PHOENIX — Five years ago tomorrow, tens of thousands of teachers, other educators, parents and students marched across the country, protesting teacher pay in the Red for Ed Movement.
In a new report released by the National Education Association (NEA), pay in Arizona has increased in the last year.
Being an English teacher and track coach at Camelback High is a job Tori Anderson loves. She enjoys helping her students succeed.
She’s been in the education industry for nearly 20 years, working in Arizona and across the country.
“It’s like reading 150 books simultaneously. You are sucked into the lives of actual humans and characters. You get to experience their challenges, their highs and lows, their moments of zen, their moments of accomplishment and epiphany,” Anderson said. “It’s powerful to see people in formation like that.”
However, Anderson says not specifically for her, but for others, the pay is still not enough.
“The compensation is not consummate with the amount of time, effort, experience and ability people bring to the profession,” she told ABC15.
The Arizona Education Association, Arizona’s largest teachers union, agrees.
According to the NEA, the national average for a public school teacher's salary for the 2021/2022 school year was $66,745. The average national starting teacher salary was $42,845.
In Arizona, the NEA said the average teacher salary is $56,775, and the starting teacher salary at $41,496.
Arizona is now 32nd in the nation for its average teacher salary, five spots up from the year prior. The state landed at 27th in the nation for average starting teacher pay.
School districts in Arizona have recently made efforts to increase teacher pay.
The Phoenix Union High School District board, where Anderson works, increased the starting teacher salary to $52,000 in September.
The district told ABC15 their average teacher salary is about $70,000.
Garcia said teachers are also taking on more than their own classes these days, having to substitute in other classes during prep periods, working outside of regular hours, don’t have the extra support staff, and more.
“It also doesn't address a lot of the inflation issues which a lot of people are dealing with across the board, everything costs more, and so even though we've moved up and other states are also moving up, we have to deal with the fact that salaries are not being risen the same way that inflation is going up,” said Marisol Garcia, the president of the Arizona Education Association (AEA).
Anderson said the increase is good but not good enough.
“It’s still behind where it could be, where it should be. And it’s not addressing all the needs and all the professionals at an educational institution,” she said.
Other professionals in an education institution Anderson mentions are classified staff and paraeducators.
The NEA says Arizona ranks 40th in the country for the earnings of education support professionals with an average of $29,079. The national average is $35,401.
Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne released the following statement after ABC15 asked for a comment about the rankings:
The national teacher’s union has issued a statement about the importance of raising teacher salaries, and I agree,” Horne said. “Matt Kress, a Republican legislator, has introduced a bill to raise teacher salaries by $10,000. This would put Arizona in the top 10 of states for starting salaries.
Shockingly, the Arizona teacher’s union and a number of Democrats in the legislature, oppose the bill. All we can think of is that they are opposed to it because it is a Republican bill. These kinds of questions should be bipartisan, and people should not oppose a good bill, just because it was introduced by Republican.
Since the national teacher’s union advocates for raises and the Arizona teacher’s union has opposed a bill to do just that, we are willing to facilitate introducing the state president of the teacher’s union to the national president.
Garcia told ABC15 the AEA opposes this bill because of its methods. She said the bill has “no funding source,” as the bill states the money will come from general funds.
“There is no funding source that would completely eliminate all general funding, so nothing would go to housing to infrastructure to anything at all because there's no funding source. This is just dealing with what they have in front of them,” she said.
As the teachers continue to see the pay get better, they do hope it stays that way as they continue to fight a teacher shortage.
“Don’t we want people who are the best and the brightest and most passionate? We want this profession to be something that people are desperately competing for,” Anderson said.
