TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Teachers from at least four states, from Arizona to West Virginia, went on strike this spring.
Fifty years ago, in 1968, Florida teachers were the first to walk out, but it’s not likely to ever happen again in the Sunshine State.
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In 1966, Claude Kirk became the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction. He was elected on a promise to make Florida schools the best in the nation.
“Governor Kirk proposed to cut $150 million from the state budget for public education,” read an announcer in a 1968 report.
The proposed cuts came as growth was skyrocketing, crowding schools.
“There were classes in the hallway,” one former teacher said of the conditions back then.
Florida Education Association President JoAnn McCall said that in the spring of 1968 at least 30,000 teachers walked out.
“Teachers en masse, 30,000, signed their resignation letters and said, 'I quit. I’m not working here anymore. I’m out,'" McCall said.
The strike lasted three weeks.
“The teaching profession will never be the same again,” said the strike's leader, claiming victory.
In 1974, lawmakers gave teachers collective bargaining rights, a state pension -- and a prohibition against any future strikes.
“But the biggest kicker for everybody is that their retirement would be revoked,” McCall said.
Schools this coming year will see an average budget increase of just 47 cents per student in the fall.
This past week, an effort by a small number of lawmakers to get the entire Legislature back in town to deal with school funding failed.
So instead of striking, like other states, teachers in Florida are suing and taking their case to voters.
“Forty-seven cents is not enough to maintain or do anything in your schools,” McCall said.
And candidates who promise and don’t deliver, like Kirk in 1968, might remember that he was a one-term governor.
The teachers are also in court challenging school funding levels, legislation giving charters more tax dollars, and when a new education bill takes effect in July, they promise another suit to stop giveaways to for-profit schools.