Category: The Farrell Report

Teachers in Red Republican states - West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona - have stepped up their protests and strikes in their struggle to salvage public education and save themselves. Among the lowest paid in the nation, these teachers and their allies are taking a hard line against the Republican legislators that many of them helped to elect as they have been pushed against a financial wall.

After having their salaries flattened, their benefits and pension contributions dramatically increased during the past decade, and states under-funding their contributions to teachers’ pensions, teachers and educational support personnel are beginning to recognize that their future employment and professions are in jeopardy.

The ripping up of the public sector is taking hold even as Trump distracts us with his attempts to cover up any discovery of his alleged collusion with Russia in order to win the 2016 Presidential election. As we are preoccupied with his sexual peccadillos, he and his administration are collaborating with the corporate Cartel of education reformers and its most prominent advocate, Eli Broad,

It is instructive that Secretary DeVos, one of the nation’s most aggressive opponents against public education, teachers, and unions, was in attendance at the SCOTUS Janus hearing rooting for Janus. Therefore, it is even more imperative that teachers organize for their survival.

Despite growing public concerns about Russian meddling, the real threats are hidden in plain sight—purging of voter rolls, the relocation and downsizing of voting precincts, gerrymandering of state legislative and Congressional political districts, and the under utilization of key constituencies of the Democratic base.

Teachers and women make up the majority of the electorate at every level of government. Although, a majority of white women went for Trump in 2016, he has steadily lost their support in the aftermath of #MeToo and the nineteen women who have accused him of sexual harassment and assault.

Rapists, Abusers, Sexual Assaulters and Harassers (RASAH) have played central roles in the Trump administration. RASAH is a tight knit group of White House staff, outside advisers and sounding boards, and other white males, bound by abusive acts against women and girls.

It is time for a new Democratic mindset. The situation does not demand that they come up with something new but that they follow the strategies employed by Democrats who won uphill electoral battles over Republicans in Alabama, Missouri, New York, and Wisconsin in a state (Alabama) and districts that Trump won by seventeen points or more in 2016.

there has been a re-acknowledgement of the importance of teachers as reflected in recent gubernatorial, state legislative, and U.S. Senate races. The 2017 races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia relied heavily on teachers for the Democrats’ solid wins.