Teacher walk-outs in Phoenix area (Glendale, Peoria: home, school district, taxi)

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by thinkalot

Most families don't add to the economy. They use many more services than they pay for. A single retiree that spends $25,000 a year helps much more than a family of 5 that spends less than $100,000 a year.

I don't think too many poor retirees move here. I am sure there are some but a low percentage of the total.

thinkalot. It could be said that most retirees suck out a lot more on medicare, nursing homes, and SS benefits than they every paid in. They of course default to the statement that they paid in a lot over the years. Not really for most. In fact, according too https://www.fool.com/retirement/gene...e-any-ret.aspx :

"a recent survey by GoBankingRates, about 30% of those 55 and over admit to having no retirement savings whatsoever. Meanwhile, 26% report having balances of less than $50,000,....."

So while the neighbors in Sun City Grand are probably in FINE shape, the major of retirees are near broke. Chances are, they didn't pay in very much but are sucking the suds on the services assuming they "deserve it". i.e. my parents: $0.00 in savings, barely paid in all their life to SS and used all kinds of services that the country, state, and county paid for. But hey, they "paid in" so they deserved it, right?

In fairness as we would both agree, most families don't add squat to the economy either. In summary, "most people" take out a lot more than they pay in including retirees. It seems everyone thinks they deserve all that they get.

[ghdana]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

You might be right. If he meant "=/= is "Not equal to" I missed his real POV. But his supporting words on the same post read that he was discounting the lower value/salary. Because teachers were supposedly in oversupply (and how I read it) not as important. But I see your point. So I guess I'm now really not sure what he meant.

I was saying pay is not equal to importance of the job. Sure teachers are one of the most important jobs. The issue is Maricopa county is the fastest growing county in the US and we have a ton of teachers, and even more people that are qualified to teach and want to. They'll obviously take the job at a low wage or do something else.

I have over 10 college friends with teaching degrees that have never utilized them because they can get paid more to do something else, or some of them can't even find teaching jobs that will hire them after not teaching for a few years.

Are we actually hurting for teachers? I know the schools around me are fine. I don't see salary's rising until we are in desperate need for them, and with the growing population there are plenty of people just thankful for having a job.

[kpl1228]

I love the idea of a good ol' fashioned walkout, regardless of the profession, if the time and the cause is right and management will not budge to reasonable requests. But I know teachers in AZ, and they are overworked and underpaid in many cases. That and the union has been decimated to the point of a non-entity except in urban areas throughout AZ.

Proud union teacher here. Spending this beautiful Saturday morning giving the practice ACT exam to my terrific students and happily doing it. I'm looking around at these young people right now at this very moment and the last thing I would want is to give them some stressed out teacher, lowballed on pay and benefits to the breaking point, leaving the profession or the state because there's "no more money" for teachers.

If your son or daughter was a teacher, I know you'd be proud. And shouldn't they have a living wage and benefits worthy of their education? When I relocated to the Southwest to continue my teaching career, I knew I wouldn't go to AZ. New Mexico has its own crazy problems for schools and teachers, but AZ? My pay would be awful and my benefits virtually non-existent in a "right to work" state. I know a few AZ teachers and it's all confirmed. Not to mention charter teachers making Wal-Mart money.

A teacher walkout in AZ? Sounds about right. I wish them well. And it sure doesn't mean they're doing it to hurt the kids. The state's done enough of that already.

[grad_student200]

Originally Posted by asufan

Apparently teachers in West Phoenix and Glendale are staging walk-outs to protest their low pay. While I am 100% in agreement that they need raises and have been on their side, I think they're going about this the wrong way. Walking out on kids is going to do nothing but anger the parents (voters) and the teachers #1 priority is supposed to be the kids, not their salary. They knew what the salaries would be when they signed up for the job, and many that I have spoken to gladly take the lower pay for all of the weeks off. While I do agree with their message, I don't like the method. Kids have to miss school and parents need to re-arrange their schedules last minute.

https://www.abc15.com/news/region-ph...y-over-low-pay

I went to HS in rural AZ and then out-of-state at an elite midwestern college. That freshman year was ridiculously hard because my HS did not prepare me. At the time, I learned AZ high schools generally ranked academically at about 48 out of 50 states. Meanwhile, I was in STEM classes with elite HS students from among the best public or private high schools in the country: New York, Virginia, suburban Chicago, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. AZ was just really bad for the public HS ranking.

The low pay explains a lot of that. By contrast, the suburbs of the midwest seem to pay teachers really well. This results in a more selective pool of applicants having the ability to teach many subjects. For example, the English teacher in an elite midwestern HS could also teach calculus - that is a common pattern. In rural AZ the HS often did not even have a calculus teacher - LOL.

There are some good high schools in Phoenix and Tucson, but rural AZ was usually at the bottom of the ranking. The low pay has been an issue for decades going back to the 80s. It's about time they do something about it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUewxOm3ztU

[LadyKatie3]

A man working full time as a teacher should be able to support a wife and family on his wages. The wage should be set at that point.

[Valley Native]

I agree that teachers aren't paid enough for all the schooling they went through (plus all the crap they have to contend with from kids & parents). At the same time, they knew the salary ranges when they started work in the public sector, so they need to quit their protesting & either find another profession, or apply in the private sector where the pay is generally higher & the education standards are far superior. Simple as that.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by asufan

And neither will walking out. Using your logic why not burn the schools down? "Because everything else hasn't worked". Terrible logic.

Using your logic, workers should never stage a work action because someone might not like it. Your logic would put us back in the days of John D. Rockefeller. You don't know your history.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by phx1205

What I haven’t seen anyone talk about is: if we think teachers should be paid more, what is the solution to make that happen?

What I think some people are arguing here is these teachers need to take real action, like a prop that says each district must spend a minimum of 60% (for example) of revenue in the classroom ( including teacher pay). Why aren’t people gathering signatures to get something like that on the next ballot? That’s the kind of stuff that I think some people in this thread are saying would be much more effective than a walkout.

So what’s your idea/solution?

I think that's good suggestion, but I doubt it would happen.

I grew up in western NYS where taxpayers got to vote on the school budget. Virtually every year it got voted down for one simple reason -- they didn't get to vote on the federal budget. They didn't get to vote on the state budget. They didn't get to vote on local government budgets. So they would vent their frustrations out on the one budget they did get to vote on -- the school budget.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by asufan

I'm a product of California public schools, not AZ, however no one is saying the pay is OK they knew what they were getting into, I'm saying the pay is not OK, but don't start a school year knowing what you get paid and walk out from your job. Protest all you want as long as youre doing your damn job. Or don't commit to it at all.

Apparently you haven't actually read the whole thread. Several posters said exactly that.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by AZ Manager

Where is the money going to come from? We just dumped $240 million from prop 123 into public schools where the overwhelming majority of that is going to teacher pay, raises and new hires make up 90% of the mkney. That doesn't even factor the increases at the local level from all the teacher pay bills that were voted on in 2016. With 4.5 million residents it would take another $54 a year in taxes to match the prop 123 additions which teachers have labeled as way too little. Should we all throw in a couple hundred more a year just for salaries? Where's the bill for it? Do we also tax Sun City, etc.? If not the individual share goes up more.

I say not without a major revamp of our public school systems in the first place. Why is there such a gigantic disparity for things like administration costs, meal costs, etc. per student around the state?

"Where is the money going to come from?" is precisely the question we need to be asking. In addition to all the money pumped into the schools from Prop 123, we have continuous increases in local property taxes, of which nearly 70% go toward public education. No matter how much money we throw into the system, it never seems to be enough ... and even the best public schools are substandard compared to private schools. As I've repeatedly stated numerous times, the only viable solution to "revamp" the education system is to privatize it. Until more people wake up and realize that privatization can and does work, we will continue to be stuck paying for this beast for generations to come.

Please don't even suggest taxing age restricted communities like Sun City. They are in place for many reasons: one of which is the absence of school taxes, which many older people prefer since they are on fixed incomes and don't have children in the system. There are no school districts in Sun City, so it would make no sense to impose school taxes on anybody living in a community where there are no schools to fund.