VOA常速英语2018--美国多州教师罢工 要求涨薪

Strikes in Oklahoma and Kentucky. After teachers in West Virginia held out for a 5 percent pay raise, receiving it after a nine-day walkout in one of the poorest states in the U.S. This is a very unusual spring for us, for some of my teachers they’re referring to this as the education spring. In Oklahoma, legislators are debating a revenue package aimed at ending its statewide teacher walkout, including two proposals to tax certain internet sales and expand tribal¹ gambling². The teachers are demanding increased education spending, including raises. Kentucky teachers are protesting cuts to their pensions, and in Arizona teachers are asking for a 20 percent pay increase with the threat of a strike on the horizon. Teachers are a little fed up with the fact that their salaries haven’t been going up, and in most of those states actually spending for schools has actually gone down in real terms since the Great Recession, and so partly teachers are hearing all this news about how the economy is recovering and they actually haven’t seen an increase in their salaries. Schools are funded primarily at the local and state levels in the US, and Oklahoma and Arizona have experienced serious tax reductions, says Michael Hansen. So these states, both of these states cut costs significantly in the immediate³ wake of the recession, and then they’ve cut taxes, so that even though the economies in these states have been recovering, the state is not getting nearly as much as they used to and that creates a budget constraint⁴.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia says that the argument by state legislators that they have to live within a budget sounds reasonable. But if you’ve manipulated that budget actually take a whole lot of the money off the table by giving a big tax break to some of the biggest corporations, to oil companies in Oklahoma. And you say no, no, no. We’ll make it so these folks don’t have to pay their taxes that revenue is not in the budget, and they shrug⁵ their shoulders like it was magically disappeared, look, this is all we have; this is all you have by design.

For the 2016 to 2017 school year, the National Center for Education Statistics estimated the average national salary for kindergarten to 12th grade teachers to be about 59000 dollars, compared to averages of 46000 dollars in West Virginia, 45000 dollars in Oklahoma, 52000 dollars in Kentucky and 47000 dollars in Arizona.

俄克拉荷马州和肯塔基州发生教师罢工事件。西弗利亚州的教师们要求5%的加薪，这个州是美国最为贫穷的州。他们在罢工了9天之后终于如愿以偿。这个春天对于我们来说不同寻常，因为我的一些老师将今年春天成为教育界的春天。俄克拉荷马州的一些议员正在讨论设立一揽子税收的问题，以解决全国范围内的教师罢工问题，其中有两份提议分别是对网络销售以及扩大部落博彩业。罢工的教师们要求加大教育投入，包括提高教师工资。肯塔基州的教师还抗议政府削减养老金的行为；亚利桑那州的教师也要求加薪20%，否则罢工一触即发。教师们都受够了丝毫不见涨的工资，而且大萧条以来，大多数州对学校的支出实际上都削减了。而且，还有部分原因是：一些教师还听闻经济复苏的消息，但反观工资还是丝毫不见涨。学校主要是从当地和州一级获得资金支持的，而俄克拉何马州和亚利桑那州都曾大幅削减过税收，迈克尔(Michael Hansen)如是说道。所以这两个州在大萧条后立刻大幅削减了支出，之后又削减了税收，这就导致在这两个州经济复苏的情况下，依然不如以往，预算捉襟见肘。

莉莉(Lily Eskelsen Garcia)表示，一些议员认为必须给预算封顶，这个想法听起来很合理。但如果这样操纵预算，就会因为给俄克拉荷马州的一些大型公司和石油公司减免赋税而减少了政府的资金。但政府还是拒绝这样做，认为自己能在不征收大公司赋税的情况下实现操纵预算的做法，认为赋税本就不在预算里。他们会耸耸肩膀，就好像这笔赋税可以凭空消失，嘴上还说着，看啊，这就是我们的实际赋税，我们的体系设置就是这样的。

2016-2017学年，根据国家教育统计中心的估计，美国幼儿园到12年级教师的平均工资为5.9万美元，但西弗吉尼亚、俄克拉荷马州、肯塔基州、亚利桑那州的对比数据分别是4.6万美元、4.5万美元、5.2万美元以及4.7万美元。

感谢收听吉尔为您从华盛顿带回的报道。

1 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

2 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

3 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

4 constraint   

n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物

参考例句：

• The boy felt constraint in her presence.那男孩在她面前感到局促不安。
• The lack of capital is major constraint on activities in the informal sector.资本短缺也是影响非正规部门生产经营的一个重要制约因素。

5 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。