Demonstrators protest cuts in teacher pay, benefits and school funding at the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City Monday.

Educators in Oklahoma, Arizona, Kentucky and West Virginia are rallying to put pressure on state lawmakers to increase their pay and protect their pensions.

Thousands of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky became the latest to go on strike Monday morning, shutting down districts across the states, The New York Times reports. The protests stem from years of education funding cuts and stagnant pay, per The Times. West Virginia teachers incited the movement last month when they were able to win a 5 percent pay increase.

“They gave us the guts to stand up for ourselves,” Oklahoma City teacher Katrina Ruff told NYT.

There are about 3.8 million public school teachers in the U.S. and 77 percent are women, Education Week reports. The average base salary for a teacher is $55,100.

Oklahoma educators are demanding a $10,000 raise, as well as additional funding for local schools and raises for support staff such as bus drivers and custodians, per the NYT. Oklahoma’s average teacher salary is $45,276. In Kentucky, teachers are protesting a recently passed pension reform bill that would give teachers a retirement plan combining traditional pension with 401(k) accounts, according to NYT.

About 2,500 teachers in Arizona rallied at the state’s Capitol last week demanding a 20 percent raise, USA Today reports. Arizona ranks 43rd in average teacher pay at $47,218, per USA Today.

West Virginia’s average teacher salary is even lower at $45,622, according to USA Today. A nine-day protest at the state’s Capitol resulted in a 5 percent raise after classes were canceled for 275,000 public school students.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, told NYT that the movement is an “education spring.”

“This is the civics lesson of our time,” she said. “The politicians on both sides of the aisle are rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.”

Stephanie Winkler, president of the Kentucky Education Association, urged districts to close school so teachers could attend a rally, though many Kentucky districts are closed already for spring break this week, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.

“We are at a crisis point in public education,” she told the Lexington Herald Leader. “We don’t need to be attacked, we don’t need to be vilified, we need to be supported.”

In Oklahoma, third-grade teacher Jami Cole told The Washington Post that a bill that passed last week granting teachers a $6,000 raise fell short of her and her colleagues' demands. They plan to continue protesting.

“It just broke my heart,” Cole told The Washington Post. “We were dejected and disheartened…now I’m just angry.”

Many public school teachers in Oklahoma work second jobs to make ends meet, according to U.S. News & World Report. Rae Lovelace teaches third grade at a school in northwest Oklahoma and teaches special education courses for an online charter school, per U.S. News & World Report.

"I have to work that second job because I'm a single mom with a teenage daughter," Lovelace told U.S. News & World Report. "If I didn't have a second job, I'd be on food stamps."