Teachers out to make impact in midterm elections

WASHINGTON — When teachers in several U.S. states walked out of their classrooms this year to protest stagnant pay and school funding, they struck a chord with the public.

Now they’re battling to turn that sympathy into gains at the ballot box — and Democrats are hoping that a wave of teacher candidates will help them flip control of statehouses and governorships.

More than 1,400 current or former education workers are contesting state seats in Nov. 6 elections, according to the National Education Association, the largest U.S. union. More than 1,000 of them are Democrats — accounting for 19 percent of the party’s candidates in state elections.

“People are woke,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the NEA’s president. “You bet that’s going to make a difference.”

The wave of school unrest began in February in West Virginia, where a “wildcat” walkout eventually won a 5 percent raise for state employees. Similar stoppages followed in states from Arizona to North Carolina. More than three-quarters of parents with children in public schools said they would back local teachers if they joined the strike bandwagon, according to a national survey in May commissioned by education group PDK International.

The sentiment won’t swing races everywhere, with education just one of many election issues (though several state-level polls show it’s at, or near, the top of voter concerns). But it can make a difference in tight races — and help turn some contests that shouldn’t normally be close into nail-biters.

Deep-red Oklahoma is a good example. In the race to be governor, Republican businessman Kevin Stitt has a surprisingly narrow single-digit polling lead over his Democratic opponent Drew Edmondson, a former teacher and attorney general.

However, after Oklahoma’s teachers announced a strike date, it was the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature that approved its first tax increase in decades in order to fund schools. That measure has given Republican candidates a strong case to make to voters, in a state where “everybody agrees we need to do more for education,” said Chad Alexander, former GOP chairman in Oklahoma.