education savings vouchers" down the throat of an unwilling state, WV teachers and school support workers have called a strike starting tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb. 19).  At this writing several counties have already closed schools. More are no doubt to come.

Nobody wanted this fight (aside from out of state AstroTurf groups funded by oligarchs) but all that matters now is solidarity.

Game the **** on-solidarity forever!

Eye on the Ominous Omnibus education "reform" bill

I've been a bit under the weather lately so am behind on blogging the ups and downs of the Ominous Omnibus education "reform" bill in the WV legislature. Here's where I think we are:

SB 451, aka SB 666, passed the Senate 18-16 Feb. 4, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against. It contained an infinity of charter schools, thousands of "education savings accounts" (ESAs) to siphon money away from public schools, anti-union "paycheck protection" measures, penalties for work stoppages and such. And a 5% raise for state workers. It was clearly an effort to punish teachers and school service workers for winning last year.

In the House education committee, amendments were made that took out some of the worst features, including paycheck, penalties, and ESAs. It limited charter schools to two.

Yesterday there were two public hearings at which teachers and parents vastly outnumbered  the out of state and astroturf bill supporters. I love it that one of the speakers against the bill compared charter schools to bedbugs. Bring two of them home and see how it goes...

THEN, the house finance committee apparently thought it was the REAL education committee and began putting more bad stuff back in the bill. THEN that failed and the earler, somewhat less bad, bill was sent to the floor, where it is now.

My friend and twitter critter Sean O'Leary of the WV Center on Budget and Policy dropped these gems during the process:

"Marathon public hearings, all night committee meetings, all for a bill that nobody but lobbyists want. Meanwhile, PEIA stuck with a band-aid of a one-year fix, with no permanent solution in sight."

and

"Lobbyists for charter schools and ESA's get called up to present to House Finance committee, while teachers and parents opposed get shuffled though a public hearing 70 seconds at a time."

It's still not clear what teachers and school service workers are going to do. I guess it depends on what goes down on the House floor...but we could be looking at an epic rematch. A rally in support of public education is planned for tomorrow at 6:30 on the riverside steps of the capitol.

And just to be clear, many teachers and school service workers are willing to give up a pay raise in order to kill a bill that threatens public education in this state.

SB 451 is the third wave of the war on workers

Senate Bill 451 is the third wave of major attacks on working people in West Virginia. Each wave targeted a particular group of workers by weakening unions, the organizations that protect their interests. And many people may not realize that unions that help set work standards and advocate for policies that benefit all workers, not just their own members.

Here are the basics: there are three main types of unions: industrial, craft unions (often building trades) and public sector unions--and each in turn has been targeted. Here's how:

Industrial unions. When Republicans (just a fact) gained control of the WV legislature in the wake of the 2014 elections, they moved quickly to undermine industrial unions through so-called "right to work" (RTW) legislation, which is really right to work for less.

RTW undermines the democratic process. In a free labor state, workers vote whether or not to join a union. If the majority votes yeas, all are members and are covered in the contract the union negotiates. If the majority decides they no longer want to be union members, they can have another election to de-certify the union.

With RTW, workers can continue receive the benefits of union membership--wages, benefits, hours, conditions--without paying dues, even though the union is obligated to represent them in grievances. The end result is weaker unions, which ultimately leads to worse conditions for all workers, union or non-union.

Craft unions. For many decades, construction workers were protected by a prevailing wage laws, which was designed to ensure that workers on public construction sites were paid decent wages. This was designed to protect the public against fly by night contractors that use cheap and often unskilled labor and to protect local skilled workers. Building trade unions generally offer apprenticeship programs that guarantee a trained and skilled workforce. Non-union contractors are under no such obligation.

In 2016, the Republican-led legislature (again, just a fact) repealed West Virginia's prevailing wage laws.

That leaves...

Public employee unions. Probably the largest group of public sector workers protected by unions or workers' associations are those in the education field, including teachers and school service personnel. In some places, public sector workers have collective bargaining rights. In WV, they don't as of know, but still advocate for members and represent them in the workplace.

Senate Bill 451 goes after them by the so-called "paycheck protection" provision, which is more like "paycheck reduction. It makes it more difficult for workers to pay dues to the organizations that represent their interests. It also adds a penalty for work stoppages.

The biggest threat, however, is that of undermining public education altogether via charter schools, education savings accounts, and privatization. Teachers in charter schools aren't required under 451 to be covered by PEIA or the teachers' retirement system. Private entities can set their own payment and standards.

Conclusion: at least they're consistent. And working people need to be just as consistent, by showing solidarity with all workers, regardless of industry or type of union or any of the many ways rulers have tried to divide us. And, let's face it, it's high time to recognize the pattern.

The Ominous Omnibus

Christmas tree” is a slang term for a piece of legislation that tries to do too much, as in you hang all kinds of things on it. A perfect example of this is the West Virginia Senate’s mammoth omnibus education bill.

Some people I know have already taken to calling it the “ominous bill,” which may be a better fit.

I wish I thought of that.

The proposed legislation could and should be broken up into any number of separate bills, each to be debated on its merits, which in some cases are nonexistent.

To be fair, some provisions are good, such as raising pay for teachers and school support workers and allowing retirees to convert unused sick days into PEIA coverage.

Other provisions, however, would clearly damage public education and move the state further down the road to privatization. These include charter schools, education savings accounts and other means for draining resources from public schools.

Incredibly, the bill actually raises the student/teacher ratio for elementary classes.

Still other provisions seem designed to punish teachers and school workers for their historic victory through a strike last year which improved conditions for thousands of West Virginia families, inspired similar successful efforts in other states and revitalized the movement of working people. These include provisions that make it more difficult for workers to pay dues to the organizations that represent their interests and punish work stoppages even if superintendents cancel schools.

This is what revenge looks like. It’s also a not-too-subtle warning to the peasants on the dangers of revolt.

West Virginia’s children and families deserve better. All of them.

For starters, we need adequate funding for education that includes infrastructure, personnel, equipment, textbooks and materials, including pay raises for teachers and support workers and sustainable funding for PEIA. We don’t need another round of corporate tax cuts that would make it harder for state and local governments to support schools.

When it comes to school reform, we need to say yes to innovation but no to privatization. Obviously, we need new and better ways to deal with trauma, promote STEM learning and encourage entrepreneurship. However, these steps can be taken through existing mechanisms such as community schools and innovation zones.

Gov. Jim Justice hit the nail on the head when he said, “I just believe that today as we strive to provide a better education for everyone, we don’t really need to cherry pick the privileged until we get our public education system in a really good way.”

We need to lower student/teacher ratios, not increase them."

We need a major effort to address mental health issues for students. These are tough times to come of age in West Virginia. We need mandated ratios of mental health professionals and nurses in schools. We also need a statewide task force to identify needs, gaps, best practices and come up with a plan to address the needs. This isn’t a luxury; it’s a matter of basic safety.

Another positive step would be to strengthen Local School Involvement Councils (LSICs), including the creation of a statewide LSIC advisory committee and the representation of students, mental health professionals and disadvantaged parents on local LSICs. We also need a virtual schools advisory council consisting of teachers, facilitators, administrators, parents and students to promote best practices in online education.

To really seal the deal for a better future, we should support an expansion of after school programs, including a transportation component; enhanced early childhood and in-home family education; and expanding debt-free post-secondary education.

Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

The real “school choice” facing West Virginia is one between progress and promise or privatization and punishment.

As the old Appalachian mining song goes, “Which side are you on?”

Get ready to defend public education. Again.

Republican leaders in the WV legislature unveiled their legislative priorities for the coming session. Some of these are welcome, such as raising pay for teachers and other public employees, making community college and vocation training more broadly available and improving the Second Chance for  Employment Act.

Others, mostly having to do with public education, fall into the "not so much" category. Included in that are another round of business tax cuts to the tune of $140 million; charter schools, which drain resources from public schools; and "school choice," another word for privatization.

If you want to gear up for the next round, check out this Washington Post story on the drive to privatize education in the US. And  here are some great talking points to use in the weeks ahead.

Here we go again...

The best gift of 2018

As 2018 winds to a close, I'm thankful for a lesson it taught me: that unexpected good fortune can come when things seem pretty dark. I'm thinking particularly of the great and victorious WV 2018 Teachers' Strike (technically the teachers' and school support workers' work stoppage, but let's not be  picky).

That historic struggle inspired other successful strikes in several states and gave hope to those who believe in the labor movement and public education. And it just resulted in another victory of sorts, a year of coverage under the Public Employees Insurance Agency without benefit cuts or premium increases. This wasn't a perfect or even a long term solution but it was a clear win.

Charleston Gazette-Mail statehouse reporter Phil Kabler, who has been doing his kind of work for about as long as I've been doing mine, summed it up beautifully:

...What was most remarkable was that this was a grassroots effort. It wasn’t, as critics unsuccessfully tried to portray it, as labor bosses directing their minions. It was teachers fed up with low pay and benefits and a general sense of being unappreciated banding together to let leaders in Charleston know they weren’t going to take it anymore.

Also remarkable was the spirit. Despite the seriousness of the issues at hand, the rallies at the Capitol were joyous affairs, with singing, chanting, dancing, and featuring colorful (and clever) signs. This was a celebration....

Wearing red, teachers in 2018 paid homage to the state’s proud labor heritage, and when the governor and legislative leadership tried to use the strategy of divide and conquer, trying to pit school boards against teachers, then parents against teachers, and then state employees against teachers, the teachers stood united.

Early on, when leadership contended that students would suffer, particularly those needy students who depend on school lunches, teachers and others did the noble thing, rising before dawn each day to pack lunches for their students before heading to Charleston, not only putting their students first, but assuming the moral high ground in the fight.

Most importantly, West Virginia teachers started a movement that spread, so far, to Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, showing that while organized labor may be a shadow of its former self, the ability of working people to fight for their rights may not be lost.

I can still see plenty of hard fights on the horizon in the coming year--including further assaults on public education in the legislature--but these will take place on a completely different landscape.

So thanks, teachers and school workers, for many things, including reminding me that we live in an open universe in which all kinds of wild and unexpected things can occur, some of which may be better than anyone could have expected.

But what did they eat?

Folks who weren't aware of or involved in the great WV teachers strike of 2018 probably aren't aware of the huge role food played in it.

(Of course, one might point out that given the huge role food plays in keeping living things alive this shouldn't be a huge surprise...)

During the strike, enemies of the teachers spread the lie that teachers were "striking against feeding the kids," since many WV children rely on school food for a big chunk of their daily nutrition.

Obviously, such people didn't know, or pretended not to know, that teachers routinely feed kids and do all kinds of other things to help them survive. Or that teachers and community members went to great lengths during the struggle to prepare meals for kids while schools were closed.

The other side of the food story was the solidarity shown by others from all over in sending tacos, pizza and such to teachers and school service workers while they were raising hell in the capitol. I'm sure similar things happened at local picket lines.

It's hard to think of a more basic way than food to show solidarity.

Anyhow, from Bon Appetit,, here's an account by Berkeley teacher Jessica Salfia on food and the good fight.

Room for (real) populism in West Virginia

Say what you want about the political attitudes of West Virginians. Everyone else has, including me. But things are complicated here.

Earlier this week, WV MetroNews and the Dominion Post released a poll about the attitudes of West Virginians towards big business. It might surprise some people. Among the findings:

*58 percent of respondents believed that government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public. Guess that means we haven't forgotten all the for-profit disasters that have killed or maimed so many state residents over the years;

*88 percent believed that too much power was concentrated in the hands of a few corporations;

*72 percent believed that corporations were making too much in profit.

All of these numbers are up significantly from a similar 2014 poll. The poll surveyed 404 West Virginians from all counties and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

The upshot seems to me to be that people here are open to a real populist message and agenda if there's a willingness to put one forward.

If we don't, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Why we can't have nice things...and how to change that

Philip of Macedon.

People in positions of wealth and power have known the secret of keeping it since ancient times: divide and rule. That statement has been attributed to Phillip of Macedon (382-336 BC), father of Alexander the Great, as well as Julius Caesar (100-44 BC), but the idea was probably already old in their day.

The saddest thing, however, isn't that the rulers do it to us. It's that we do it to ourselves.

Let's look at some real and recent examples in the wake of West Virginia's historic and successful teachers' strike:

*some advocates for the poor were perplexed at the show of support for "middle class" teachers and the apparent lack of concern for those who were worse off.

*some education workers I know have said disparaging things about low-income people who rely on SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid expansion, apparently not realizing that the same people who target poor people also target public education.

*some people who buy health coverage on the exchange at high prices or who have other poor and expensive insurance may look askance at people on PEIA, asking why tax dollars should be spent on health care for public workers.

And so it goes. Like crabs in a bucket, we pull each other down.

If you want to think of how this plays out on a grand scale over history, think about how people have been divided over race, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, etc. And who wins when this happens.

This is why we can't have nice things. So far. As Cassius said in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,

 “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Getting past that will require developing a culture of solidarity rather than division. It won't be easy, but I don't think there's any other way forward.

Once again, a bright spot can be found in the nationwide teachers' uprising that began right here in WV. When teachers flooded North Carolina's capitol in protest, their demands didn't just include raises for teachers and more funding for education. They also called for expanding Medicaid for low income North Carolinians.

Todd Warren, president of the Guilford County Association of Educators, was quoted in VICE News as saying, “We think that that's not only the correct and the moral thing to do, but as educators, our students' well-being and their literal health comes first.”

That's an example of the kinds of bridging that needs to happen if we're going to get out of the mess we're in.