It's happened before in Kentucky, and it's happening again in Oklahoma. More and more, teachers are starting to stand up for their students and themselves. It's counter-intuitive to the future of America not to invest in the people who will soon be the future. The walkouts this week in Oklahoma have been for two things--pay raises, as Oklahoma ranks 49th in the nation for teacher pay (before the raises passed this week), and 47th for school funding per student.

Every day, these teachers are dealing with outdated classrooms and equipment, broken desks, lack of supplies and funding, and textbooks that are literally falling apart. Teachers don't come to the profession for the pay. An even when they don't make much, they often spend a lot of their own money on their classrooms or supplies for their students.

What's truly sad is that these people are those we trust to take care of our children daily. The people who spend more than eight hours a day with them. They help shape them into caring, educated and respectful adults. They teach them many of the skills they need to know, both in math and reading, and in life through stories or lessons about morals and good character.

These people are responsible for the future of America. The students they are teaching are going to be the doctors who cure cancer, the police officers who keep our communities safe, the engineers that build our infrastructure and houses, who design our cars, who grow our food and who run our country. These people have some of the biggest influence on our children's lives and they don't always have what they need to teach what they need to teach.

The least we could do as a government is give these people not only a pay raise for how vital their work is to our progress as a nation, but to fund schools more and make them more of a priority.

Even in areas where the schools aren't ranked last in the nation, issues still show up. Students still go to school every day with issues at home, food insecurity or even housing insecurity. Sometimes these problems are invisible. But often these issues are linked more heavily to schools that lack good funding. These kids who don't have much at home can still make their way at school but because they live in a lower-income area, they receive less than others. Often their facilities and technology lag behind other areas. And as a country built on the idea that anyone can come here--from any background or any walk of life--and succeed, this is not the way to enforce this promise.

Support the teachers who are walking out. They aren't just being selfish and doing it for themselves. Yes, they wholeheartedly deserve it, but so do their students. I guarantee that if you walk up to any of them and ask them why they're doing it, the first response will be, "For my students."