Meanwhile Wisconsin

seems to have gotten it's 1848 on.

Humble Elias is completely with the teachers on this one. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (a tea partei lackey from all accounts) is trying to outlaw collective bargaining by the public sector unions, except of course, the police (well someone has to lock up all those demonstrators!).
Typical radical conservative hypocrisy if you asked me.
Frankly, teaching your miserable little brats has got to be the worst job in the world. Typically your average teacher has to acculturate her kids to living in civil society, teach their little knotheads when they aren't desperately trying to get them past some god-damned state mandated proficiency exam.
And that isn't when they aren't dealing with outright sociopathic parents who have inculcated their DNA admixtures with the notion that courtesy is a confession of weakness and winning at any cost is a religious dictate.
And all of this done for shit pay that wouldn't buy white walls for a radio talk show host.
These days the only comparable to teaching for sheer unadulterated awfulness is either rookie cop or the county coroner.
So hell yeah I say Wisconsin teachers should strike and strike HARD!
Otherwise they will become the complete thralls & lackeys of the state legislature (a similar arrangement just worked soo well in the Probation Department in Massachusetts)...Maybe that is a perfect set up for someone like Brian McGrory, but any sane citizen must see this as a potential disaster.