Today, thousands of educators from across Virginia are walking out and converging at the state capitol for a public education day of action. Their movement in many ways resembles last year’s explosive red-state revolts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Given the weakness of Virginia’s teachers’ unions, and the absence of collective bargaining, militant teacher activists have initiated a statewide push from below for more school funding and pay raises.

Through on-the-ground organizing at school sites, social media, and some ingenious music videos, a new rank-and-file network — Virginia Educators United (VEU) — has begun to galvanize educators across the state. To discuss the emergence and stakes of this struggle, Jacobin’s Eric Blanc spoke with Sarah Pedersen, a founder of VEU and a sixth-grade history teacher in Richmond.