Ducey, legislative leaders arrive at teacher pay deal

“Today we are here to send our message loud and clear to the Colorado legislature, to the voters, to our cities and towns, and to our entire community that we do not have enough money for our schools and that needs to change now”.

Teachers voted to walkout after Ducey unveiled his plan, saying that it failed to meet their other demands including about $1 billion to return school funding to pre-Great Recession levels and increased pay for support staff.

One option, Kavanagh said, would be to give school boards more leeway – but only after a public vote, what he called “kind of a shaming”. In Phoenix this week, I went to an organizing meeting in the suburban backyard of an elementary school teacher named Lisa Wyatt, where teachers and parents made plans to knock on their neighbors’ doors to build support for the walkout. In Ducey’s tweet he says he and the legislature have agreed to a deal that would give teachers a 20-percent raise by the year 2020, 100-million dollars in additional money for support staff, which would increase to 371-million dollars over five years, permanent, ongoing protection in the base formula and no tax increases.

“We are also restoring recession-era cuts to increase funding for schools and putting more money into the classroom – flexible dollars for superintendents to use for support staff pay increases, update antiquated curriculum and improve school infrastructure – without raising taxes”.

State spending on K-12 education actually declined in some years, and many school districts froze pay and cut programs. It’s among the most ambitious voucher programs nationally.

The governor weeks ago announced a proposal to raise teacher pay over the next three years but educators say it’s not enough.

The governor spoke Friday to several thousand teachers gathered at a park near the state Capitol on the second straight day of demonstrations over pay for teachers.

Some of the teachers held signs referencing the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) and Gallagher Amendment – two pieces of legislation that greatly impact education funding. About half of the student population will have shuttered schools as a result, with teachers using personal leave time to take off. The action has inspired teachers in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Colorado and Arizona.

Arizona teachers continued the first statewide teachers strike on Friday, filling the capitol plaza.

I wholeheartedly support the teachers on this one. As Will, an Arizona special education teacher, told World Socialist Web Site reporters: “The Democrats are even worse than the Republicans”. Nothing about teachers deserting their classrooms and their students. And the number of teachers since prior to NCLB have grown more than twice that of students!

Kavanagh, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the plan as crafted by Ducey is worded in a way that teachers – and only teachers – would get a 9 percent increase this coming school year, another 5 percent the year after that and 5 percent more the third year.

In the middle is an unlikely player: the few charter school teachers who have joined the protest.

“I’m excited to have a deal with the governor and the president”, Mesnard said.

Daisy Maestas is an ELL (English Language Learner) and ceramics teacher in her fourth year of teaching at Tolleson Union High School District.

“Barbara Skinner, a Phoenix-area educator, said she was “disappointed” in the lawmakers”.

Some teachers shouted over him, “We want more”, while others applauded him.

Jason Bedrick, policy director for the school choice advocacy group EdChoice, said teachers groups are pitting educators against families for political gain. When teachers lack strong collective representation, scrappy new grass-roots organizations like Arizona Educators United can quickly build followings. If a teacher has a class of 24 to 28 kids and two of them are struggling, the teacher becomes so handicapped that he or she can’t help, or teach, anyone.

“This is not something that erupted overnight”, Cather said.

Even though classes were canceled at Denver Public Schools – the state’s largest district – the popular Shakespeare Festival continued and some students even attended both the rally at the Capitol and paid tribute to the Bard himself.