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FLASH: Arizona Teachers Approve Statewide Walkout!

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
17

Arizona teachers have voted overwhelmingly to walk out in response to state budget cuts over many years. Here is news from Linda Lyon, president of the Arizona School Boards Association. 

Arizona, like West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, is a “right to work” state.

Here is the press release from the Arizona Education Association.

“Today, the Arizona Education Association (AEA) and Arizona Educators United (AEU) announced in front of AEA headquarters, that 78 percent of 57,000 Arizona educators voted to walk out of Arizona’s schools – citing 10 years of drastically underfunded schools resulting in overcrowded classrooms, crumbling infrastructure, and low wages for educators. Facebook video | YouTube video

“After years of starving our schools, some classes are stuffed with kids, while others sit empty because there isn’t a teacher to teach,” says AEU organizer and Littleton elementary music teacher Noah Karvelis. “The #RedforEd movement has provided educators the opportunity to voice what action they want to take in an historic statewide vote.”

“This vote was not an easy decision for educators,” says AEA Vice President and Isaac Middle School teacher Marisol Garcia. “As I turned in my ballot today, I thought about my son, my colleagues, and my students. By voting today, I am standing up for my son and all students in Arizona and the public schools they deserve.”

“We’re using textbooks from the 1990s because there’s no money for books. That’s just one of the reasons we’re fighting to make Arizona’s kids, schools and educators a higher priority in the governor’s office,” says AEA President and Mesa government teacher Joe Thomas.

“As educators, the students are at the center of everything we do. Every student deserves a chance at a quality education, and access to services like nutrition, health, and after school programs.

“The decision to walk out also comes on the heels of weeks of #RedforEd walk-ins and a disingenuous budget proposal from the governor that claimed a raise that excluded support professionals like counselors, bus drivers and cafeteria workers – and was not supported by actual funding.

“Education isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. That’s why we’re walking out,” said Noah.”

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teachers

Massachusetts: Charter Advocates Review Why They Lost State Referendum

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
11

 

A secret memo commissioned by the Walton Education Coalition sought to analyze why the well-funded charter advocates were beaten handily in a Massachusetts referendum in 2016 on expanding charter schools.

The memo says the opposition trusted teachers more than the governor. The opposition had a simple message: charters are funded at the expense of the local public schoools. The charter lobbyists thought they could threaten a referendum, and the legislature would cave and lift the charter cap to avoid a referendum. But the anti-charter forces refused to compromise and took it to the public.

Families for Excellent Schools, the hedge funders group, thought that the aggressive tactics they had used successfully in New York would work in Massachusetts. They didn’t, and FES was fined nearly half a million dollars for campaign finance violations (concealing the names of its donors) and banned from the Bay State for five years (FES disbanded soon afterwards).

What the analysis doesn’t acknowledge is that Massachusetts was a terrible choice to launch a charter campaign. On NAEP, it is the most successful state in the nation. It has a strong tradition of local control. Families are very attached to their town schools. Threaten the funding of the local public school, and you hit a hornets’ nest.

The pro-charter campaign was hurt too by the public recognition that it was fueled by out-of-state funding.

The opposition to charter expansion was well-organized and grassroots. The two national teachers unions spent millions, enough to stay competitive, but we’re outspent by the charter supporters by many more millions. Without their financial help (no dark money!), the charter industry would have owned the airwaves.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association, led by Barbara Madeloni, organized teachers and collaborated with school committees to fight off the charter invasion. Almost every school committee in the state opposed Question 2.

Volunteers, parents, and activists turned out to defend public schools.

The only towns that voted to expand charters were affluent communities that expected they would never get a charter. Where charters already existed, the opposition ran strong because they knew there was less money for their town schools.

The defeat of Question 2 in Massachusetts was a very important milestone in the fight against privatization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization, Resistance, Walton Foundation

Texas: Why Teachers Should Go Out on Strike

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2018 //
5

 

I always thought of the Dallas News as a conservative newspaper, but here is a column by editorial writer Michael A. Lindenberger arguing that Texas teachers need to go out on strike to force the legislature to fund the schools.

He writes:

”Why not? Nothing else has seemed to work to get state lawmakers to spend more on an education system whose funding is so bad that in 2014 after a 12-week trial a state district judge ruled it was literally illegal.

Even as Texas’ need for a trained and productive workforce — that is, an educated one — becomes more and more acute, lawmakers keep shrinking the state’s share of overall school funding. What’s it going to take to shake them out of this downward spiral?…

”But as the costs go up, the state has shifted more and more of the burden to local school districts, whose money comes straight from taxes on homes and commercial properties. That has homeowners hopping mad, naturally, and Gov. Greg Abbott has formed a commission charged with looking at how to further cap property taxes.

”Meanwhile, no one seems to have stopped to ask: What happens when the real estate values cool off, and the supply of money from homeowners taps out? When is the state going to start upping the share it pays?…

”What’s scary is that the lower the state’s percentage gets, the more underfunded our schools will be, and the harder it will be to fix. This is all made worse because in 2011 the Legislature took a giant cleaver to the school budget and trimmed $5.6 billion right off the top; it has been climbing out of that hole ever since…

”If the courts can’t — or won’t — step in, and lawmakers are too busy talking about bathrooms, who else is going to be heard? How else is anything going to be changed?”

The Legislature was completely transfixed by debate over a bill to prohibit transgender students to use the bathrooom of their choice. So school finance reform was ignored.

“It’s too bad that the Texas Legislature met last year, and has missed the wildfire spreading out from West Virginia. Maybe what the lawmakers needed most was a reminder to get their minds out of the bathroom stalls and back on the urgent need to improve and adequately fund public schools in Texas.

”We can only hope that by the time state lawmakers meet in 2019, teachers here will be ready to make their voices heard, too.”

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Teachers, Texas

New York Times: Shocking Expose of Underinvestment in Public Schools, Students, and Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2018 //
30

 

The New York Times published a shocking expose of the dreadful conditions in America’s public schools, due to underinvestment in buildings, supplies, and personnel.

The stories told in this long article demonstrate the lack of concern for students and education, and the dedication of teachers willing to put up with these conditions. The schools have not recovered from the deep budget cuts that followed the recession of 2008-2009.

After you read the responses from teachers and see how poorly they are paid, and how much they must take out of their own pockets for supplies for their classrooms, you have to wonder why teachers across the nation are not walking out en masse and protesting to their state legislatures.

The Times invited teachers “to show us the conditions that a decade of budget cuts has wrought in their classrooms.” They received comments from 4,200 teachers. The Times published a selections of the submissions, and they are powerful. 

By the way, the median salary at Facebook is $240,000.

These comments help to explain why teachers are walking out, striking, protesting, and demanding new funding for their schools.

Broken laptops, books held together with duct tape, an art teacher who makes watercolors by soaking old markers.

Rio Rico, Ariz.

Michelle Gibbar, teacher at Rio Rico High School

Salary: $43,000 for 20 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $500+

I have 148 students this year. The district skipped textbook adoption for the high school English department, leaving us with 10-year-old class sets, and we do not have enough for students to take them home. Our students deserve better. Our nation deserves better. 

As I near retirement age, I realize I will retire at the poverty level. The antiquated myth of the noble, yet poor, teacher must go. I am passionate about my subject and my students. I am not passionate about living paycheck to paycheck.

Image

Jose Coca uses these textbooks daily in his Tempe, Ariz., middle school.CreditJose Coca

Tempe, Ariz.

Jose Coca, teacher at Kyrene Middle School

Salary: $46,000 with 12 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

The building smells old and dank. There are holes in the ceiling, skylights don’t work, the walls need to be painted, I still use a chalk board, but — more important — my students need new desks and computers.

I can’t speak for other school districts, but mine — in Tempe — can’t get new social studies books for students. Young teachers spend more out of their own pockets because they don’t have supplies stockpiled.

My pay is not keeping up with inflation. I have co-workers leaving midyear, or not renewing their contracts, and I work with a lot of older teachers that have maybe five more years in them. I also work with some who retire and return as workers for a private staffing company.

North Las Vegas, Nev.

Kelsey Pavelka, teacher at Wilhelm Elementary

Salary: $33,000 with three years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

I have six laptops for 42 fifth-grade students (in one classroom) with many broken keys and chargers. My students are supposed to use these to prepare for their state test, which requires typing multiple paragraph responses. I crowdfunded to get 10 Chromebooks with all the keys on the keyboard, so they could learn to type on a machine that works.

Tennessee

Kathryn Vaughn, art teacher

Salary: $50,000 with 11 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,500

I am a public-school teacher in the rural South. I’ve had to become incredibly resourceful with the supplies. Teaching art to about 800 students on a $100-a-year budget is difficult. I do receive some donations from the families at my school, but my school is Title I and the families don’t have a lot to give.

I personally have to work several additional jobs to survive and support my veteran husband. We live in a modest house, I drive a 15-year-old car, and despite all of that, even with my master’s degree, some months we are not food secure.

Warren, Mich.

Elliot Glaser, media specialist at Warren Mott High School

Salary: $94,000 for 20 years of experience

Annual out-of-pocket expenses: $1,000

I work in a high school in a suburb north of Detroit. We have about 1,650 students, roughly 25 percent of whom are English Language Learners (students new to our country who don’t speak English well or at all).

After two years with no budget at all, this year I was given a little more than $500 for our library. I was able to purchase about 30 books. I am lucky, since our elementary and middle school libraries received no budget at all for the fourth straight year.

Story after story: the same reports of old textbooks, empty library shelves, obsolete technology, underpaid teachers.

What kind of a nation are we? What kind of future do we want for our children and our society? Why are we still spending millions of dollars every year on testing, when our schools need basic supplies for students and decent salaries for teachers?

By the way, the median salary at Facebook is $240,000. It shows what our society values. Not children. Not education.

All the focus on “school choice” is simply a hoax to distract attention from the billions of dollars that have not been restored to schools to reduce class sizes, update buildings, and pay teachers a professional salary.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding

Colorado: Teachers’ Protest Launched Today

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
20

Hundreds of teachers mobbed the State Capitol, demanding better school funding and salaries.

DENVER — Hundreds of public school teachers swarmed the Colorado state Capitol on Monday, shuttering one suburban Denver school district to demand better salaries, as lawmakers were set to debate a pension reform measure that would cut retirement benefits and take-home pay.

With the demonstrations, Colorado educators join peers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona who have staged strikes or high-profile protests in recent weeks to draw attention to what teachers unions see as a growing crisis in the profession.

In Colorado the need is especially stark – and apparently at odds with a state economy that ranks among the nation’s best. The average teacher salary – $46,155 in 2016 -ranks 46th among states and Washington, D.C., according to the latest figures from the National Education Association.

By another metric, Colorado’s dead last. The Education Law Center, an advocacy group, said this year that Colorado’s teacher salaries are the worst in the nation “when compared to professionals with similar education levels.”

Teachers rallied in and outside the building Monday, holding signs and chanting slogans including “You left me no choice. I have to use my teacher voice.” They drew honks from passing cars before heading inside, where their cheers and songs resonated throughout the Golden Dome, drawing lawmakers out of their respective chambers to investigate the noise.

 

 

Categories Colorado, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teacher Pay

Colorado: Teachers Plan to Walk Out, Descend on Legislature to Demand Higher Pay, Better Funding

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
5

 

The Denver Post reports that some teachers in Colorado plan to assemble at the State Capitol today to air their grievances, namely, low salaries, which have contributed to teacher shortages.

Inspired by walkouts in other states, teachers will meet with legislators to make their case.

“Earlier this year, 100 CEA members told lawmakers about a survey of more than 2,200 CEA members that showed the average educator spent about $656 a year out of their own pockets for student needs. Many CEA members presented invoices to the General Assembly for the past due amount.

“The CEA said educators in Colorado have had their pay cut by more than 17 percent when adjusting for inflation. A recent study from the Education Law Center, a group that advocates for more school funding, ranked Colorado dead last in the competitiveness of its teacher salaries.

“The typical 25-year-old teacher at the beginning of his or her career in Colorado makes just 69 percent of what a peer with a similar education level who works similar hours earns, the Education Law Center said….

”The CEA on Monday will lobby lawmakers to restore and increase education funding — K-12 public schools in Colorado are underfunded by $828 million in the current school year — and to secure a stable retirement program, CEA president Karrie Dallman said.”

It remains to be seen whether Colorado teachers will enlarge the protest and close down schools across the state. Public schools have been shortchanged by the Legislature.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Colorado, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

Kentucky: Legislature Overrides Governor’s Veto of Tax Bill to Fund Education

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2018 //
5

Mercedes Schneider reports good news: The Republican-controlled legislature in Kentucky overrode the Republican Governor’s veto of a bill to raise taxes to pay more for education.

There is a lesson to be learned in this vote: Republicans represent districts, especially rural districts, where the local public schools are the heart of the community. They don’t want to divert money to charter schools. They don’t want to lose their teachers. As we have seen in Texas, where rural Republicans have been the bulwark against vouchers, education is, can be a bipartisan issue. In almost every state, 90% of the children are in public schools, and parents love their local schools. When Republican legislators hear from their constituents, they usually respond. The Koch brothers and the DeVos family don’t own everyone.

She writes:

Public school teachers aren’t greedy people. We aren’t career ladder-climbers gauging “arrival” by our numerous vacation homes and yacht club memberships. But we would like salaries that do not necessitate side employment; safe, clean, and sufficiently-spacious facilities for ourselves and our students, and teaching materials of adequate number and appreciable quality.

In short, we want our state legislatures– red or not– to support us with suitable revenue dedicated to public education.

Attempting to deliver on that might even require Republican legislatures to override vetoes of Republican governors.

Well done, Kentucky!

Categories Funding, Kentucky

Oklahoma: Anti-Tax Group Starts Petitions to Block Teacher Pay Raises

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
14

 

In Oklahoma, there are conservatives who believe that the highest value is cutting taxes, preferably to zero. With tax cuts comes the collapse of public services, like public schools, law enforcement, and public infrastructure. Who needs teachers, Police, firefighters, highway repairs, etc.? So what if some public schools are open only four days a week? Why not three days? Two days? Or let the kids be home-schooled and save money?

So it is not surprising that anti-tax zealots are circulating a petition to block the pay raises won by a nine-day teacher walkout. 

What matters most in Oklahoma? Low taxes for the oil and gas industry. Fracking. Dark Money.

“Lawmakers already passed a historic tax increase to fund those teacher raises, and it was signed by Governor Mary Fallin. But, it would only take a little over 41,000 signatures on an initiative petition to at least temporarily stop those raises from happening.”

Will the new Oklahoma motto be: We don’t need no education.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

Kentucky: No Teachers, No Schools, Walkouts Grow

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
17

 

The teacher walkouts continued and grow larger in Kentucky, where teachers are massing by the thousands in the State Capitol to protest changes to their pensions. The two largest districts in the state are closed.

“School districts across Kentucky will once again shut down as teachers plan to flood the state Capitol on Friday to rally for public-school funding and protest newly signed changes to public pension programs.

“As of Thursday afternoon, at least 36 districts had decided to close Friday, citing teachers calling in sick or the likelihood that they would. The closures include public schools in Louisville and Lexington ― the two largest school districts in the state….

“That frustration began to boil over last year when the Legislature, fully in Republican control for the first time in nearly a century, passed a bill to allow charter schools in the state.

“The issue was the potential “diversion of public money into charters,” said David Allen, a former president of the Kentucky Education Association…

“That laid the groundwork,” Allen said.

”Then, in January, Bevin proposed drastic cuts to schools and public education programs, even though funding was already tight. In inflation-adjusted terms, Kentucky’s K-12 budget was down 16 percent since 2008, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

“Bevin’s proposal prompted dire warnings from school superintendents around the state, who said some cuts would push Kentucky’s poorest school districts to the brink of insolvency….

”Many Kentucky teachers, meanwhile, have come to believe that Bevin’s approach to education isn’t driven by the interests of taxpayers or its public schools. They see it as part of a broader movement, led by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, to further privatize education by deliberately undermining public schools.

“It’s a dismantling, step by step by step, of public education,” said Pam Dossett, a teacher in Hopkinsville. “So they can sit back and say, ‘Our public schools, they’re not working.’ And then they can replace them all with charter schools.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Kentucky, Pensions, Resistance, Teachers

Arizona: Governor Agrees to a 20% Raise for Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2018 //
9

 

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey agreed to a 20% pay raise for teachers by 2020 after previously offering only 1%, on top of last year’s 1%..

Teachers are wary.

“The Associated Press notes that the educators “were also seeking increased pay for support professionals, a permanent raise structure, and a freeze on corporate tax cuts until per-pupil spending reaches the national average.” Ducey’s proposal didn’t include more spending on those items.”

“On Wednesday, Arizona teachers staged a statewide “walk-in,” demanding an increase in pay and more funding for schools overall. And, organized by a recently formed advocacy group, Arizona Educators United, teachers had also discussed the possibility of staging a walkout if Republican lawmakers refused to reinstate about a $1 billion in cuts in state education funding over the last decade.

“The governor’s proposal includes a 9 percent increase that would go into effect this fall, bringing the median teacher salary in Arizona to $52,725.

“Ducey also pledged to give teachers a 5 percent increase in the fiscal year 2020 budget, and another 5 percent in the year after that.

“Those increases, coupled with the 1 percent increase teachers were given last year, would add up to the 20 percent raises and make the average teacher salary $58,130, Ducey said.

“As Casey Kuhn, reporter for NPR member station KJZZ wrote, Arizona teachers are among the lowest paid in the country, according to federal data. Average salaries last year were actually $8,000-$9,000 less than 1990 salaries when adjusted for inflation.”

An article I read today but will post tomorrow said that Republicans planned to link the pay offer to their voucher expansion proposal, which educators and parents have been fighting and which will be the subject of a statewide refendum, unless the Republicans find a sneaky way to keep it off the ballot.

 

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Funding, Teacher Pay
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