Arizona GOP renews its war on public education
Last year Governor Doug Ducey was forced into increasing his offer of a one percent pay increase for public school teachers to an incremental twenty percent pay increase over two years in response to the Red For Ed teacher strike in Arizona. Governor Ducey suggested at the time that this was just a down payment on restoring massive cuts to public education since the Great Recession and subsequent years over the past decade. Governor Ducey went so far as to market himself as the “education governor” in his reelection bid.
Now that the election is past, that down payment on public education funding talk is nowhere to be found. In his State of The State address on Monday, “the governor talked mostly about programs and initiatives he’s rolled out before, such as the Arizona Teacher’s Academy and his school safety plan. He did not propose any new funding plans, sticking to his 20 by 2020 plan and doubling down on his promise for no tax hikes.“ What Gov. Doug Ducey said (and didn’t say) about education in State of the State address:
Ducey said he would continue to “hold the line” on raising taxes, signaling a lack of support for any education-related tax increases, possibly like the one state Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, proposed before the legislative session even started.
The governor didn’t address the possibility of finding new revenue streams for education.
He did pledge to keep his promise to raise teachers’ salaries by 20 percent by 2020.
The governor is halfway there, with last year’s 10 percent raise. This year, he’ll need to add $165 million to the budget for teacher pay to stick to that promise.
Critics say Ducey’s 20 percent raise proposal doesn’t go far enough to make teacher pay in Arizona competitive with other states — and public schools need more money to fix problems beyond teachers raises.
Read more: https://blogforarizona.net/arizona-gop-renews-its-war-on-public-education/
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