I'm a teacher in trump country Northwest Iowa. Our district has 3 consistent subs. Teacher turnover is absurdly high. The entire English, science, and social studies teaching staff could potentially be gone next year.
The reddit teaching sub is regularly filled with complaints about: pay, hours, increased responsibility, lack of support, and rising class sizes. That's not even mentioning the lack of any COVID response from schools. My district has an "optional mask" policy. No one wears a mask.
How do we organize teachers to act now? If half the high school went on strike, we would not be able to open due to lack of subs. Yet whenever I even hint at something like that, it's met with pessimism and looking at other districts like the grass is greener.
My local union boasts about being buddies with admin. They secured like a 1% raise last year, not even close to inflation.
Is there anything to do? Or are teachers forced to suffer in increasingly terrible conditions until we burn out and quit or retire?
Republicans have had a decades long plan to try and destroy public school systems in favor of religious education.
The pain teachers are going through is part of that destruction.
Of course teachers should strike. But the republicans won’t stop until public schooling is destroyed.