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Common Dreams reports
Colorado's teachers' union expects more than 400 teachers at a rally that's planned for Monday at the state's Capitol in Denver.
[...] Englewood School District, outside the capital city, announced on Sunday that schools would be closed the following day as 70 percent of its teachers had indicated they wouldn't be working Monday. It was unclear on Sunday whether more school districts would be closing.
"We are calling Monday, April 16th a day of action", Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association (CEA), told KDVR in Denver.
[...] According to[1] KMGH in Denver, "The CEA estimates that teachers spend on average $656 of their own money for school supplies for students." The state's teacher salaries rank 46th out of 50, with educators making an average of $46,000 per year.
Public schools are underfunded by $828 million this year, Dallman told the Post, and lawmakers have said they could inject at least $100 million more into schools--but they have yet to do so.
[...] The planned protest follows a trend that was seen in West Virginia and Kentucky before moving west this month to Oklahoma and Arizona as well as Colorado. In all the states where teachers have walked out and rallied at their Capitols, teachers have reported paying for school supplies out of pocket, working second and third jobs to make ends meet, and coping with funding shortages while their legislators hand out tax cuts to corporations.
[1] For a laugh (or perhaps a deep sigh), check out all the whitespace in the source code of the page.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @05:41PM
I'm the OP in this thread. (Forgot my login info, and my email address has changed...) I'm not trying to argue that teachers are paid sufficiently; that's obviously not true to anyone with a brain, and I mentioned this before with my comment about $46k not attracting the best and brightest. However, I wanted to shine light on the fact (IMO) that housing is too expensive these days. Paying teachers more isn't going to fix or make up for this: today's absurd housing costs are hurting everyone, especially everyone that's middle-middle class and below. Lots of studies and people bemoan the fact that Americans aren't saving enough money and don't have enough financial reserves to handle a job loss etc. Well, the problem here isn't always that they suck at managing money, it's frequently that housing is just too damn expensive, and all their money is going to rent, and at the same time, wages are stagnant for most industries, so it's getting more expensive to live, but most people aren't getting paid more to compensate. Addressing this would help much of the population, not just teachers.