Thousands of teachers rallied for education funding at the state Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., two weeks ago.
CreditAlex Slitz/Lexington Herald-Leader/AP
Matt Bevin, the conservative Republican governor of Kentucky, lost it a few days ago. Thousands of his state’s teachers had walked off their jobs, forcing many schools to close for a day, to protest his opposition to increased education funding. And Bevin lashed out with a bizarre accusation: “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”
He later apologized. But his hysterical outburst had deep roots: At the state and local levels, the conservative obsession with tax cuts has forced the G.O.P. into what amounts to a war on education, and in particular a war on schoolteachers. That war is the reason we’ve been seeing teacher strikes in multiple states. And people like Bevin are having a hard time coming to grips with the reality […]
I know what the teachers are facing and it is an outrage. My best friend’s wife was a teacher for 30 years and after all that time she got absolutely no retirement benefits at all. That, in itself, is a great injustice for someone who really cared about her job and got nothing for it. It is a shame that things in this country have gone so far to the right that we have become a poor country compared to other countries of similar wealth overall. “The right is wrong” as Arianna Huffington in her book of that same name.
Sorry I meant to say “as Arianna Huffington said in her book.