To the Point
Teachers are battling back
Teachers are mad as hell in several red states. They’re walking out over cuts in pay and reductions in classroom support. It’s a grass-roots rebellion from West Virginia to Kentucky and Arizona.
By Warren Olney • • 40m ListenAusterity measures and budget cuts are crippling the quality of public education. Salaries are so low that migrant workers are in charge of American classrooms. As walkouts are spreading across the country, a Teacher of the Year tells Warren the needle is finally moving in Arizona. He also gets an evaluation of Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Red for Ed supporters at a protest hosted by the Arizona Education Association at the Arizona State Capitol complex in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore.
Warren Olney
former KCRW broadcaster
Andrea Brody
Senior Producer, KCRW's Life Examined and To the Point podcast
Christine Marsh
High School english teacher at Cactus Shadows High School.
Lora Bartlett
Associate professor of education at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Michael Hansen
Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy.