Mother Jones reports:
The results of last night’s elections are proof that education is a powerful issue in states where teachers are frustrated with the lack of compensation for their work and funding for their schools.
In Oklahoma, where educators staged a massive walkout this spring, voters ousted six Republican incumbents in the state House of Representatives—all of whom voted against a tax hike to fund increases in teacher pay.
Of the 19 Oklahoma House members who voted against the tax bill, only four will move on to the general election. In total, eight incumbents lost their primaries in June, and seven others decided not to run. The Tulsa World reports:
Such turnover is unprecedented for any recent decade, let alone year, and seemed to mark a dramatic shift in the Oklahoma Republican Party. Each of those defeated Tuesday had, in some manner, earned the wrath of public education supporters during last spring’s occupation of the state Capitol.
(click here to continue reading Educators Are Mad as Hell and They’re Teaching Republicans a Lesson – Mother Jones.)
Maybe if things get so horribly bad in deeply conservative places like Oklahoma, citizens will vote out the jerks and replace them with representatives who actually give a shit about education, and other similar issues. Maybe. I’m not sure we’re actually at that point yet, but perhaps.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos continues to do all that she possibly can to move the US even lower on the international rung of education metrics by hollowing out the Department of Education. Or worse.