In Oklahoma schools, bosses are helping teachers go on strike

Earlier this month, Melissa Abdo visited a class of future schoolteachers - education majors at Oklahoma State University.

"How many of you are considering teaching in Oklahoma?" she asked them.

Of the roughly 20 students in the class, a single hand went into the air.

"I don't think Oklahoma wants me," one student told Abdo, a board member for Jenks Public Schools in suburban Tulsa.

Abdo said this week that she was embarrassed for Oklahoma, where teachers haven't had an across-the-board raise in 10 years, leaving them with some of the lowest pay in the nation.

So she and members of other school boards across the state have taken a highly unusual step: They're helping their workers go on strike.

When teachers - or for that matter, workers in any field - strike, it's usually a