During the #RedforEd walkouts, I wrote a post saying educators were doing just fine without my advice, and this retired teacher wasn’t about to “old man” them. Yeah, well. Don’t call this advice then. Call it what I would do if I were in the teachers’ place. Except it might not be what I would do if I were in their place. So let’s call it a suggestion worth every penny the teachers are paying for it.
I would love to see teachers around the state demand that the 9+1 percent pay hike the legislature built into the budget be shared with everyone in the school community, except administrators, who already receive a reasonable salary.
Would I agree with myself if I were currently an Arizona teacher looking at a raise which doesn’t bring me up to the salary I should be making, and doesn’t take into consideration the reparations (raise-parations?) I deserve for the years my wage was way below the national average? I don’t know. I might have to be talked into it, and even then . . .
With all that in mind, here’s why I think teachers should share the raise, coming from someone who doesn’t have a dog-eared dollar bill in the hunt.
Teacher wages are bad. Support staff wages are worse. While the legislature earmarked some new money for teachers, it cheated non-teaching staff out of the much-needed raise which was one of the #RedforEd demands.
If teachers sacrificed some of their raise to make up for the legislature stiffing the rest of the staff, it would send a powerful message. It would say, “We’re demonstrating the respect we have for the people who work beside us. We understand the value they add to our children’s educations.” The move would foster unity across the school community in the struggle to achieve full funding for Arizona education. If teachers are willing to share the raise with other staff members, it encourages everyone to share the burden during the political campaign season, at voting time and, if necessary, during a walkout next year.
Arizona has about 50,000 teachers. We have a similar number of support staff, maybe a few thousand less. That’s a pool of nearly 100,000 adults to draw strength from, on top of parents with school-aged kids and other supporters of public education.
There are complications, of course. If Tucson Unified unilaterally lowers teacher raises by sharing them with support staff as Superintendent Trujillo suggests but other neighboring districts go with the full 10, it could make the Tucson district less able to compete for new teachers. An uneven response from districts creates a problem. No easy answers here.
One last thing. Superintendent Trujillo says he wants the raise to be shared. But if I understand district contracting procedure correctly, the teacher’s bargaining unit—the TEA in this case—jostles with the district’s bargaining team to come up with a contract they can agree on, then the school board has to OK it (I’m not sure whether TEA needs to go back to the teachers for a vote of approval as well). So while Trujillo can state his preferences, it’s up to the teachers to decide whether sharing the raise is acceptable and the board to agree. Actually, if teachers decide they want to share the raise, the TEA can put a lower compensation package into its contract proposal with the understanding that the remaining funds goes to the salaries of the rest of the staff.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2018.
David if you attended school board meetings, you would know that the calls to the audience are full of teachers and support staff who are demanding the same thing. Even Mike Hicks agrees that all staff at our schools teach our kids (which is true). Stegeman is scared that such a move will piss off the state, who is already pissed off at Southern Arizona for not being right wing nutcases like the bulk of the anti-public school legislators in Phoenix. Kristel and Adelita appear to agree with the teachers and staff but then they were in the Board majority, as a Caller to the Audience stated, that withheld Proposition 123 AND 301 funds from the teachers in the past, so their current public posture may have far more to do with electoral politics than actual concern for teachers and staff. And Sedgwick appears to be completely in favor of paying people first–even came out with an attempt to apply the Red for Ed demands to TUSD which was ROUNDLY and extremely rudely routed by Kristel, in a performance that was both insulting to teachers’ intelligence and that of Ms. Sedgwick. Such an attempt SHOULD have been made by more experienced Board members instead of reviled by them but once again it was more important to highlight Sedgwick’s lack of experience than to help her gain that experience or actually look for ways that TUSD could replicate the strikers’ demands. Its worth noting that our biggest snark on the Board, Foster, is also the “liaison” to the legislature–which actually may be adding to their distaste for Pima County and TUSD, if her behavior there is anything like it is here, where the personal consistently overcomes the politically intelligent tactics that will benefit our kids, staff and teachers.
Interesting how much “enlightened” commentary on TUSD fails to take note of the fact that there are a lot of kids in the district — how many? hundreds? thousands? — receiving the majority of their core instruction in reading, writing, civics and math from outsourced, underpaid workers who do not have teaching credentials. This includes elementary classroom teachers, who provide the majority of students’ instruction in all subjects throughout the year, and subject-area teachers in middle school and high school.
At various points during the REDforED movement we were informed that the movement was about “improving services to STUDENTS” and about the need for more funds to raise teacher salaries and SOLVE THE TEACHER SHORTAGE.
But now, with fresh new money in its hot hands, it appears that none of the decision makers and pundits surrounding TUSD are talking about identifying and solving the worst problems with the district’s failure to deliver quality instruction.
Safier is talking about using the funds in ways that will build the political will to flip the governorship: “If teachers sacrificed some of their raise to make up for the legislature stiffing the rest of the staff […t]he move would foster unity across the school community in the struggle to achieve full funding for Arizona education […] it encourages everyone to share the burden during the political campaign season, at voting time and, if necessary, during a walkout next year.”
Others talk about honoring legislative intent and / or fear of blowback from the legislature, fairness to counselors, fairness to janitors, site maintenance needs, school safety concerns, and REDforED demands, but I’ve yet to find anyone except a solitary teacher commenter in a recent TUSD Board meeting Call to the Audience pointing out that when students are not receiving instruction from “teachers” who have credentials in the subject, something is being lost in the way of quality instruction that the new money should perhaps be used to restore. A lone voice crying in the wilderness. No one listens, no one responds.
When TUSD’s mis-use of outsourced subs IS discussed, it is discussed as a labor justice issue — “These un-credentialed substitutes need higher wages and benefits!” — not as a mis-delivery of education issue. The various commenters appear to be so unconcerned with the EDUCATIONAL issues surrounding TUSD’s mis-use of ESI-contracted substitute teachers that there is no mention of a pretty obvious fact when it comes to quality of services delivered to students: substitutes should fill very short-term vacancies in cases where permanent, certified teachers are briefly unable to cover their own classroom. They should not be used in a long-term fashion to deliver “instruction” from week to week and month to month because a district cannot attract enough qualified applicants to cover all the positions that should be filled by fully credentialed educators. If raising Step 1 salaries can fill some of the classrooms that are currently covered by subs with permanent credentialed teachers, that is a clear Priority #1 for the application of new funds.
The ongoing absence of this fact in discussions of priorities for funding application just reinforces the sad fact that not only does TUSD seem largely unable at this point to function as an EDUCATIONAL institution, but the community and media have entirely lost the will or ability to effectively ask it to do so. The best hope most TUSD residents have of receiving quality instruction will be in removing their per-pupil funding from the district and applying it elsewhere.
Are there statistics as to how many teachers, support and Administrators are retired under ASRS and continue to work in similar capacities through a third party? Kind of a nice perk close to 75% increase in salaries.
Yes, this is one of the big issues. Great organizations, great school districts, great schools never stiff some of their employees and give all the money to one group. Such action rips the culture to shreds.
But, there is another issue just as big. Is the raise equal, i.e. $3,000 per employee? Or, does the lower paid teacher only get $1,000?
If starting pay is not increased substantially, this raise will do little to improve the competitiveness of the teaching profession.