I read the article in the Sunday Star about teacher salaries in the Tucson area post-Prop 123, three or four times. I was trying to figure out exactly what it meant. The thrust of the article is, TUSD is being stingy with its salary hikes after receiving the recently disbursed Prop 123 funds while many other districts in the area are being more generous. But the article lacked head-to-head, apples-to-apples, salary-to-salary comparisons of teacher compensation across the districts, so I don’t know if its conclusions reflect what’s happening to teachers’ paychecks. I tried to look a little deeper to understand the teacher salary reality in the Tucson area. That shed a little light on the subject, but not much.
If, as the article implies, TUSD allowed its teacher salary to fall below that of neighboring districts, it made a serious mistake. Because of the current teacher shortage, it’s a sellers market. Teachers, especially the top prospects, are likely to get multiple offers, so they can pick and choose between districts, and salary is likely to be a serious consideration. If Superintendent Sanchez’s decision to be “fiscally conservative” when it comes to raises, as he is quoted saying in the Star article, puts the district at a competitive disadvantage, then he made a bad decision. True, Prop 123 monies could face a court challenge, and an economic downturn could mean a loss of funding in the future, but it’s better to take a long term gamble if it improves the short term situation where too many classrooms lack full-time teachers. And there’s another issue, of course. TUSD teachers deserve a raise, and Sanchez is doing them a disservice if he’s being less generous than other districts.
But is the TUSD salary raise as low as the Star article states, and is it lower than neighboring districts? I honestly don’t know. According to the article, TUSD teachers will “see $700 added to their base salaries.” However, the information on the TUSD website paints a different picture.
Beginning July 1, 2016, the majority of Tucson Unified School District employees will see an increase in their salary after the Governing Board voted Tuesday, June 28, 2016, to provide another raise. It’s the second raise for the 2016-17 school year that has yet to begin.
Here’s what teachers need to know:
All teachers who worked for the district in the 15-16 school year will see a total of $2,000 in added salary for the 16-17 year. Pay increases were approved on May 10 and June 28 by the Governing Board.
Additionally, at the June 14 Governing Board meeting, the Governing Board approved a proposal that classroom teachers who qualify for Pay for Performance monies may receive up to $3,000 in performance pay if they satisfy the prerequisites for performance pay. This double the amount from previous years. Stipends for Dual Language, math, science and exceptional education teachers remain in effect.
First year teachers new to the district for the 16-17 school year will see a salary of $35,700. The previous starting salary in Tucson Unified was $34,200.
Reconciling the TUSD and Star versions of the salary situation is way above my pay grade. However, a statement later in the Star article brings them closer together.
A $700 raise may not seem like a lot, [Sanchez] said, but the district has found innovative ways to improve teacher pay over the last three years, including increases of $500 each year and raising the amount of money teachers are eligible to receive in performance pay for attending training and for improving academic achievement.
That additional salary information, by the way, comes 10 paragraphs after the original statement about the $700 raise, well into the page 2 continuation of the front page story. By that time, casual readers had left for another story, meaning that the $700 figure is all they saw.
The important question here is how salaries compare district to district, but even that is more complicated than just looking at the salary schedule. TUSD, for example, adds $2,000 for teachers with a Masters Degree and $3,000 for a doctorate, which looks to me to be higher than some neighboring districts. The way districts give performance pay differs as well. So do health care costs and other salary deductions. That being said, a comparison of the 2016-17 salary schedules I’ve been able to find online puts TUSD salaries somewhere in the middle of the pack. Catalina Foothills salaries look higher. Sunnyside salaries look lower, as do salaries in Marana and Tanque Verde. I couldn’t find 2016-17 salary schedules for other neighboring districts.
Conclusions? Honestly, I have none that add light to the question of teacher salaries and raises in local districts. But I would warn readers to be wary of conclusions drawn from articles about salaries which rely on a collection of disjointed figures, especially when, as in the Star article, dollar amounts are mixed with percentages without a whole lot of explanation. Also, since front page articles that put TUSD in a bad light are guaranteed to sell copies of the Star, I would always read those articles front to back, carefully, before putting too much faith in the headline and the first few paragraphs.
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2016.
#1 What are you doing reading the AZ Star?
#2 Nothing sells copies of the AZ Star. They have their liberal faithful. That’s it.
So, your blog is criticizing decent reporting over at the star because it was too long and people might stop reading before the end?
I guess a blog post that concludes with your inability to do any actual reporting or number crunching must be better. Good stuff Weekly! Keep it up!
“…it’s better to take a long term gamble if it improves the short term situation…”
Isn’t this the kind of thinking that passed Proposition 123 in the first place?
My family has been in Tucson since 1964 and the issue of TUSD being a top-heavy, money-wasting, bureaucracy that puts the education of its students and fair compensation for its teachers at the bottom of its list of priorities has always been a problem. The idea that creating a large district to save money by combining administrative and support costs may sound good, but when you keep increasing those administrative and support costs at the expense of good teachers, which directly impact the education of the students, what have you saved – nothing.
Exactly like centralized government sgsmith. The thought of control and power seem to overwhelm them. And it’s off to the races with hiring and spending.
I don’t think it is necessary to compare to other districts. The fact is the board members such as Kristel Foster said they wanted all the money to go to teachers and they told everyone to vote for 123 for that reason… then they only spend less than 30% of that money on teachers.
It’s really that simple. They deceived us all.
Can we trust anyone elected or appointed to office? Probably not.
Well we can trust Hillary. Can’t we?
The main reason 123 passed by a slim margin was because it was supported by two camps: Ducey’s allies and the educators who joined forces with them because they felt 123 was the best deal they could get from the people who STOLE 301 money from them in the first place. Those of us who work in the profession know that most Pima County school district leaders told their staffs prior to the vote that most of the money would be spent on pay increases for all employee groups if 123 passed. The leadership in TUSD was no exception in their pre-vote rhetoric. The Star article pointed out that their post-vote actions did not match the pre-vote statements by their Board members and the Board’s employee, Dr. Sanchez. Neighboring districts kept their commitments to their employees, as the article also noted.
The most significant problem in TUSD over the years has been the fact that the Board and the leadership doesn’t value the work done by their employees at the school sites. Public perceptions of TUSD are based largely on how the district is viewed by the families it serves and the employees who are on the front lines working on behalf of those families. Three TUSD Board members seek another term in office this year. The community has another chance to decide if they want to keep the same leaders in place. Two of them support Dr. Sanchez and one of them doesn’t, but the latter Board member has had more than enough time in office to prove his devotion to the public good and failed in that regard the last time he was in the majority, just as his two colleagues are failing the public now.
“Conclusions? Honestly, I have none that add light to the question of teacher salaries and raises in local districts.”
That about sums it up for this long, difficult article.
Thank you, Morales (“Three Sonorans”) and “Elections Matter. Vote Wisely,” for keeping the discussion focused where it belongs: Sanchez has lied AGAIN — a sadly recurrent behavior for him, which utterly destroys the foundation of trust and collaboration with stakeholders and constituents on which a successful public institution, especially a successful public SCHOOL district, must be built. The statements about what would be done with 123 money before the vote on the proposition occurred were clear: it was needed to increase teacher compensation. After the Proposition passed, it became evident that the district would only designate 30% of it to raises for teachers. I watched a “Call to the Audience” at a recent TUSD board meeting where a substitute teacher spoke about the discrepancies between what is being said to the public about compensation for subs since they have been outsourced and what their actual compensation is. She said, “When you drastically cut our pay and then publicly deny it, IT MAKES US FEEL LIKE YOU THINK WE DON’T EXIST.”
This is only one example of many that could be given of the reality-denying dysfunction that has had this district firmly in its grip for the past three years. Lies told, relationships destroyed, trust undermined, and the Board looks the other way, as though whether or not leadership tells the public THE TRUTH is a matter they can conveniently ignore, failing to hold leadership accountable in any area, looking off into the distance as though they don’t see the many casualties they are stepping over in moving forward with this leader in place, and lying explicitly or by omission about what is actually going on: consistent, disastrous mismanagement of the district’s affairs for three solid years.
Examine the records of all three incumbents for TUSD Board elections carefully before voting in November.
As for Safier: this article is a transparent attempt to blow more smoke, muddy the water a bit more about his friends’ chronic bad behavior. Reading the comment streams since the passage of 123, it’s hard to believe he still has the nerve to keep up this act. It is so very clear that he has allowed his transparent scamming for his disreputable friends to destroy his own reputation, and not many believe him any more.
I received my Masters, while I was a tusd teacher. Those that do this, do NOT get $2000. We would have to quit, and return. Ex ed for 21 years with the district, no additional money. They lie.
Sonia TUSD is as big a liar as Hillary Clinton. You must be blind to not see it. Her husband and she are habitual liars. Please wake up.
Of course, if you are a TUSD sub your compensation was cut this year. Retirement benefits were eliminated, access to health care was delayed and blocked, and if you were one of the subs willing to work at tougher schools or who worked the most days your pay was cut 8 to 14 percent.
If any subs are reading this the ESI contract is on the July 12 agenda. I hope some of you are willing to show up and express your opinion.
Mr. Safier, I’m curious about the elephant in the room. Your analysis focused on teacher salaries post Prop 123 in comparison to other districts. What about administrators? Something tells me that the administrators are paid at least as well, but I’m betting much more than other districts.
So, let’s get this right. A whole lot of money came flowing into the system and everyone is walking around tightly wrapped in the shawl of victimhood, a shawl they are unlikely to let go easily. Prediction: results, after rising markedly relative to the nation over the last four years, a period of time when education operations spending declined by $400 million per year, will go down this coming year.
Note: if the story is to be believed, the starting salary at TUSD is $35,700. That would give TUSD starting salaries a national ranking about 22nd among states for this coming year. It would also put a household with just the starting teacher as breadwinner at right about the median household income for Tucson.
“Because of the current teacher shortage, it’s a sellers market. Teachers, especially the top prospects, are likely to get multiple offers, so they can pick and choose between districts, ” Will all due respect, this is a very “elementary” understanding on how actual hiring work.s There are no “multiple offers.” This isn’t the NBA. If a teacher wants to move districts they have to quit their job and apply for other jobs. I doing so, an experienced teacher gives up years of service on the salary scale and seniority. There is no “tenure” in Arizona (which is another falsehood spread on the morning radio circuit) but teachers give up seniority in case there are RIFS.
Also you only listed the incentives and raises by TUSD when most of the other school districts did the same. In only listing TUSD’s total package (by trying to make the $700 sound better) you fell into the same trap the Star did. Remove all the other packages offered by all the other surrounding districts and TUSD’s $700 stands alone as going against the will of the voters, especially when admin making over $100,000 grand got the PACKAGE & a 1% raise on Prop 123. Simple math says 1% on $100K is more than $700 and that disparity increases every year from here on out due to simple algebra.
As far as I can see, Prop 123 did not allow for a “rainy day fund” by school districts – which is the defense TUSD is using in not releasing the money to the teachers. What is a “rainy day” fund in education? Where will it be deposited and in what budget item will it be stored? Will short-term memories forget its there and suddenly we hire a few more admin with it?
David, you need to take a serious look at this from a real-world perspective rather than what is blindly offered as a defense. AND I haven’t even talked about part of the package being “performance based.” Meaning more work on top of what teachers are doing for the hope of more funds with no guarantees of actually seeing the money. And who does the judging on performance pay? The teachers who have somehow managed to escape the classroom (admin favoritism) put in place as “evaluators” with unchecked power to decide success. If districts really wanted to save money they would get rid of that layer of staff, teachers who are no longer in the classroom but take salaries that are meant for teachers working with kids.
Wow, if what the above commentator says is true, I had no idea the Master’s stipend had been cut (it was still in place when I worked in TUSD). A stipend for a higher degree is standard in most districts, and not awarding it on completion of the degree is a significant enough difference with other districts that you should print a correction to the article. It also sends a message to the teachers, loudly and clearly, that they are NOT valued. No wonder the district is losing them, because that right there would cause an experienced teacher who just earned a graduate degree to jump ship. It shows a reckless lack of foresight on the part of the district, and contempt for the professional expertise of their staff who frankly matter the most. I used to work there and find that utterly disappointing.
Comments here (that stay on topic) are good, as the same dull ax continues to grind against funding public school districts adequately. Someone above asked for administrative salaries; these are available according to board approved salary tables in all districts. These are available as public records, and therefore all TUSD administrative salaries can be/should be published. The same cannot be said for charter schools’ administrators – some of them out-of-state profiteers. Also – Prop 123 as a continuous operational funding source is still baffling.
Thinking_Aloud: you are right that “public” is a value that needs to be rigorously defended. But it must be defended in practice (i.e. with respect to what public districts actually do) as well as in theory (with respect to laws on the books and how they differ between public district schools and charters.) There are laws requiring fiscal transparency in public districts that are not being enforced in Arizona, and about which the citizenry is not being vigilant and vocal enough to force implementation. In this context, the contrast you make between public districts and charters may be good in theory but it is only semi-operational in practice.
Citizens who understand the importance of the values behind public institutions should require the operationalization of these values locally. It will be hard to defend the public sphere against legislators who are dead set on dismantling it when we can’t point to specific institutions that show how the proper implementation of public institution theories results in high functioning, transparent administrations that deliver high quality services to constituents. (And the budget cuts, unfortunately, are not the only problem. It is simply not true that if Southern Arizona institutions had more money, all their service-delivery problems would be solved. TUSD has just provided another example of their chronically incompetent administrative practices with the contrast between what they told the public while recruiting 123 funds and what they propose to do with them. There may not be a specific law on the books against delivering false and/or misleading information to the public in support of a legislative proposition and then failing, once the proposition passes, to deliver on promises made to constituents as you were trying to garner support, but this kind of mendacious behavior, of which we have seen far too much for the last three years, destroys public trust, and it is a sad understatement to say that administrators who manage public institutions this way are not helpful to us as we try to combat the privatization agenda favored by our legislature in Phoenix.)
Yeah approximately 250 school districts have more money to buy cheese that goes well with whine
In a conversation today about the appalling allocation of the 123 money the point was raised that the 301 money withheld the last several years was effectively denied to the many retiring teachers during that time. Those withheld funds will affect the teachers’ retirement earnings for the rest of their lives. Pitiful!
Another thought: as you look into the pay scales of administrators between districts, please distinguish between site administrators (who do the real work of the district along with teachers) and the central office staffs who hold admin certificates with district or regional responsibilities. Do not confuse these with resource teachers or curriculum developers who are actually paid on comparable teacher scales although not working directly in classrooms. They perform quasi- administrative functions and quasi-instructional functions.