STATE GIRDS FOR WALKOUT
How governor has attempted to sell his pay-raise proposal
The selling of the plan to give teachers a 20 percent pay raise by 2020 has taken many forms: social-media posts, TV ads, radio interviews and, last week, Gov. Doug Ducey talking to voters via a telephone town hall.
Three days after introducing the plan at a made-for-TV news conference, Ducey worked to convince one woman from Tucson that the plan would pass. The woman on the call said
that she doubted lawmakers would go along with it, based on their history.
“This is the budget, as governor, that I am proposing,” Ducey responded. A recording of the call was obtained by The Arizona Republic.
“This is the budget that, as governor, I intend to sign. I’m not going to sign a budget that’s any less than this for Arizona teachers.”
Before entering politics, Ducey ran Cold Stone Creamery, a business that sold ice cream in the desert.
The selling of the teacher-pay raise plan — among lawmakers, educators and the general public — has not been as easy.
Ducey has run a two-week full-court press of engagement and advertising about his plan. He said he would give teachers a 20 percent raise without raising taxes, cutting into services or leaving Arizona in a financial hole.
Complicating the sale pitch: Ducey had spent the previous two months saying the state could give teachers only a 1 percent raise this year.
Ducey has said that his new plan is based on new economic projections, showing that the state has, essentially, a boatload of unexpected cash to spend.
But that claim has been met with skepticism.
In the Legislature, lawmakers from both parties have denounced the plan or introduced competing proposals.
And the education community has not rallied behind it. Two education-advocacy groups that initially gave tentative support have changed their stance.
The most blatant example of skepticism: a vote from teachers to walk off the job. The first day of that walkout is scheduled for Thursday.
The selling of the plan began at its outset, with a news conference on a Thursday that changed locations once and changed times twice.
What had been a 3 p.m. announcement in the Governor’s Office became a 4 p.m. news conference in a spacious conference room, with enough space to host the governor standing in front of a crowd of supporters.
Assembling those supporters began hours before.
Dawn Penich-Thacker, a spokeswoman for Save our Schools Arizona, which formed to beat back a Duceysigned law to expand private-school vouchers, got a call at around 11:45 a.m. while ordering lunch.
The Governor’s Office asked her to attend a noon briefing on a pay raise plan. Penich-Thacker got her salad to go.
Penich-Thacker said representatives from the school board association, the superintendents’ association and the Arizona PTA were at the briefing in the governor’s suite of offices.
Ducey’s education adviser, Dawn Wallace, laid out the plan in what Penich-Thacker described as vague terms. Then, Ducey entered the room.
It was the first time Penich-Thacker had met the governor, the man she had publicly criticized for his educationfunding priorities. She was impressed to be face-to-face with him, but she also wondered exactly why she was there.
“My spidey sense definitely went up,” she said.
Ducey said that he was going to fund 20 percent pay raises for teachers and not touch the additional money to districts he had promised in January. He said that he would fund it by giving up some of his wish list of proposals.
“It made it sound like he was really giving something up in order to fund this pay package,” Penich-Thacker said.
As the group disbanded before the afternoon press conference, there was a plea.
Penich-Thacker said the assembled educators and activists were told to sell this plan to their groups. A press release would be good; so would some socialmedia posts.
She went to her car, ate her warm salad and called the leadership of her group, who decided that it was enough of a good-faith effort that they could give preliminary support for it.
When it came time for the press conference, Penich-Thacker was told where to stand. She was guided to a spot near the center, about two rows behind Ducey.
“It was very much, ‘Can I put you in a prominent spot?’ As I was being moved into a prominent spot,” she said.
Next to her was Beth Simek, the head of the Arizona PTA. Simek had received a similar call that morning and attended the noon briefing.
Her reasoning: “If the Governor’s Office is calling and asking for me specifically, it’s hard for me to turn that down,” she said.
The news conference was just the start of what would become a weeklong wave of activity to gain support for the proposal.
Days after the announcement, some of Ducey staff members took to television morning shows to promote the plan. Ducey’s chief of staff, Kirk Adams, appeared on Channel 12; Ducey’s spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, handled questions at Channel 3.
Ducey’s office also began a socialmedia hashtag for the plan, #20x2020.
It provided a counterpoint to the #RedForEd hashtag started by Arizona Educators United, the grassroots group that started the teacher protests for higher funding.
Ducey would ask followers of his social-media feed to virtually co-sign the plan by clicking on a link and typing in their name.
Another series of Twitter posts showed how the plan would affect individual school districts. A graphic showed the average pay in each district rising each fiscal year.
Within days of Ducey introducing the plan, videos from supporters popped up on Twitter. Among them were Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers, Mesa Mayor John Giles, Arizona Cardinals President Michael Bidwill and Dr. Cara Christ, the director of the state’s health department.
Seeing those videos on her feed made Penich-Thacker recall the plea from the Governor’s Office.
“They did a very direct ask that when this proposal comes out, we need you and your organization to promote it,” she said. “They were very adamant from the get-go that you all need to help sell it.”
She noted that most of the videos were made by Republican politicians and chambers of commerce.
“You’re not seeing public-school teachers,” she said.
Brandy Wells, a member of the state cosmetology board and a vice president of external affairs at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, created her video while she was on vacation in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“I think it is a wonderful idea, so I wanted to share my thoughts on it,” Wells said of her video. She demurred when asked directly whether she had received any encouragement from the Governor’s Office to record a video.
Wells spoke following a news conference held by business leaders outside the state Capitol. She held up a sign that read, “Arizona Businesses Value Teachers” as members of chambers of commerce took turns giving speeches praising the plan.
“It’s important everyone come together on this,” said Neil Giuliano, the former Tempe mayor and current CEO of Greater Phoenix Leadership.
That same week, the Governor’s Office held two calls with reporters.
Ducey hoped the weeklong sales job would be enough to get the plan passed.
In the conference call with voters held on April 16, Ducey responded to a question from a woman in Peoria named Jennifer. She asked when the plan might pass. She said she had put in for retirement, but thought about returning, spurred by the raise.
Ducey told her he was “working hard every day and night so we can get a ‘yes’ vote on this.”
He predicted swift passage.
“It will likely take a couple more days,” he said. “Maybe this full week.”
No bill was introduced in either chamber when that week ended.
As more details of the plan emerged, the Arizona PTA and Save our Schools Arizona withdrew their support.
But both Simek and Penich-Thacker are still in a TV ad — standing behind Ducey as he talks about his proposal. It started airing extensively on Arizona airwaves over the weekend.
In it, a narrator says that Ducey is “strengthening our public schools, without raising taxes.” Although the audio of Ducey speaking sounds hollow and distant, the ad ends with the clear sound of loud cheering and applause.
The Republican Governors Association, which supports members of the GOP running for governor nationwide, is paying for the ads.
Penich-Thacker said it was disappointing to see herself and Simek in the commercial.
“I think it shows how superficial they feel voters and regular citizens are,” she said. “That all they need is to see an image and hear talking points.”
When the ad airs, all Simek can see is herself in the shot.
“My husband gets a big kick out of it,” she said.
Scarpinato said Tuesday that he believed the selling of the plan was progressing just fine.
“We feel very good about where we are,” he said.
Ducey was optimistic about how long it would take for the proposal to pass the Legislature, Scarpinato said, and remains so.
“The governor would like to see this done as soon as possible,” Scarpinato said.
In the House chamber on Tuesday, a group of Phoenix Union High School students were holding a mock legislative session at the Capitol. The students proposed bills in meeting rooms that went through committees.
Rep. Isela Blanc, D-Tempe, spoke to the students on the House floor about how the chamber’s procedures work. She didn’t mention closed-door sessions with the governor.
Blanc said that the feedback she’s getting — from the public, not business or industry leaders — is supportive of education funding, but not necessarily the governor’s plan.