Here’s a tidbit that’s not likely to make the next edition of AZAwesome: WalletHub has released a new survey that ranks Arizona as the third-worst state in the nation for teachers.

The survey took into account several factors, including teacher pay, class size and per-pupil spending.

Here’s how Arizona shaped up in each of the categories, according to WalletHub:

41st: Average Starting Salary for Teachers
49th: Median Annual Salary for Teachers
48th: WalletHub “School Systems” Ranking
42nd: Unemployment Rate
45th: 10-Year Change in Teacher Salaries
49th: Pupil-to-Teacher Ratio
51st: Public School Spending per Student 

Julie Erfle of Progress Now Arizona said the survey showed that “it’s no wonder Arizona teachers are fleeing the profession and leaving our schools with a shortage of teachers and experience.”

“The future of hundreds of thousands of Arizona students as well as the economic future of our state is at risk,” Erfle added in a statement to the media. “The time is now to switch course and put funding for our educators and schools at the top of our legislative priority list.”

This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2015.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

12 replies on “AZ Ranks as Third Worst State for Teachers”

  1. Imagine all the money that could be available to OUR children, and OUR teachers if literally billions of dollars weren’t being stolen from the property taxpayers to educate illegals.

    Why do liberals insist on taking away money from OUR teachers and OUR children for illegals? Is having a second class of citizens for them to exploit that important?

  2. Think of all the money wasted teaching WA anything. Illegals pay plenty of taxes, sales, property, withheld income taxes. All to support people like WA.

  3. I think it’s a tie. We are third worst in teachers and student education. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, Arizona is at the bottom of every list one can imagine, especially in Tucson. That’s what the tourism industry gets, low pay jobs, low wages for everyone.

  4. But you see we just don’t understand the problem correctly. We just need to improve our ‘image’ and have a good slogan then all will be well! Sigh… Ducey seems to be a religious man but he sure doesn’t seem to care about all children. I know that’s an awful judgement but that is what he presents to us as well as backed up by lack of funding.

  5. To be fair, salary rankings are meaningless if you don’t factor in things like cost-of-living, state/local taxes.

    A more meaningful measurement would be teachers’ salaries as a percentage of the median local salary.

  7. You can’t teach him anything, Az Tommy. You can tell by the broken-record blaming illegals for everything posts he makes every single day. It’s kind of like his daily affirmation, but as a negation of logic and reason.

  8. Does bslap read the papers? Realize that before their 42 day strike bus drivers and mechanics were making more in salary alone than teachers in Tucson’s public schools? No knock on bus drivers intended but please don’t use cost of living and median/average/any earnings comparison to justify not paying teachers adequately. We don’t. And we won’t…. not as long as we elect officials who believe taxes are evil and people should fend for themselves. By the way, the Ducey boys attend Brophy College Prep in Phoenix, tuition $15K last time I checked.

  9. I just want to point out that teachers are leaving AZ by droves. They aren’t doing it because they are able to live so well here. They are required to continue their education and work under conditions that are very poor for the children. Books are old. Supplies are often supplemented by the teachers because of lack of funds and buildings are in disrepair. THere should be no comparison to other fields. We are a poor state but teaching requires a lot of education, materials and support which are not coming from the Arizona state government.

  10. This should improve the State’s image! All the current administration wants to do is cut taxes for the wealthy. Ducey says he is going to “kick start the economy” Lots of luck we have had tax cuts for 25 years to “kick start the economy” it has not worked. Let’s not keep doing this let’s fund education.
    Please write, call, e-mail, visit our legislators and tell them what we think.

  11. The economy has been flat for seven years. Tax and spend just made more debt but nobody has been helped. So if trickle down doesn’t work, according to The radical left, what is our third option?

  12. The economy has been flat for seven years. Tax and spend just made more debt but nobody has been helped. So if trickle down doesn’t work, according to The radical left, what is our third option?

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