Inspired by West Virginia, Teachers Spread Red for Ed Movement across Arizona

Labor Notes
By Rebecca Garelli
March 15, 2018

While Oklahoma teachers and school employees gear up for a possible statewide strike starting April 2, a teacher uprising is also brewing in Arizona.  Teacher pay in Arizona ranks last in the country by some measures.  Educators there, inspired by their counterparts in West Virginia, are rapidly organizing to change that.  Within the last 10 days, 30,000 Arizona teachers have flooded into their own Facebook group, Arizona Educators United, and begun a series of highly visible actions, sporting their "Red for Ed" T-shirts wherever they go.  Labor Notes interviewed Phoenix, Arizona, seventh-grade math and science teacher Rebecca Garelli, a leader in the group.

This all got started two Fridays ago, March 2.  I had become friends with Jay O'Neal from West Virginia, who helped start the teachers and public employees Facebook group there, and he let me into their group.  I'd been hanging out, just watched things, thinking, "Why is nobody in Arizona doing this?"  So my Chicago blood got boiling, and I said, "I'm just going to spark the fire, I'll be the catalyst."

Read the full article at the Labor Notes website here.