EduClips: Teachers Stage Walkouts in OK, KY; Top Candidates Emerge for LA Chief Job — and More Must-Reads From America’s 15 Biggest School Districts

EduClips is a roundup of the day’s top education headlines from America’s largest school districts, where more than 4 million students across eight states attend class every day. Read previous EduClips installments here. Get the day’s top school and policy news delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for the TopSheet Education Newsletter.

Top Story

TEACHER WALKOUTS — Thousands of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job Monday morning, shutting down school districts as they protested cuts in pay, benefits and school funding in a movement that has spread rapidly since igniting in West Virginia this year.

The walkouts and rallies in Republican-dominated states, mainly organized by ordinary teachers on Facebook, have caught lawmakers and sometimes the teachers’ own labor unions flat-footed. And they are occurring in states and districts with important midterm races in November, suggesting that thousands of teachers, with their pent-up rage over years of pay freezes and budget cuts, are set to become a powerful political force this fall.

The next red state to join the protest movement could be Arizona, where there is an open Senate seat and where thousands of teachers gathered in Phoenix last week to demand a 20 percent pay raise and more funding for schools. (Read at The New York Times)

National News

SCHOOL SAFETY — School Sensor Can Alert Authorities, Lock Doors When Gunfire Is Heard (Read at NPR)

TITLE I — Digging Deeper Into That $300 Million Increase in Federal Aid for Poor Students (Read at Politics K-12)

District and State News

CALIFORNIA — Essential Education: Searching for L.A. Unified’s newest leader (Read at Los Angeles Times)

NEW YORK — Five first days of school: How Richard Carranza’s start as chancellor compares to his predecessors’ (Read at Chalkbeat)

PUERTO RICO — After Hurricane Maria, struggling schools are a haven for students (Read at USA Today)

NEW YORK — This small nudge can help students avoid high schools with low graduation rates, according to a new study (Read at Chalkbeat)

ILLINOIS — Former CPS CEO Paul Vallas Officially Files to Run for Mayor (Read at NBC Chicago)

TEXAS — Opinion: Should Texas teachers walk out, too? (Read at Dallas News)

CALIFORNIA — Antonucci: Here’s the status of teacher contracts in California’s 8 largest school districts (Read at LA School Report)

Think Pieces

FOR-PROFIT EDUCATION — A Huge For-Profit Charter Network Uses the Same Approaches as High-Performing Nonprofits. The Results Are Impressive (Read at The74Million.org)

TEACHER PAY — Pay Teachers What They’re Worth (Read at Bloomberg)

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE — Eden: Teachers Nationwide Say Obama’s Discipline ‘Reform’ Put Them in Danger. So Why Are the Unions Fighting DeVos on Repeal? (Read at The74Million.org)

CHILD DEVELOPMENT — OPINION: Here’s an intervention to keep our youngest learners from falling behind (Read at Hechinger Report)

EDUCATION TRENDS — ‘Starbucks classrooms,’ plus six other new approaches in education (Read at Washington Post)

Quote of the Day

“Teachers for a long time have had a martyr mentality. This is new.” — Noah Karvelis, an elementary school music teacher in Tolleson, Ariz., outside Phoenix, and leader of the movement calling itself #RedforEd, after the red T-shirts protesting teachers are wearing across the country. (Read at The New York Times)

Want the day’s top school and policy news delivered straight to your inbox — for free? Sign up for the TopSheet Daybreak Education Newsletter.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter