Bill Angers WV Teachers - Clay

West Virginia teachers are on strike over a bill that primarily supports private/charter schools in a state that relies on mostly public education. The education bill raises pay for teachers and increases funding for public schools, but also permits the creation of charter schools in the state, which currently has none. The bill also funnels public money into a voucher system, called educational savings accounts, that could be used for private and online schooling. The new proposals are unacceptable to the state's teachers unions, which called for the strike to begin Tuesday. While superficially, it sounds like the bill is supporting teachers, ie the tidbit about it raising pay for teachers, the proposed raise (2 percent) hardly does enough to make up for the insurance premium increases and cuts in benefits, teachers said. Now, this is quite topical considering we just got through the era of unions and workers going on strike to recieve better working conditions/higher wages. The earliest teaching strike I could find was in 1936, when Chicago teachers led a protest in front of the board of education when they defaulted on their salaries.