Kentucky legislature boosts school funding after teachers’ strike
CHICAGO: Striking teachers in the US state of Kentucky on Friday won a major concession from lawmakers with a US$480 million tax bill that includes a boost for public school funding.
The teachers had earlier shuttered schools and descended on the capital Frankfort, the latest in a wave of protests that have swept Republican-governed states.
It began a day after tens of thousands of protesters in Oklahoma ended a two-week demonstration, declaring victory after the state legislature agreed to meet a little less than half of their demand for US$200 million in increased funding for schools over three years.
The groundswell is part of a political shift that has seen teachers organise grassroots campaigns to flex their political muscle in several states where years of budget cuts that began during the 2008 economic downturn left salaries stagnant and many public schools in disrepair.
In Arizona, the mere threat of a teacher walkout appeared to have changed that state’s Republican governor’s mind about teacher raises.
Governor Doug Ducey announced Thursday a plan to give teachers a 20-per cent pay boost.
The Kentucky Education Association (KEA), the teachers’ union which had previously organised a one-day march earlier this month, estimated that several thousand teachers were at the capital Frankfort on Friday.
“They filled up the whole plaza from the front door of the capitol,” KEA spokesman Charles Main told AFP.
“The slogan of the day, the thought of the day, the message to legislators is: fund our future.”
Kentucky’s legislature overrode governor Matt Bevin’s earlier veto of the twoyear spending plan. — AFP