Teachers growing more vocal about low pay

After teaching middle school students all day in Paradise Valley, math teacher Deirdre Cronin heads to a Starbucks most afternoons.

It’s not to unwind.

She’s tutoring kids there five days a week — including Saturdays — just to make ends meet.

Cronin, who has taught for 20 years, said she needs a part-time job because Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and the GOP-controlled Legislature haven’t done enough to raise teacher pay.

She said the 1 percent pay stipend for public-school teachers, approved by Ducey and lawmakers earlier this year, amounts to about $400, or a little more than $1 a day, for her.

Paradise Valley isn’t scheduled to release those funds to teachers until February, according to the district.

Cronin is among a growing number of educators who have used social media recently to express frustration about poor teacher pay and the meager increase they will receive from Ducey and lawmakers.

“Not enough teachers are being vocal about our salaries. We show up to work and love our kids and work really hard,”

Cronin said. “I’m trying to be vocal because I work 12 hours a day … I tutor eight kids a week just to survive.”

Teachers, parents and public-school advocates plan to rally at the state Capitol on Jan. 6, to call on the Legislature to significantly raise teacher pay during a Save Our Schools Arizona event.

That grass-roots group gathered enough signatures to let voters decide in 2018 whether Arizona moves forward with or rejects a massive expansion of the state’s school-voucher program, which lawmakers and Ducey supported.

Beth Lewis, a Tempe fifth-grade teacher and Save our Schools chairwoman, said the organization wants the Legislature to provide more money for teachers. She said it would take $2 billion to give teachers an 11 percent raise.

If Ducey and the Legislature are unwilling to do that, her group will take matters into their own hands, she said. The governor is “out of touch” with most Arizonans, she added and seems to have a disdain for public education. Ducey’s school-age son is in a private school.

“We could get something on the (2018) ballot,” she said. “Our volunteers are fired up and agitated. We could do this on our own, but I don’t think we need to. We are forming a strong coalition with broad-based groups who want to see our public schools funded.”

Lewis declined to elaborate on what kind of funding package her group could present to voters.

Joe Thomas, president of the state teachers’ union, said he hopes the rally will “convince policymakers to do what’s right and invest more money in education.”

A group of prominent Arizona business leaders championing an effort to significantly boost funding for the state’s public K-12 schools and universities recently said that they would put a ballot measure before voters in 2020, one way or another.

Thomas and Lewis said that while they appreciate support from business leaders, a 2020 ballot measure is too late: Arizona has a crisis now to fill classrooms with qualified teachers. State schools hired more than 1,000 underqualified teachers this year because of a teacher shortage primarily caused by low pay, stressful working conditions and diminished respect.

Patrick Ptak, a Ducey spokesman, said the governor was working on a budget proposal that would be released in January. He said it would fund an ongoing teacher pay raise of 2 percent over two years.

Ptak said the governor’s goal is to continue to drive up salaries for teachers.

The governor in January promised teachers a pay raise, then offered less than a 1 percent boost. Lawmakers ultimately gave teachers a 1 percent stipend, which Ducey approved.

Most teachers will receive stipends of between $300 to $400 each. Some districts have already paid the stipend, while others will release those funds in early 2018.

Arizona elementary-school teachers are the lowest-paid in the country, while high-school teachers rank No. 48 in pay. And Arizona teachers have one of the largest average class sizes in the country, according to Arizona Education Association.

The controversy over teacher pay comes as Ducey has given 44 of his staff members raises of up to 20 percent each over the past 21⁄2 years, with the average raise being 11 percent — the amount Lewis is seeking for teachers.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Administration, controlled by a Ducey appointee, gave at least 245 employees — roughly half of its staff — pay raises that average 18 percent, or an $11,496 increase. Individual bonus amounts at ADOA ranged from $50 to $7,560.

Thomas, president of the state teachers’ union, said the stipends average about a $1.40 a day increase for teachers. He added that some educators, such as librarians or mentor teachers, don’t qualify for the stipend because they are not teaching students all day.

“It’s almost as if the governor did as little as he could and still say he gave teachers raise,” Thomas said. “And, it’s not a raise. It’s a stipend.”