Teachers in Arizona and Colorado Walk Out Over Education Funding

PHOENIX — Thousands of teachers in Arizona and Colorado walked out of their classrooms Thursday to demand more funding for public schools, the latest surge of a teacher protest movement that has already swept through three states and is spreading quickly to others.

Hundreds of public schools were shut down in Arizona because of the walkouts, which turned the streets of downtown Phoenix into seas of crimson as educators and their supporters marched to the state Capitol wearing red T-shirts and chanting “Red for Ed,” as the movement is known here.

Widespread teacher protests have in recent months upended daily routines in the conservative-leaning states West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky. But the sight of public workers protesting en masse in the Arizona capital, one of the largest Republican strongholds in the country, and demanding tax increases for more school funding spoke to the enduring strength of the movement and signaled shifts in political winds ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“I’ll be voting for anyone who supports public education,” said Jamie Woodward, a curriculum coordinator from Cottonwood, Arizona. “We have impoverished teachers living in camper trailers.” Woodward, 40, was a registered Republican for 17 years, she said, but recently became an independent.

An analysis by The Arizona Republic showed that more than 840,000 of the state’s 1.1 million public school students could be affected by the school closings.

Teachers and their supporters began gathering Thursday morning around Chase Field, a baseball stadium in Phoenix. From there, they marched to the Capitol to hold a rally calling for restoring education funding to pre-recession levels, raising their pay, and halting tax cuts until per-pupil funding reaches the national average.

The march unfolded peacefully, with many teachers walking with their children and other supporters; nearly everyone was wearing the red shirts symbolizing their movement. Their signs read: “This Republican family supports #RedforEd,” “History is Watching,” and “Arizona’s top exports: Citrus, Copper, Teachers.”

Much of the protesters’ ire was directed personally at Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, who has resisted demands to end tax cuts to bolster public education spending. Teachers pressed ahead with the walkout despite a promise by the governor to increase their salaries 20 percent by 2020. Betting that a growing economy will bolster revenue, Ducey said he could provide the raises and reinforce school budgets without tax increases, a proposal that many teachers and lawmakers doubted.

In a statement Thursday, the governor urged citizens to contact their legislators to urge approval of his pay plan. “Without a doubt, teachers are some of the biggest difference-makers in the lives of Arizona children,” Ducey said. “They need to be respected, and rewarded, for the work they do — and Arizona can do better on this front.”

Arizona spent $8,141 per pupil in 2017, well below the national average, according to the state’s auditor general. The average teacher salary in Arizona was $48,372 last year, also well below the national average. Younger and less experienced teachers can make far less than the state average.

Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said that the starting salary for teachers in Arizona was about $35,000, which for many in the profession made paying off student loans or starting a family difficult. The organizers of the walkout, Thomas said, sought to show political leaders how much educators were hurting financially in Arizona, where Republicans control the state Legislature and years of tax cuts have drained education budgets.

“A teaching certification used to secure landing in the middle class,” Thomas added. “That’s not the case anymore in Arizona, and we need to do something about it now.”

It remains to be seen how Arizona’s leaders will respond to the teachers’ movement and how long it could last. Teachers in Oklahoma picketed the Capitol for nine days, calling for funding that largely did not materialize, though they did get a $6,000 raise. The statewide teachers’ strike in West Virginia shut down schools for almost two weeks.

In both Arizona and Colorado, organizers have asked teachers to wear red during the walkouts, as they have been doing for weeks in smaller protests.

Thousands of teachers planned to descend on the steps of the gold-domed Capitol in Denver on Thursday and Friday, where they will meet with lawmakers and urge them to increase classroom funding. At least 27 districts in Colorado have canceled classes, saying they will not have enough teachers to accommodate students on those days.

Colorado’s economy is booming, but the state teachers’ union, the Colorado Education Association, says the state has shorted the education system $6.6 billion since 2009. This has affected students in numerous ways, said Kerrie Dallman, the union president. Half of the districts in the state now have four-day school weeks, and the state’s low teacher pay has helped create a 3,000-person staffing shortage.

Teachers, Dallman said, are working two or even three jobs, buying their own school supplies or turning to GoFundMe to pay for new textbooks.

“All of the educators who are planning to come down to the Capitol, they would much rather be in the classroom educating their students,” Dallman said. “But we are collectively fed up after years of doing more with less and being promised it will get better in the future.”

“We can’t afford to wait anymore,” she added. “The students in Colorado can’t afford to wait any longer.”