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Expanding cultures of solidarity in red state teachers unions

Various · Future Schools · ·17 min read
Commentary by Hex Index staff

This piece from Future Schools cuts through the noise of red-state education battles by reframing teachers not as victims of policy, but as a dormant power source waiting to be reactivated. It argues that the most effective resistance to authoritarian overreach isn't found in the boardroom, but in the "extra" meetings teachers hold after hours to de-isolate their frustrations. For busy professionals tracking the erosion of public institutions, this offers a crucial pivot: the fight for schools is actually a fight for the very definition of democratic solidarity.

The Anatomy of Fear

The article opens with a stark reality check: in states like Oklahoma, the education system is being weaponized to serve a specific political project. Future Schools reports that the state has seen a "post-pandemic onslaught of harmful policy changes," ranging from "critical race" censorship bills to "pathologization of LGBTQ+ teachers and students that have led to violence against queer and gender-creative students." This isn't just bureaucratic bloat; it is a coordinated effort to reshape the social fabric.

Expanding cultures of solidarity in red state teachers unions

The piece argues that the current rhetoric from state officials is not born of genuine concern for curriculum, but of a strategic calculation. When Oklahoma's State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, suggested that teachers' unions were to blame for the New Orleans truck attack, the piece notes, "They are afraid of teachers unions' power to impede, even halt, their plans to wield the education system as a tool in a project to upwardly redistribute wealth and political power into the hands of a few." This reframing is essential. It moves the conversation away from the personality of a specific official and toward the structural goal of dismantling collective bargaining to facilitate privatization.

Critics might argue that linking union activity to broader social violence is a dangerous rhetorical escalation that distracts from legitimate policy debates. However, the article counters this by pointing to the tangible results of that fear: union membership in Oklahoma has actually increased since Walters took office, suggesting that demonization is backfiring.

"The Right's demonization of teachers unions and passage of laws and surveillance policies that seek to target teachers for engaging in 'DEI' in the classroom aim to disenfranchise education workers from political activism – activism that is by and large popularly supported by Oklahoma residents."

Beyond the Service Model

The core of the argument rests on a diagnosis of why traditional union tactics are failing. Future Schools suggests that when unions act merely as "service providers" for legal and benefits issues, they become vulnerable to replacement by private entities. The piece warns that "If teachers unions are merely service providers, then the uber right Teachers Freedom Alliance private insurance program that Walters is pushing teachers toward would be an equivalent option."

This is a critical distinction. The article draws on the history of the 2018 "Red for Ed" walkouts to illustrate a different model. These strikes were not about contract negotiations; they were about targeting state legislatures. The piece notes, "Teacher strikes in red states did not revolve around contract negotiations, they targeted state legislatures." This historical context is vital, especially when considering the legacy of "Right-to-work" laws which were designed specifically to weaken this kind of broad-based political leverage.

The narrative highlights that the 2018 walkouts were often "carried often by strong locals, strong locally interconnected teacher networks, and rank-and-file, often ad hoc organizations that worked beyond yet in connection with the structures of the unions." This suggests that the most potent force in education reform isn't the national headquarters, but the local, organic networks of teachers who decide to act together.

"Studying together was intimately connected to teachers' participation in the 2018 walkouts. Yet, we found, in the years following the walkouts, teachers' oral history interviews for our project were often the first time since the action that they substantively reflected on their experience."

Reclaiming the Narrative of Power

The piece concludes with a call to action that is less about strategy and more about culture. It posits that teachers must "collectively study power (especially our own) as part of using it effectively." This involves moving beyond the limited scope of voting in elections, which the article notes is "severely limited, especially in red states, by gerrymandering, powerful political action committees."

Instead, the focus shifts to the "embodied, ethical-political practice of knowing, questioning, and acting together." The article shares powerful anecdotes, such as a teacher who transformed from a reluctant participant to a building representative after witnessing the closure of a school in North Tulsa. He stated, "I would walk out for my kids obviously, my students. I mean I would honestly walk out right now just because of what they did to us in North Tulsa and now what they're kind of doing to other schools."

This human element grounds the political analysis. It suggests that the path forward isn't a top-down directive, but a bottom-up awakening where teachers recognize their own density as a workforce. As the piece argues, "The answer to this question comes from education workers learning about who they are and who they want to be in relation to one another and the world."

"We can learn how to respond to this question from the oral history narrative experiences of Oklahoma educators who participated in the 2018 walkouts. These narratives teach us that we need to create spaces within our unions to empower each other to understand and use our power as education workers."

Bottom Line

Future Schools delivers a compelling case that the survival of public education in restrictive states depends on shifting from a service-union model to a solidarity-based movement rooted in collective study and direct action. While the argument relies heavily on the specific context of Oklahoma, its warning that "business unionism" is insufficient against a coordinated political assault on public institutions is universally applicable. The biggest vulnerability lies in the difficulty of sustaining such high-intensity solidarity without the institutional support that the article suggests is currently lacking, but the path it outlines is the only one that acknowledges the true scale of the challenge.

Deep Dives

Explore these related deep dives:

  • Right-to-work law

    The article opens by discussing how unions in 'right-to-work' states have been weakened through legal tactics. Understanding the history, mechanics, and political battles around right-to-work legislation provides essential context for why red state teacher organizing faces unique challenges.

  • National Education Association

    The article references the NEA-affiliated Oklahoma Education Association as a central player. The NEA's history as America's largest labor union, its evolution from professional organization to union, and its political influence provides crucial background for understanding the institutional dynamics discussed.

Sources

Expanding cultures of solidarity in red state teachers unions

by Various · Future Schools · Read full article

For those of us education workers in “red” or right-governed, “right-to-work” states where labor unions have been weakened through legal tactics, it feels as though our unions have limited power to respond to the post-pandemic onslaught of harmful policy changes. In my state of Oklahoma, every day is a new crisis in K12 education – from the 2023 passage of “critical race” censorship bill that has produced new teacher surveillance systems, parental choice tax credits that funnel public education dollars to private schools, pathologization of LGBTQ+ teachers and students that have led to violence against queer and gender-creative students, last minute authoritarian insertions of Christian nationalist, free market fundamentalist ideals into the state’s revised social studies standards, and the expansion of influence of edtech and AI in reshaping teachers’ work post-pandemic.

The state department of education’s bible mandate, requirement for current and prospective teachers to pass a U.S. naturalization as part of their certification requirements, and requirement for schools to collect citizenship information on students and families have been met with legal and legislative setbacks. The latter two requirements have been rejected by the legislature amid concerns the state department of education had overstepped its authority. While they are no longer an immediate threat, the efforts behind these will likely continue in other ways. The work to oppose these and other moves to wield public education as a tool of control and repression must grow and move beyond the limited successes of litigation and lobbying.

With limited resources, the state’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association-affiliated Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), and the much smaller American Federation of Teachers-Oklahoma1, have largely focused on legislative advocacy, even after education workers walked out of schools across our state and many red states in the spring of 2018 for increased education funding, liveable wages, and lower health insurance premiums. These statewide actions were a mutually constitutive part of a national, perhaps even a global2, resurgence in teachers’ direct action, which carried into early COVID-era struggles for safe and healthy schools, as Riley Collins importantly documents in the context of Arizona.

Teacher strikes in red states did not revolve around contract negotiations, they targeted state legislatures. Many red states cannot legally collectively bargain or only some locals are able to do so (e.g., Jefferson County Teachers Association in Kentucky). In Oklahoma and in other red states that struck in 2018, the walkouts were not ...