This is a growing trend as teachers in other states have been successful extorting more money out of taxpayers.
Across Arizona, parents, teachers, schools boards and superintendents are bracing for the likelihood of a walkout as educators pressure state leaders to act on their demands for 20 percent pay raises and more education funding.
Wednesday, educators in more than 1,000 Arizona public schools are expected to participate in non-disruptive “walk-in” demonstrations as part of the #RedForEd movement.
The demonstrations, which will mostly happen before the start of the school day, are intended to build more support from parents and school administrators.
Late Monday, organizers with Arizona Educators United, the teacher-led grass-roots group that launched the state’s #RedForEd movement, said they will move forward with a walkout.
Oklahoma had one of the lowest teacher pay rates in the nation. And the teachers apparently hadn’t gotten a raise in 10 years. I am not sure on the exact details of the raises, that is just what I read in a few places. There have been cited articles for a few years saying that Oklahoma is having a problem recruiting new teachers because of the poor conditions and salaries. Good for them, if the state and the people truly thought they didn’t deserve a raise they would stand their ground. But they folded and gave them a 6100 raise so far, and apparently around 70% of the public agrees with them. These stats are according to a local paper.
Equating money with quality education is a falsehood promoted by the union. California, for example, has the highest per pupil expense and look at what a mess that is.
Nobody I know thinks teachers are not valuable and deserving of fair salaries. I know the income for new teachers is low but my friends in a two income family say they took the job for the benefits. Tenured or municipal is another matter.
Equating salary with quality is wrong. But equating money isn’t wrong. When we are eliminating music, art, tech ed, gym, needed classroom aides, and overfilling classes with 30+ kids in a classroom… money does solve those problems. But conservatives are too hung up on school overspending, or crying about how teachers only work 10 months a year. There are always ways to cut costs and better allocate money. But too often I hear people yell that the schools should eliminate waste before getting more money, and that isn’t ever going to fully happen.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
Take a look at the k-12 school rankings. What states have the best ranking? East Coast “blue states”. And then cross reference it with the states that spend the most:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/02/the-states-that-spend-the-most-and-the-least-on-education-in-one-map/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cea30e443efa
Other than NY, there appears to be a direct correlation between spending and quality, for better or worse. I am sure that is not the only factor, but it probably helps out quite a bit.
185 days a year equals a little over 8.6 months not 10. add in 9 paid holidays, 8-15 paid vacation days and a taxpayer GUARANTEED pension.
As a former School Board President, spending every penny school administrators can get their hands on and crying poverty is all too common. Nobody who is actually involved will say schools are perfect but firing the bureaucrats and some of the tenured teachers would be a good start to get back on path.
Bill, don’t give me that BS. My wife was a teacher/administrator for 10 years. She worked from mid August thru early June every year at an MPS Charter school. On top of putting in time almost EVERY night after our kids went to bed, just to keep up on paperwork.
There are shitty employees in every profession. And we can do our best to get rid of them. But a majority of the teachers and admins that I met were underpaid and overworked.
Someday I’d like to hear someone explain what asking for a raise is supposed to look like. You can’t organize, you have to do it alone?
Yes. That’s how most of the workers in this economy do it. I ask for a raise – usually by explaining my value to the organization. If I’m not satisfied, I go elsewhere. At no point do I refuse to work. I agreed to do my work for the agreed upon compensation. As long as my employer is paying me and meeting their end of the bargain, I have a moral obligation to do what I’m being paid to do.
So collective action is OK for the likes of AFP, but not for people who work at the same place?
People like to say “you work for me” when it comes to public employees, but they aren’t supposed to appeal to the public when they want to improve their working conditions or compensation?
A fairly non-disruptive “walk-in” demonstration isn’t refusing to work.
Collective action is fine. They can bind together and protest. Be active in social media campaigns. Even the Walk In thing is perfectly acceptable. Whatever.
What I object to is them skipping work (walk out) when they agreed to work for a specified wage and the taxpayers are meeting their end of the bargain. If they are no longer happy with that bargain, that’s fine. They can leave. But as long as the taxpayers are meeting their end of the employment contract, the employees need to meet theirs. If the employer (taxpayers) find that they need to increase wages to attract better employees, then that’s their choice.
I take a dim view of walk-outs as well. But I don’t run for the word “extort.”
How did you inform yourself on the market conditions of Arizona teachers? Do you believe they’re overpaid, or is that just a reflex of yours?
That’s not up to me. What I object to is teachers refusing to work and punishing kids in order to get more money. If Arizona taxpayers are satisfied with the number and quality of teachers they get for what they are paying, then that’s their bag. If they want to pay more, that’s up to them too. But Bill has a point above… after a minimum threshold is met, more money does not lead to better education. Or, at the very least, there are diminishing returns with each additional dollar spent.
It didn’t take much googling for me to see that Arizona’s teachers are dead last nationwide in pay.
http://ktar.com/story/1755214/arizona-worst-state-nation-teacher-pay-friendliness-studies-find/
But hey, the GOP governor gave his staff some big 20% raises.
One could certainly count the CALENDAR months as time worked disregarding the many weeks of paid holidays but the real point is the rank-and-file only get about 20% of the money taxpayers pour into our educational system.
Overhead for hard assets like buildings and overpaid bureaucrats eat up a big chunk. Given the incessant drumbeat of ‘give us more money’ while skipping what one would think is important like building maintenance is making taxpayers tone deaf to teachers needs. Teachers breaking their contractual agreements only makes matters worse.
The root problem here is the same problem in government. The unelected bureaucrats. One could try to defend these “administrators” but reality is they cheat, lie and generally believe we, the deplorables, have no business nosing around in their business. Only they know the best way to spend our money.
Bill, what makes you think that a fair portion of those non-elected bureaucrats and administrators aren’t also Republicans?