According to an editorial in The New Yorker this week, Tuesday’s Oklahoma primary elections “show the lasting impression of the teacher walkout.”
The election, notes columnist Rivka Galchen, answered a couple of important questions. First, how well would the dozens and dozens of teacher candidates perform? And second, how would the incumbent Republican legislators who voted against the teachers’ pay raise fare?
Regarding the first question, the teacher candidates performed very well amid voter turnout that was double the numbers of 2014 primary and even higher than the Presidential primary of 2016. All told, more than 50 teacher candidates advanced to the November election.
And about that second question: “Republican legislators who opposed the pay raise were mostly either beaten or forced into runoffs.”