Tag Archives: school funding

Arizona governor signs bill to boost teachers’ wages amid strike

The U.S. and Arizona flags flutter in the wind in Fountain Hills, Arizona, U.S. on September 30, 2016. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona’s governor signed a budget bill on Thursday that will boost teachers’ wages by 20 percent over the next three years, after dozens of the state’s school districts canceled classes as part of a strike to demand pay raises.

Tens of thousands of Arizona teachers, whose pay is more than $10,000 below the national average of $59,000 per year, have held a week-long walkout that has been the largest teachers’ strike in U.S. history and has kept most of state’s 1.1 million public school students out of class.

Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled state legislature worked through the night to pass the $10.4 billion budget. Outside, hundreds of red-clad teachers held a overnight rally, local media reported.

The bill allocates more than $600 million for salary increases, meaning teachers would get raises of nearly 10 percent this year and about five percent in each of the following two years.

“Arizona teachers have earned a raise, and this plan delivers,” Ducey said in a statement issued as he signed the bill. “This plan not only provides our teachers with a 20 percent increase in pay by school year 2020, it also provides millions in flexible dollars to improve our public education system,” added Ducey, a Republican.

The budget also includes about $371 million over five years to restore cuts imposed on education spending during the U.S. recession that ended in 2009, starting with $100 million this fiscal year, according to state officials. This figure is far less than the $1.1 billion teachers say has been cut from their budgets since the recession.

Although the budget bill was passed, districts in Phoenix, Tucson and Tempe, along with more than three dozen districts throughout the state, had already notified parents and local media that classes were canceled on Thursday, according to the Arizona Republic newspaper.

The protests are part of a national teacher action that began in West Virginia and spread to other Republican-controlled states, including Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Walkout organizers in Arizona had previously said they could not support the budget, but recognized it was likely the best offer they would get.

(Reporting by David Schwartz and Andrew Hay; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Frances Kerry)

‘Teachers’ Spring’ forcing lawmakers to find money for schools

FILE PHOTO: Participants take part in a march in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., April 26, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Christy Chavis/File Photo via REUTERS

(Reuters) – It has been called the “Teachers’ Spring” in the United States, with educators from five states staging an unprecedented wave of protests demanding increases in pay and school budgets.

Encouraged by progressive resistance to President Donald Trump and the #MeToo movement, the protests by the nation’s teachers, more than three-quarters of whom are women, mark the first statewide walkouts since the 1990s.

Some educators have likened their movement to the “Arab Spring”, a series of anti-government uprisings that hit Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East beginning in 2010.

The movement has already prompted lawmakers to allocate pay increases for teachers and more money for schools in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Colorado, while Arizona’s legislature is also trying to hammer out a deal.

WHY THEY BEGAN

The strikes started in West Virginia in February and then spread to Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arizona, all of them Republican-controlled states that put limits on education spending during the 2007-2009 recession and never fully removed them. Teachers in Colorado, which has a Democratic governor, walked out last week.

According to the National Education Association, a group representing public school teachers nationwide, the average teacher salary in the United States decreased by four percent from 2008‒09 to 2017‒18, after inflation adjustment.

The West Virginia strike, which shut schools for almost two weeks, ended with a five percent pay raise. Teachers in Oklahoma returned to classrooms after the legislature passed its first major tax increases in a quarter century, raising about $450 million in revenue for education.

Arizona teachers have sought a 20 percent pay rise. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey on Friday announced a deal with state legislative leaders to raise teachers’ pay 20 percent by 2020, but it was unclear how the money would be raised.

SUPPORT FOR TEACHERS

Teachers’ demands for pay increases have gained widespread public support and won bi-partisan attention from legislators ahead of November midterm elections.

But conservative groups, who oppose education funding increases through tax increases, point to data from education reform group EdChoice showing that nationwide, per-pupil funding adjusted for inflation rose 27 percent between 1992 and 2014 as schools added ranks of non-teaching support staff.

These conservative groups say school districts need to cut back on non-teaching staff rather than seek bigger budgets.

WHICH STATES COULD BE NEXT TO SEE A WALKOUT?

The protests have been largely driven by social media, rather than union leadership, allowing activists to organize rapidly. Arizona’s movement began with a Facebook page that encouraged teachers to show up for work wearing red – the color of the movement.

They have moved West through states where teacher pay is among the lowest in the country, per-pupil funding has fallen in real terms since the recession and where state legislatures largely control teacher salaries. Other states with a similar profile include Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, New Mexico, Utah and South Dakota, according to a study by Brookings Institution analyst Michael Hansen.

A teachers’ group in North Carolina has called for a march on the state capitol on May 16. At the same time, legislatures for states such as South Dakota and Alabama have recently voted to increase teacher pay, possibly heading off protests.

Walkouts crossed a political divide when they spread to Colorado, where Democrats control the governorship and lower house and Republicans hold the senate. Other states with mixed political control and relatively low teacher pay include New Mexico and Nevada.

(Reporting By Andrew Hay; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Robert Birsel)

Colorado, Arizona teachers rally for second day over pay, funding

People march in front of the Capitol in Phoenix, Arizonia, U.S., April 26, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Jeremy Whittaker, City of Mesa Councilman/via REUTERS

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of teachers in Colorado and Arizona rallied for a second day on Friday to demand higher pay and school funding as a revolt by U.S. public school teachers spread westward.

Waving placards such as “Teachers Just Want To Have Fund$,” educators and their supporters descended on the state capital in Denver to demand an increase in school budgets.

The Rocky Mountain state is $2,700 below the national average in per-pupil funding even though Colorado is one of the fastest-growing state economies in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Protesters are demanding the state begin to repay $6.6 billion in funding withheld since 2009 as the state recovered from the recession, address a shortfall of 3,000 teachers and adequately staff schools with counselors, social workers and special educators.

Encouraged by similar protests in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, organizers in Colorado said the protests would send a message to political leaders about their dissatisfaction.

“We have educators working two or three jobs to make ends meet,” said Kerrie Dallman, head of the Colorado Education Association, a statewide federation of teachers’ unions organizing the two-day walkout.

“Teachers are spending $656 (a year) out of their own pocket to buy supplies like paper and dry erase markers,” said Dallman, a high-school social studies teacher from Jefferson County.

The Colorado action forced the state’s two largest school districts, in Denver and neighboring Jefferson County, to cancel classes for hundreds of thousands of students.

Democratic lawmakers who control Colorado’s lower house back the teachers but Republicans, with a Senate majority, have balked at spending more on education, saying funding needs to go to infrastructure like roads.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has vowed to work with the teachers and on Friday met with a small group of educators, according to protest organizers.

In Arizona, thousands rallied in Phoenix for an immediate 20-percent increase to teacher salaries, which are among the lowest in the country, and restoring education funding to 2008 levels.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, has offered a cumulative 20 percent pay rise by 2020. He has pledged $371 million over the next five years for school infrastructure, curriculum, school buses and technology.

“What I’m dealing with now are our legislators, Republicans and Democrats, so we can get that passed,” Ducey told NBC affiliate news station 12News on Thursday.

The vast majority of Arizona’s more than 200 public school districts, with roughly 1.1 million students, canceled classes for Thursday and Friday.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; writing by Andrew Hay, editing by G Crosse)

Oklahoma teachers end nearly two-week walkout that shut schools

Protester march during a strike by Oklahoma educators demanding more school funding near the Oklahoma state Capitol in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 9, 2018. Picture taken on April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Heide Brandes

By Heide Brandes

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – Oklahoma’s largest teachers union on Thursday called off a nearly two-week walkout that shut public schools statewide, saying it had secured historic gains in education funding after school budgets were devastated by a decade of cuts.

The move came after the Republican-dominated legislature passed its first major tax hikes in a quarter century that raised about $450 million in revenue for education. Republican leaders said they had no plans to go as high as the $600 million being sought by educators.

“We absolutely have a victory for teachers,” Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, told a news conference.

“Our members are saying they want to go back to the classroom,” said Priest, whose union has about 40,000 members.

Some major districts have said they will resume classes on Monday.

The strike was part of a wave of actions by teachers in states that have some of the lowest per-student spending in the country. A West Virginia strike ended last month with a pay raise for teachers, and educators in Arizona protested before classes on Wednesday, without skipping work, to seek enhanced education funding.

The Oklahoma walkout began on April 2 and affected about 500,000 of the state’s 700,000 public school students.

Opinion surveys showed it had garnered wide support among Oklahoma voters, many of whom had seen firsthand how students at struggling schools had to share outdated and tattered textbooks and sometimes go to a four-day school week to help save districts money.

Oklahoma teachers, who were seeking a $10,000 annual wage hike over three years, will see an average annual pay raise of about $6,100 from the increased funding, lawmakers said.

In May 2017, their annual mean wage was $41,880, among the lowest in the country, compared with neighboring states such as Texas at $57,830 and Kansas at $50,470, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

School districts for the most part supported the teacher walk-out. But they began to run out of wiggle room to make up for lost time when the labor action threatened to extend the school year, piling pressure on teachers to return.

Low wages have created an exodus of educators, causing a teacher shortage in Oklahoma. As a result, school districts had to cut curricula and deploy nearly 2,000 emergency-certified instructors as a stop-gap measure.

(Reporting by Heide Brandes in Oklahoma City and Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton in Tulsa; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Sandra Maler)

Striking Oklahoma teachers push for more funds, Republicans say done

Teachers rally outside the state Capitol on the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford

By Heide Brandes

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – A strike by Oklahoma educators demanding more school funding entered a 10th day on Wednesday, as the state’s Republican leaders warned they plan no further increases after approving $450 million in new revenue to boost teacher pay.

Schools in the state’s largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, remained closed the day after Republican Governor Mary Fallin signed into law two bills that raised taxes but fell short of teachers demand for another $150 million.

“The governor and lawmakers keep closing the door on revenue options when Oklahomans are asking for a better path forward,” said Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest union for teachers with about 40,000 members.

The strike is part of a wave of actions by teachers in states that have some of the lowest per-student spending in the country. A West Virginia strike ended last month with a pay raise for teachers, and educators in Arizona are also expected to protest on Wednesday, without skipping classes, to seek enhanced school funding.

The Oklahoma strike, which began April 2, has closed public schools serving about 500,000 of the state’s 700,000 students. Schools in Oklahoma City and Tulsa were shut on Wednesday.

Fallin has already approved legislation that would raise teachers’ wages by an annual average of $6,100, but teachers are holding out for a $10,000 raise over three years and other increases in school funding.

Saying that education funding was wrapped up, Fallin signed a bill on Tuesday aimed at expanding revenues from Native American casinos and one that will raise about $20 million from internet sales taxes, her office said in a statement. Fallin also approved a bill that repealed a hotel tax, a measure that teachers wanted vetoed.

“As far as this year, we’ve accomplished a whole lot, and I just don’t know how much more we can get done this session,” state Representative John Pfeiffer, a House floor leader and top Republican lawmaker, told the local Fox affiliate on Tuesday.

A non-partisan poll released on Friday showed 72 percent of voters in Oklahoma, where teacher’s pay is near the bottom among U.S. states, supported the walkout.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)