Whereas there were formerly glaring contrasts between privatized and public education, we are now entering an era of grassroots desire to give a great education to children in public schools.

And, as part of that upward change, educators must first be treated with the respect they deserve. It appears obvious time and again — underpaid educators and under-funded schools result in mediocre public education for students because educators fall short when they lack the necessary resources. And when they lack the necessary resources, students tend to underperform, making educators appear bad. As you can see, it’s a perpetually annoying and cyclical issue.

What educators are doing?

Educators, on the other hand, are altering education by lobbying themselves, striking, and drawing physical attention to the nature of poverty in the American education system. Only in the last two years has media attention intensified as educators began striking from their villages and the front lawns of the state capitol to seek fair pay for the hard work they put into public education systems.

This educator lobbying process is challenging because children suffer in a variety of ways. They suffer when they are forced to miss school for weeks on end because their teachers must make the difficult decision to picket. They also suffer because the effort educators make to effect change frequently falls short of causing the government to bend, or worse, their efforts result in transient change followed by tighter government regulations.

The goal of educator strikes is to demonstrate how important it is to reform the public education system rather than pouring more money into private schools, which is rarely available to anyone other than the wealthy. It is the public schools, educators insist, that have needs that must be provided, and this begins with the educators who show up every day to make learners’ education possible.

As a result, while educators are taking matters into their own hands and attempting to reinforce a sense of excellence in public education, there is still a lack of absolute government support for America’s youth’s public education. And the fact is that the vast majority of children in America will attend public school, with only a small fraction attending private school.

So, in terms of possible change, what will the next five years bring? It will depend on how big of a difference educators and wealthy individuals can make within the government. Because it appears that, without the additional assistance of those in power, efforts to change education on behalf of educators will regrettably fall short.