February 19, 2019

Teachers in West Virginia Went on Strike Again—and Earned a Huge Victory Within Hours

“Don’t ever think that your voice does not matter.”

Teachers and school personnel celebrate after the House of Delegates postpone a vote on Senate Bill 451 indefinitely at the state Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia, during a statewide teachers' strike.Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail/AP

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On Monday night, West Virginia teachers’ unions called for a statewide strike. They decided to walk out to protest a sweeping education bill in the state Senate that would have both sent public money to pay for private school costs and established charter schools—a bill educators saw as retaliation for sparking a national movement in states like Arizona and Oklahoma nearly a year ago, when they walked out for nine days to demand higher pay. Superintendents from all but one of the state’s counties closed schools Tuesday. 

But following several hours of teachers picketing at the state Capitol on Tuesday morning, the state’s House of Delegates voted to table the bill “indefinitely,” effectively killing it and delivering a win to teachers. 

“Your voices have been heard, and your voices will continue to be heard,” said Fred Albert, president of West Virginia’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. “Don’t ever think that your voice does not matter, because this is proof that when you get active and you make your voice heard, it does make a difference.”

The situation in West Virginia quickly escalated after the Republican-led Senate tweaked a far-reaching omnibus House bill to include an education savings account program that would’ve allowed parents of students with disabilities or victims of bullying to get public money to pay for private school tuition and other costs. (It also created up to seven charter schools throughout the state.) A House version of the bill didn’t include the savings account program provision and would have put a limit on charter schools to two counties.

The pushback from teachers and school employee unions was swift. Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, told reporters Monday night that the state Senate’s actions made it seem like they were “more interested in listening to the outside interests than they are the educators across West Virginia.” 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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