Virginia teachers donned #RedForEd T-shirts this week as they demanded higher pay and more funding for public schools in protests at the state Capitol in Richmond.
“The rally is the latest Red for Ed action in a series of events ranging from the teacher walkouts in West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma, to the recently concluded L.A. teachers strike,” said the National Education Association (NEA) – the nation’s largest teachers’ union – in its media outlet, NEA Today.
Virginia Educators United (VEU) joined NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten on the front steps of the Capitol:
The #RedForEd movement launched in Arizona last year, where Marxist music teacher Noah Karvelis announced, “Teaching is political”:
https://twitter.com/Noah__Karvelis/status/935325080703209472
VEU is using the radical #RedForEd campaign, with Marxist underpinnings, to spark similar action.
Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam has offered a five percent teacher raise – rather than a planned three percent hike – which Republican leaders in the GOP-led House of Delegates said they support, according to the Associated Press.
Following a strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) under the #RedForEd banner, however, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) ultimately reached an agreement with the school district last week that included only minor concessions to the union:
Breitbart News reported:
The deal includes a 6 percent salary increase for teachers — the same amount the district had offered — as well as “meaningful class size reductions” without a specific cap, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner told reporters at a press conference with union leaders and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti at City Hall.
In keeping with #RedForEd, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl boasted the deal entailed “social justice” provisions that included protections for students against “racial profiling.”
“UTLA’s strategy to win was based on bargaining for the common good, which brings demands in collective bargaining that benefit the entire community, not just union members,” said NEA Today.
The union media outlet counts among UTLA’s wins “plans to increase green space and the end of ‘random searches,’ which send many students of color into the school-to-prison pipeline. Additionally, the school district will provide a dedicated hotline and attorney for immigrant families and will collaborate with UTLA for other services.”
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