He was announc­ing the sec­ond statewide edu­ca­tion strike in West Vir­ginia in a year, along­side the lead­ers of the state’s two teacher unions.

“Don’t start those bus­es tomor­row,” said Joe White, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the West Vir­ginia School Ser­vice Per­son­nel Association.

The next morn­ing, Feb­ru­ary 19, bus­es through­out the state sat idle in garages.

And by the mid­dle of the day, strik­ers declared vic­to­ry with the defeat of an anti-union, pro-pri­va­ti­za­tion edu­ca­tion bill in the state House.

West Vir­ginia teach­ers embold­ened edu­ca­tors across the coun­try last year when they struck to defend their health insur­ance and win rais­es. But when the leg­is­la­ture returned this Jan­u­ary, hos­tile leg­is­la­tors brought for­ward an omnibus edu­ca­tion bill.

It would have opened the state’s first char­ter schools, attacked teacher senior­i­ty, and cre­at­ed edu­ca­tion sav­ings accounts (ESAs) and school vouch­ers to divert pub­lic funds to pri­vate schools.

Although the bill also includ­ed pay rais­es, funds for ris­ing health insur­ance costs, and more mon­ey for pub­lic edu­ca­tion, edu­ca­tors weren’t fooled. They could see it was designed to suck funds from pub­lic schools and open the door to privatizers.

A learn­ing process

After last year’s strike, mem­bers of both teacher unions formed the WV Unit­ed Cau­cus to strength­en the con­nec­tions they had built dur­ing the walkout.

Mean­while union lead­ers were call­ing on vot­ers to ​“remem­ber in Novem­ber,” but they failed to oust the Repub­li­can major­i­ty in either house of the legislature.

When word came down about the leg­is­la­tion, the cau­cus began a cam­paign to edu­cate teach­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty about how char­ters and ESAs move pub­lic mon­ey into pri­vate hands and under­mine pub­lic education.

Since West Vir­ginia doesn’t have char­ter schools, cau­cus mem­bers asked edu­ca­tors else­where about the effects of char­ters and ESAs. ​“Just like peo­ple learned from West Vir­ginia, we learned from oth­er states,” said Ter­ri Eng­noth, an Eng­lish teacher in Mer­cer County.

The cau­cus designed pam­phlets, held meet­ings in schools, leaflet­ed the com­mu­ni­ty, and held a webi­nar about the bill’s cor­po­rate backer, the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Council.

Mean­while the state Sen­ate, led by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mitch Carmichael, was press­ing the 130-page leg­is­la­tion for a speedy approval.

Statewide elect­ed union lead­ers encour­aged mem­bers to con­tact leg­is­la­tors. Mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port­ers flocked to a hear­ing, where the voic­es against the bill far out­num­bered those speak­ing for it — 4 to 1 by some estimates.