Today teachers all over Arizona are wearing red to spotlight low teacher pay—and the shortage of teachers which is exactly what you’d expect in a state with some of the lowest salaries and largest class sizes in the country. Teachers are asking the rest of us to wear red in solidarity.
You know, red and black go really good together. Arizona can say yes to the demands of teachers wearing red and still keep the state budget in the black. How do we manage it? The first step is to make a commitment to increase the state budget so we can afford to fund schools, social programs and infrastructure adequately. The next step is to ask, “What’s the best way to do it?”
We have plenty of options to choose from. Close tax loopholes for corporations and other special interests. Renew the Prop. 301 sales tax for education, with a penny added to the total. Stop the stupid, goddamn tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Increase taxes on the wealthiest among us so they pay their fair share.
I’m not suggesting which are the best ways to increase state revenue. That’s the next step, after we agree to take the “red and black” challenge.
However, I do have two suggestions for things we need to do if we hope to add needed money to the state coffers. Give voters the opportunity to repeal Proposition 108 from 1992 which requires a two-thirds majority in the legislature to pass any new taxes. And vote out politicians who say “No new taxes, period.”
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2018.
All politicians now entertain new and more taxes. Just look at AZ Legislature trying to increase auto registration fees to (supposedly) fix roads but it is being reported as a way to increase funding for DPS officers.
I have had to reduce personal spending to balance my budget. Why don’t they?
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 achieve 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!!!
If the legislature acts in response to pressure for increased teacher salaries, they should attach a clause that says the funds they grant can only be spent for teacher salary increases. Otherwise we might end up with some shafted teachers in TUSD again, just like when 301 and 123 funds ended up getting spent on other things. (Why IS it so hard for that district to apply funds where they will secure competent teachers and thus do the most good for students? I know the districts chronic failure to do so has provided Safier with some of his best opportunities to exercise his craft and SPIN, but still Id rather see teachers getting the money than Safier being given yet another fun propaganda challenge. He had more than his fair share of those during the HT Sanchez administration.)
As for those who want to tie increased salaries to test results, wake up. We dont pay teachers enough right now to get them to fill the available teaching jobs in Arizona, and far too many classrooms are run by uncredentialed, outsourced subs who undoubtedly arent maximizing either AZMerit scores or, more importantly, student learning and engagement, which are not measurable on the latest generation of standardized, politicized tests.
“Merit” tied to standardized high stakes tests will never produce educated, intelligent and critical thinkers. If readers don’t care about the “critical” part, they would be wise to reassess their priorities and their version of the history of this country. Critical thinking creates innovation and we need more of it (especially applied to alleviating poverty and chronic racism), not less. But for those of you waaaaay over on the right who don’t care about my priorities stated above, innovation even created the internet (unfortunately developed by the military), bumstocks and AR-15s (ditto), and many appliances that we use today. Without it we would still be using chain-pull toilets or outhouses. In addition to the fact that standardized tests produce kids who know how to fill out bubbles well and teachers/schools/administrators who know how to teach to the test (only, increasingly) the incentives to cheat are overwhelming. This we can see from multiple examples throughout the US and even right here in Tucson. Standardized tests are a boondoggle, not a boon, to public education.
The idea of merit raises based on test scores is dubious at best. Not all students test well to a singular formula. I was a student who tested poorly, but succeeded well enough in school and life to become a university professor at a major research institution. Learning is not simply rote, testing, and memorization. Fortunately in public high school, I experienced a few wonderful teachers that were able to address my learning flaws to inspire, inform and make a significant difference in my attitude toward learning.
Making an important investment in public school teachers is one of the first steps in making an investment in our children. Our children represent the future. The future of our city, state, country and world. Why wouldn’t we support teachers when they are often as significant of an influence on our children as are the parents? One cannot get chicken soup from chicken shit.
“Critical Thinking”… mere shibboleth if not Objectively Measured!
It is the very nature of a Standardized Examination like AzMerit to have the Student Critically Analyze the Question and Determine the Best Solution.
After 18 years of ty brother in law
There are over 400 case studies of tying money to test scores. Has always crashed and burned, except in Arizona.
Very difficult to do correctly, even here. The AzMerit test does not have the security required to withstand the pressure of a pay for performance system.
BASIS has a pay for performance system, but it is not based on AzMerit. BASIS ties their pay system to the Advanced Placement exam results, the ones that rank them number one in the nation in the U.S. News and World report ranking. The security is much tougher on Advanced Placement exams than on AzMerit. $50 test versus a $20 test.
BASIS students show gains that are 20% higher than the statewide averages. However, their students show gains that 18% higher than statewide averages when they are not in BASIS, i.e. students who attended BASIS either before or after attending district schools. So, does the BASIS system produce those test scores? Or, do the parents?
Almost 80% of Arizona school districts report tying some portion of teacher performance pay to ratings of quality by parents. Nationwide, only 24% of parents rated the quality of their child’s school an “A” in 2015, the last year of the 47 year Gallup survey. By comparison, we have any number of school districts that are over 60% on that rating. For example, Chandler Unified ranked 2nd in the nation in reading and math academic gains by Stanford Professor Sean Reardon, has increased their parent rating to 75% “A” rating, 3 times that national average.
We rank almost dead last in the nation in the portion of personal income that goes to public education (NEA). In Arizona, if you are relying on the state government to be your sugar daddy, you aren’t going to be in existence in a few years. You have to go out to the marketplace and get more students. You have to get that magical 80% of your parents recommending your school to other parents. Unlike other states, we keep inching up.
As a result of our lower tax burden in Arizona, we have added 462,000 jobs since 2000. Meanwhile, in West Virginia where they are out on strike, they rank 3rd in the nation according to the NEA in public school spending as a percentage of personal income. How many jobs have they created since 2000? 14,000. It shows on their student count, no growth since 2000.
What good is an education if there aren’t any jobs? The percentage of young college graduates dropping out of the workforce grows every year. No jobs.
What good has that extra spending done for West Virginia? Our Blacks beat their Blacks, our Whites beat their Whites and if they had enough Hispanics for a statistically valid sample, our Hispanics would beat their Hispanics (8th Grade National Assessment of Educational Progress). The same thing is true of Connecticut despite their personal income doubling ours and their spending tripling ours (a former Connecticut State Supe had the gall to throw shade on us in the Republic).
What good has that Niagra Falls of spending done for Connecticut? Not only are their test scores lower than ours, their economy has lost 14,000 jobs since 2,000 while ours has gained 462,000 jobs.
Plus, in a little-noted climb in the rankings, Arizona now ranks 8th in the nation in the number of High School graduates.
Your entire hypothesis that more money will improve things couldn’t be more false. Its based on an illusion. More spending on education will only damage our state’s ability to create jobs.
And what happens to the all-important economy and JOBS if we pay teachers so little we cannot get them to teach? That is where we are at in Arizona as a result of certifiably insane hocus-pocus invisible hand magical thinking state level policy. We are not talking about pouring money into education here, as though education were some abstract category that didnt involve whether the people delivering instruction can afford to pay their food clothing and shelter bills and educate their own children. We are not talking about parent satisfaction surveys a poorer indicator of the quality of classroom instruction than most that have been devised. We are talking about paying the people who do the difficult and important work of teaching our children A LIVING WAGE, so they can provide for their own children and perhaps send them to one of our shockingly overpriced American colleges one day.
What is happening to this country? Hard to believe these conversations are even having to take place. Wealthiest country in the world, with a political structure that requires the citizenry to be fully educated, and we are on the defensive, on the losing side of policy arguments about whether we can afford to pay our college educated teachers enough to keep them off food stamps.
The Democratic Party is at fault for abandoning labor advocacy on behalf of families that work for a living in favor of corporate pandering and identity politics.
“And what happens to the all-important economy and JOBS if we pay teachers so little we cannot get them to teach?”
Our average teacher salary in Arizona is $46,000 per year plus benefits. That is actually a very attractive salary, that if offered generally would attract hundreds of job seekers. Two adults in a household earning that salary and having these benefits can live the American dream.
A family of four or five earning $92,000 per year is not on food stamps.
What is happening to this country? Hard to believe these conversations are even having to take place. Wealthiest country in the world, with a political structure that requires the citizenry to be fully educated, and we are on the defensive, on the losing side of policy arguments about whether we can afford to pay our college educated teachers enough to keep them off food stamps.
That’s the nature of the U.S.- you have to prove your thesis, that more money improves education if you want to receive more money.
You have a problem. There is zero correlation between teacher salaries and the academic gains of their students. And, that is where most of the money goes.
Over decades, education has built a culture around degrees, getting a master’s degree to get higher pay. And, the results there are even more devastating: a Master’s degree is correlated with lower academic gains.
And, more time on the job. There is a strong correlation with the first three years and academic gains but time as a factor vanishes after those first three years. Yet, we pay billions for added seniority.
Arizona knows that performance pay can work. But, it is not a part of education culture generally, so not much is invested in that component.
So, we invest untold billions in things that don’t work, i.e. time and degrees, and a smidgeon in things that do work: performance pay.
And, that is why education is in a crisis.
The Red Star has an article this morning regarding TUSD audit. They were singled out for overpaying administrators and under using facilities.
We have built ourselves a little fifedom- TUSD
Stop looking at us and send us more money. Do it for the children. Yeah, right.
@jhuppent –
Please cite your source on the $46K average annual salary for teachers in Arizona and also provide an average annual salary breakdown by school district. When I served on a Southern Arizona public high school Site Council where some of the materials we reviewed showed salary information, people who had been teaching for 3 decades were the only ones making upwards of $45K, and there weren’t many of them. Most left before they hit that salary range. New hires in this district (copious because of the massive teacher attrition rates) made about $35K, with a college degree.
Of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, salary decision making in AZ is “decentralized,” meaning the districts rather than the state set the rates of pay. This allows for certain districts, some of them massive, to chronically underpay their teachers and overpay their padded central administration. And the state has no proper oversight role in preventing this from happening? It’s all about the free market and if parents don’t like that, they can transfer through open enrollment to another district or a charter school? What about families that don’t have the means to transfer (transportation, etc.)? The state of Arizona will just let them sit in mismanaged, under-professionalized, underperforming schools.
Nice trick to double the individual salary and say with two making that rate in a family, it’s more than sufficient. Not every family has two wage earners, and if there is one wage earner working full time in a profession requiring a college degree to practice, that wage earner should make enough to support the family without recourse to public aid, and — another topic that deserves lengthy treatment which I won’t give it here — without having to apply for “financial aid” (in most cases, including loans) to pay for getting their own kids through college in a higher education system where the cost of attendance per year in the best institutions is upwards of $60K per year, $240K for a college degree.
“There is zero correlation between teacher salaries and the academic gains of their students.” What correlation is there between A) paying credentialed teachers so little that they won’t take the available teaching jobs and B) the academic gains of the students that are taught by uncredentialed long-term subs? Measure that and report on it.
There are many other points that could be addressed, but why bother? Bottom line is that people who have a contempt for education and what it can and should accomplish both for properly credentialed teachers and for students should not be running a state education system. But in Arizona, they are. More’s the pity.
Nice to see the prodigal republican coming in to defend his former masters who continually work to gut and destroy the reputation of Arizona’s educational system (whatever is left of it anyway).
Arizona ranks 50th (!) in elementary school teacher pay and 49th (!) in high school teacher pay despite that fact we are ranked 21st in the US in terms of GDP. Why stay in a state that cannot pay you a competitive wage? Why stay in a state that can barely muster the political will to make sure you aren’t taking pay cuts year-after-year due to cost of living increases? Why stay in a state that would rather steal from its posterity than find the funding to make sure its school system is adequately funded?
Performance pay? How are we supposed to reward exceptional teachers exceptionally when we won’t even pay them averagely?
The National Education Association
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/2017_Rankin…
And, my number is slightly incorrect. The average in 2016 was $47,218. Which would have gone up in 2017. And, again in 2018. Assuming 2%, that would make it: $48,162.
Wheres the requested breakdown by district, jhuppent? What is the average salary for teachers in improperly managed and insufficiently overseen TUSD? How about the rates of pay and benefits available to the outsourced subs filling too many of the districts classrooms? It is a district that handles the educations of between 40 and 50 thousand students every year. What is the state department of EDUCATION doing to ensure that teachers are adequately paid there and that what is delivered there is quality programming? The most conspicuous oversight accomplishment of the state department of education in recent years seems to have been botching the job of responding to complaints they received about MAS. Oh, and they created lifeboat policy programs (e.g. ESAs, which ARE needed given the extent of deterioration within the district), but neither they nor Southern Arizona Democrats do anything to ensure improvements in the condition of the sinking ship itself. In that, the two parties agree: they both fail to do the kind of work needed to REFORM a massive malfunctioning public institution, the work that tens of thousands of constituents being underserved there and the broader community surrounding the district actually need their elected representatives to do.
“Bottom line is that people who have a contempt for education and what it can and should accomplish both for properly credentialed teachers and for students should not be running a state education system. But in Arizona, they are. More’s the pity.”
Others can speak for themselves but I have nothing but devotion to education. I get up every morning get on a bike to ride 13 miles to use my Engineering degree to tutor some of the most at-risk students in the state – as a volunteer. Then, I drive back in the afternoon for a 2 o’clock class and an after-school program. Been doing it for three years. You don’t follow that regime if you have contempt for education. Even did a summer school the year before last and am hoping to do one this summer.
What I know, down to the core of my being, from reading thousands of studies and working with hundreds of kids who can’t add 5+4, is that we can redesign education to move these students faster, much faster and that redesign will not take place if we keep putting more money in the system.
Both of the at-risk schools I have been at have been nuked by money and the results were terrible. That’s the story of all “failing” schools nationally. Five years after being identified as failing, 75% are worse because the first thing that happens when you get that label is that you get a massive dose of education culture. A culture that doesn’t work at all for most poor kids and most minorities.
In ancient Rome, they harnessed the horse to plow the fields. Unknown to them, the anatomy of the horse was different than the ox and they were choking the horse with their harness. Studies now reveal the harness only extracted 25% of the pulling power of the horse.
How long did it take to redesign the harness? 750 years.
Education is 200 years into our 750-year stint. 550 to go.
And, we are clearly extracting less than 25% of the pulling power of our children’s minds.
“What is the average salary for teachers in improperly managed and insufficiently overseen TUSD? How about the rates of pay and benefits available to the outsourced subs filling too many of the districts classrooms? It is a district that handles the educations of between 40 and 50 thousand students every year. What is the state department of EDUCATION doing to ensure that teachers are adequately paid there and that what is delivered there is quality programming?”
Believe it or not, the academic gains of Tucson Unified come in at the 64th percentile nationwide. Although it is a bare little bit of performance required to get that extra 14 percentile points. They have an entire extra layer of taxation plus extraordinary revenues from the federal government, so I have no doubt their average salary is well above the average salary of the entire state.
Your comment alone reveals the problem associated with that extra money, bitterness, and alienation from people who feel they didn’t get their fair share of the loot. TUSD represents a big pile of loot. Over 400 million in total spending. Over 60,000 more per classroom than Vail school district.
That extra layer of taxation appears to do TUSD little good, however. From reading the Special Master’s report, it appears to create a competing power center and another layer of administration. The Special Master himself is a competing power center, just another Superintendent administering a school district on top of the existing Superintendent. Read the reports, an endless expression of powerlessness.
The state department of education shouldn’t be attempting to regulate or run Tucson Unified in the slightest. That would just make matters worse. They could so some external measures to highlight the lack of performance. Measurements of the percentage of teachers feeling their school is an excellent place to teach, the percentage of parents rating the quality of their child’s education excellent. These numbers are mediocre for TUSD- both below 35%.
The marketplace is doing all the regulation needed. TUSD is being peeled layer by layer. They have now lost 15 thousand students since 2,000.
If a teacher decided to volunteer as an engineer and make policy recommendations for improving the management of a state-wide engineering system, that would be displaying arrogance and contempt for the field of engineering as a profession with distinct standards and expertise. When an engineer does the same for the field of education it displays the same: arrogance and contempt.
There is no “education culture” to speak of. There are, however, education conditions. Pay much lower than in other professions requiring college degrees coupled with ongoing education and re-credentialing requirements that must be paid for out of that low pay. Insufficient opportunities for high quality professional development. Class sizes too high. Too many special needs folded into classrooms with insufficient paraprofessional support. Failures of backup from administration for disruptive discipline problems. Overtesting of “skills” that robs from meaningful instructional time and trivializes instruction. Being blamed for (or having your compensation and performance ratings tied to) problems that originate not in your classroom, but in students’ homes and in the broader society. The list is long and sad, and it creates a climate in the profession where practitioners struggle to maintain a sense of ongoing professionalism when the daily REALITY in Arizona is damage control and bailing water on a sinking ship.
Of TUSD, Huppenthal writes, “I have no doubt their average salary is well above the average salary of the entire state.” Perhaps he should read the state auditor’s latest report on the district:
https://www.azauditor.gov/reports-publications/school-districts/tucson-unified-school-district/report/tucson-unified-school-16
Nice to have independent confirmation of what anyone who has gotten anywhere near the district knows very well from direct experience: their funding supplements do not translate into fat teacher salaries. They overspend on an inefficient, entitled administration. (No, I am not a teacher in TUSD, but I know many TUSD teachers and former TUSD teachers.)
Huppenthal states that “the state department of education shouldn’t be attempting to regulate or run Tucson Unified in the slightest. That would just make matters worse. They could so some external measures to highlight the lack of performance.” The State Department of Education’s actions in the MAS debacle did not indicate a laissez faire attitude to the oversight of TUSD and those actions definitely “made matters worse.” Whether state level government finding a way to influence (not just report on) administrative spending allocations, teacher compensation, procurement and hiring processes, and disciplinary norms would improve or degrade conditions is another question. As far as I can tell, it has never been attempted, and while underfunding, “decentralization” of salary decision making, and laissez faire management at the state level continue, the system continues to deteriorate.
Sad.
If a teacher decided to volunteer as an engineer “
If that teacher had passed the entrance exams to the Engineering profession with an extra 40 points to spare and spent 22 years reading thousands of engineering research studies, that would be more than enough to establish expertise.
2) thanks for the Auditor General Report. What a nightmare. I feel real sympathy for that new Superintendent of Tucson Unified. Better him than me.
However, nowhere in the report did I see the average salary for TUSD teachers. Did I miss it?
I suppose I could get it from their ADE reports.
Paysa.com
The average Tusd salary for Teachers in Tucson, AZ is $45K.
A Teacher at Tusd in Tucson, AZ make an average of $45K, ranging from $39K to $52K based on 87 profiles. These numbers represent our estimate for potential total compensation, including Base Salary, approximate Equity, and an Annual Bonus as an aggregate of all Tusd’s salaries.
What is Paysa.com?
Base salary is whats relevant. Not base + equity + a bonus teachers may not get, depending on how the bonus criteria are set. If there were 87 profiles in the Paysa calculation how were they selected? They dont include anyone working at a starting salary, which is less than $39K,
http://www.tusd1.org/Departments/Human-Resources/Certified-Pay-Schedulen
A website citing data from the Bureau of Labor
https://jobs.teacher.org/school-district/tucson-unified-school-district/
estimated TUSD teacher average base salaries in most categories listed at less than $40K per year. And the data was from a few years ago, before the Sanchez administration when attrition and vacancy rates increased. It seems likely average pay will have dropped as less experienced teachers and uncertified subs fill positions vacated by experienced teachers. At this point, TUSD must have to hire every recent teaching program graduate who cant get a job elsewhere and is willing to sign a contract with them. Its that or fill yet another classroom with someone who has never been credentialed. Or call a retired teacher up and beg them to come back and fill one of the vacant classrooms so primary age children wont have a second or third year of instruction from someone who never had a single education course.
To be completely fair and accurate, estimated average salaries for classroom teachers in TUSD should now include the pay of the outsourced, hourly rate, underpaid long term subs who fill the many classrooms where the district has been unable to secure fully credentialed, permanent teachers. Their annual compensation is a LOT less than $39K per year and they get no benefits or bonuses.
Folks whose only standard for judging schools is the cheaper, the better must be delighted with these pioneering new developments in how not to pay for quality instruction. Perhaps the STARVE THE BEAST crowd will be holding a workshop soon for other public districts in how to adopt the fantastic cost savings methods that have been piloted in TUSD.
Oh yeah let’s hear it for higher taxes that will hurt a struggling economy and reward inept teachers for our illliterate kids. Seriously they don’t work a full year. They get great benefits. No public servant just missue strikes (walk outs) or kids to steal more money from tax payers.