What’s gotten into these teachers?
That #RedforEd protest on March 21 was great and all, but it was supposed to be a one-and-done, right? Teachers got to wear those nice, new red t shirts. They went to the Capitol. They told legislators and the press, “We want decent salaries! We want more funding for schools!” They got their few hours of fame. Time to pat themselves on the back and return to their crappy salaries and underfunded classrooms.
That’s what they were supposed to do, based on recent Arizona teacher history anyway. Instead, they came out the next Wednesday for another #RedforEd rally and demanded a 20 percent raise.
A 20 percent raise? Are you out of your minds?
The next day, the rally was getting positive press all over Arizona. And CNN. And ABC. And Education Week. And who knows how many other national news outlets.
Who designed those kickass red shirts anyway?
Meanwhile, Ducey’s bully pulpit looked more like a kiddie stool. “Hey, c’mon guys, look at me. You know, the governor? I gave teachers a one percent raise, and there’s more where that came from. I managed to pass a tax bill that means, well, it means schools won’t get any more money, but they won’t lose any either. That’s something, right?”
The headline on Howard Fischer’s article in the Daily Star print edition reads, Ducey rejects request from teachers for 20% pay hike. Fischer lets Ducey make his case, but he refutes the “education governor’s” claims one by one, doing what a good reporter does. He followed Ducey’s spin with the facts.
If teachers were more “reasonable” and demanded, say, a 5 percent raise, Ducey wouldn’t look so bad with his incremental one percent raises. But after a 20 percent demand, Ducey has to come up to 10 percent just to meet the teachers halfway. The press is doing the math. A 20 percent raise averages out to $8,500, making Arizona’s average teacher salary $51,000. That’s still far less than Utah at $55,000 and New Mexico at $59,00.
Hmm. Add 20 percent, and we’re still way behind Utah and New Mexico? Maybe the teachers aren’t so crazy after all.
Arizona teachers are getting bold. And they’re getting heard.
Like West Virginia teachers, who went on strike for a 5 percent pay raise. They defied their union, who wanted them to return to their classrooms when the governor agreed to meet teachers’ demands. They wanted to hear it from the legislature. When the legislators came up with 4 percent figure, the teachers stayed out until they got what they were asking for.
Like Oklahoma, where teachers demanded higher salaries, and the legislature approved a $6,100 pay hike. The teachers said, “Sorry, not enough,” and plan to go out on strike Monday.
Like Kentucky, where nine counties had to cancel school Friday because so many teachers walked out to protest a change in the state pension that would reduce benefits.
Teachers are getting bolder. And they’re starting to win after years of losing.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2018.
This “Salary Increase Demand” by Arizona Teachers is Patently Absurd! Sure, a periodic Salary increase Must be Incorporated in the Contract….but…it must be based on Teacher Accountability and Effectiveness in the Classroom!!!
I said it once and I’ll say it again…repetition, even repetition Ad Nauseam is an effective Teaching Strategy!!
Teacher pay increases should NOT be “across the board” but based on Merit as Indicated by Student Performance on AzMERIT so as to determine if Students are being taught properly and/or effectively learning the required body of information per Subject Area so as to move on to the the next Academic Level in achieving their Career Goals.. This is the sole purpose of Standardized Assessment Examinations. AzMERIT is such an Assessment Examination and will indicate the effectiveness of the Schools/Districts Academic Programs, so that, if necessary, remedial action can be taken.
A Bad/Ineffective instructional Program should NOT be rewarded with a Pay Increase!!!
Using the AzMerit as an instrument of determining teacher merit is Patently Absurd, and punitive to boot. Even if you believe that that test, or any standardized test actually measures learning accurately enough to base teacher pay on it, here are a few problems: a)lots of teachers’ subjects are not ON AzMerit–what happens with them? (or maybe in a testing paradise, we only offer math and english and science and the rest of those pesky courses are just stopped) b)AzMerit was developed (supposedly) to measure student learning–across schools and districts–when you use it for teacher merit pay you are just spotlighting the punitive aspect of it (or the real reason for it, according to some non-believers) and c) the narrowing of our educational palette to just those subjects that are tested, and to just those items within those subjects that are tested, has not worked whatsoever to raise test scores. In fact, we have been in a testing frenzy for decades now and even the original proponents of such tests no longer afford them any credibility. Those are all arguments assuming that testing is a good measure. There are many many more for those of us who think that testing is a lousy measure, and doesn’t even serve for comparative purposes.
Bottom line? Talking about merit pay is a distraction: GO TEACHERS GO! Grab that money that Ducey is busy giving away to his cronies, including the money that goes annually to the Freedom Center at the UA and its similar Koch-funded institution at ASU, and give it to the K-12 teachers who need it.
The MERIT system for teachers was a controlling aspect put into effect by the Republicans during George W. Bush’s administration so they could undermine and weaken the teachers union, one of the biggest in the nation. “No Child Left Behind “was the dubious title making it seem like the fox in the hen house was there to tidy up the droppings and feathers. Republicans are the most deceitful and cunning manipulators on this planet and if you ever think they are doing something for your benefit you had better look more closely because they have found a back door way to cut your throat. Teachers pay increases have always been back-burner issues for Republicans until it becomes the elephant in the room and they have to do something to make it look like their are doing something. I would love to see every teacher in this country take up the banner for pay increases to put politicians on full alert that they are mad as hell and they are not going to take this anymore.
The folks commenting on “merit” increases are forgetting that in 08, faced with the recession, the Legislature cut millions from education. These cuts have not been restored. Instead the current Gov. and Legislature continue to cut taxes, mostly for corporations and the wealthy, and increase “tax credits” both of which reduce revenue and continue the perennial fiscal crisis that we face. We need to increase taxes, probably income and corporate, possibly property, and we need to cease all “tax credits”. We simply need the revenue.
As soon as you relent and allow the conversation to revolve around the needs of the teachers for money instead of their needs in the classroom and the needs of the students and parents, you are doomed to create this howling, mindless mob of victimhood.
When they do studies of compensation, they find that we all seek victimhood. We first compare our salaries with those around us in the workplace and if that doesn’t work, we keep going up the ladder till we get to professional baseball players and CEO’s.
Simply put, needs are infinite. Epicurius laid this out in detail 2300 years ago.
The truth is that the average salarty for teachers in Arizona is $47,000 (NEA stats) and if you have a family with two breadwinners at $47,000 for a $94,000 household, you are in the upper 15% of Arizona.
Why should the bottom 85% be taxed for the benefit of the upper 15% unless clear value is there?
What do we get out of education culture for our further spending?
1. We get higher taxes and we know what that does for the future outcomes of our students by looking to Connecticut which spends $22,000 per student per year as compared to our $8,000 per student per year. Connecticut has lost 14,000 jobs since 2000 while Arizona has added more than 400,000. We also know what it gets you academically. Connecticut typical household income is double ours and as such should have NAEP scores 15 points higher than ours. Instead, their Black and Hispanic 8th grade math scores are 10 points lower than ours- a whole year. Even their White scores are lower than ours.
When money is your objective, nothing goes right.
2. We get more Masters degrees in education and we know from an overwhelming body of research studies what that does for our students. Teachers with Masters degrees in education get lower academic gains than teachers with Bachelors degrees. There is something toxic in our colleges of education.
3. Instead of pumping up the starting salary towards the average salary to attract talent, increasing the average salary actually has the perverse effect of reducing the starting salary relative to the average because all the teachers in power are close to retirement and use every bit of influence they have to tilt the salary curve. Starting teachers who most need a pay increase are left bereft.
This is education culture: it’s dysfunctional. The only way to reform it is to steadily allow more and more entrants in the competitive marketplace until someone gets it right.
Someone will get it right. The ideas are already all out there in research papers, they just have to be assembled in one coherent package.