Hello, and welcome back to another installment of the Education Station. This week, I will continue to focus on issues plaguing the public school system in the United States. All round the country, teacher unions have banded together and striked for higher wages, increased benefits, and modified work hours. Many people believe that teachers must be well-compensated for the vital role that they play in educating the future of the country, yet some taxpayers oppose the teachers’ methods of campaigning for benefits as the strikes drastically harm students, communities, and the economy.
Teacher strikes are becoming increasingly common in today’s educational fields. This year in West Virginia specifically, there was a statewide teacher strike in which teachers protested a bill designed to allocate state funding towards private and charter schools instead of public school districts. West Virginia relies heavily on their public school system, so many teachers saw this as a direct attack on a constant component of West Virginia education. As funding to public schools continues to decrease across the nation, districts are commonly forced to cut programs and eliminate classes, ultimately leading to the firing of teachers.
Supporters of the striking teachers believe that funding to public schools must be increased because teachers deserve to be well-payed for the crucial task of educating America’s children, the future of the nation. Teachers may have a profound impact on the lives of their students, and supporters of teacher strikes want teachers to have steady finances so they can focus on what really matters: teaching the children. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 in 5 teachers need to work a second job in order to support themselves. Stressed, overworked teachers may not be able to perform their job to their maximum potential, so advocates for increased public school funding want teachers to receive health benefits, increased wages, and vacation days in order to ensure quality teacher performance.
In contrast to the supporters of these strikes, opponents of the teacher strikes believe that the teachers’ actions are counterproductive to ensuring a better education for students. When teachers go on strike and completely stop working, some people believe the students are left to suffer as they do not receive educational instruction. Even if the teachers are attempting to better the district by advocating for secure, well-paying jobs that enable productive teaching, the issues associated with strikes are difficult to ignore.
In North Carolina, 59.8% of students qualified for the free lunch program during the 2016-2017 school year. During strikes, there is no guarantee that schools will have the funds or the staff to open cafeterias for these students in need. Opponents of teacher strikes believe that teachers are therefore putting their own needs before the students, proving that they are not deserving of increased salary and benefits. Strikes can also bring profound difficulties for households with two working parents. Working parents are forced to either stay home or hire daycare for their children during strikes. These parents are paying property taxes to support their local public school, yet their children are not receiving any type of formal education.
Opponents of teacher strikes also believe that teachers are not doing a sufficient job of educating students to warrant proposed salary increases. According to the Pew Research Center, United States students placed 38th out of 71 countries in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment. If teachers want to be paid better wages, opponents of their strikes believe that they should simply do better in instructing American students. These people believe that mandated exams offer insight into the effectiveness of teachers, and the results from the exams should determine the teachers’ salary, not striking.
I have personally experienced two separate teacher strikes at my school district, one strike in third grade and another during my senior year in high school. During senior year, the strike had major implications for many graduating seniors who were applying to colleges. The deadlines for many schools’ applications occurred during the window slated for the strike, so seniors were forced to rush through their applications to submit them before the strike began. While I did not have any personal issues with filing my applications, many of my peers voiced their concerns with the overworked guidance department. The counsellors were flooded with more applications than they could handle, and there was a lot of confusion surrounding the application process, causing stress and unanswered questions that weighed on student morale.
On the other hand, I have also experienced how budged cuts can cause schools to eliminate programs. The French program at my school was eliminated due to declining enrollment and decreased funding, thus denying students the opportunity to explore a foreign language and culture. Art programs are often the first to be cut, thus denying artistic students of their favorite courses.
Strikes are commonly unproductive and are capable of inadvertently harming students in the pursuit of increased benefits for teachers, but the root of the problem comes from decreased funding of the public school system. As I stated earlier, the West Virginia strike manifested due to the funding of charter schools instead of public schools. We cannot continue to allow the US education system to deteriorate by fluctuating between public and private school funding: a decision must be made before the lack of funding puts teachers out of work and strikes hurt students’ lives.
The conversation between public and private schools will be continued in the next blog. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for next week’s edition of the Education Station!