In Arizona, 50,000 teachers walked out of their classrooms Thursday, shutting down hundreds of high schools in the latest massive teachers’ strike to protest cuts to education funding. This is educator Mary Kotnour.

Mary Kotnour: “Well, the bottom line is funding, funding for education. So, a lot of people think it’s just for teachers’ salaries, and it’s not. It’s funding for the schools, for our kids. We haven’t had—the funding stopped in 2008 and has not increased. It’s for our support staff, as well. So, it’s for everybody. It’s not, what some people think, just for teachers.”

Thousands of teachers in Colorado also walked off the job and converged at the state Capitol of Denver, forcing 27 districts in Colorado to cancel classes.