Okla. teachers announce strike

WASHINGTON — The Oklahoma Education Association will shut down schools statewide starting April 2 unless the Legislature increases school funding, the union announced Thursday.

“Teachers and support professionals of Oklahoma are angry and frustrated with the Legislature for not doing its job,” the union’s president Alicia Priest said in an emailed statement. “We have tried several different paths to improve education funding, but none have worked.” Priest said Monday that teachers there have been emboldened by the example of West Virginia, where a nine-day teachers strike has secured a 5 percent raise for all state workers.

The union may also have been acknowledging threats by rank-and-file members to engage in a wildcat strike — also emulating West Virginia — if the leadership wasn’t sufficiently aggressive.

Teachers in Oklahoma are the nation’s lowest paid, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Also Thursday, hundreds of teachers in central Kentucky rallied in front of public schools to protest proposed cuts to their retirement benefits in what could be a precursor to a statewide strike.

Kentucky state senators on Wednesday took the first step toward passing a bill they say would save taxpayers $3.2 billion over the next 20 years and stabilize one of the country’s worst-funded public pension systems. But most of those savings would come from a 33 percent cut to the annual cost-of-living raises for retired teachers, who are not eligible for Social Security benefits.