USC Professor: Scale of participation in teacher protest “unprecedented”

Thousands of teachers are set to walk to the State House to make a push for education reform

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — In his ten years studying the history of teacher and student activism, USC Associate Professor Jon Hale says the number of teachers coming together to protest is unprecedented.

“ We’ve never had three to four thousand teachers walk out, so these numbers are new in state history, and in fact, it’s making history in South Carolina,” Hale said.

Hale says the largest demonstration among teachers were the South Carolina Education Association (SCEA) protests for public education reform in the 1970’s, but he says those featured a couple hundred teachers, and unlike tomorrow, did not lead to districts cancelling school.

“The last thing that teachers want to do. Teachers don’t want to have to walk out of their classroom, they don’t want to have to leave their students behind. They’re walking out for a better future, they’re walking out for a better system,” said Hale.

Some, like Governor Henry McMaster (R-SC) say taking a day off from school to make the demonstrations happen send the wrong message to students. 

“If we lose that great reputation for any reason, including a weakness in education, it is virtually impossible to get it back. We don’t want to lose it. We want to keep growing, keep getting stronger, and that means we have to have an educated population,” Gov. McMaster said.

For teachers, getting a chance to have their own slice of history while fighting for what they believe in makes it all worth it.

“It’s all about taking a look at these reform bills that are coming out that really aren’t going to help education and we’re looking at ways to say we want to come to the table, we want to help write legislation that is really going to impact the students that sit in our classroom everyday,” said Paige Steele, an Instructional Assistant for Lexington One in a previous interview.

South Carolina Superintendent Molly Spearman released a statement yesterday she would not join teachers during the protest. Instead, she will be a substitute teacher at a school in the Midlands.