Arizona is on track to have it’s first teacher walkout this Thursday. The “Red for Ed” movement has been led by arizonaeducatorsunited.com and started with walk-ins and protests along major roads in the Phoenix area, along with rallies at the State Capitol. Last Thursday a vote was taken and about 70% of teachers voted for the walk-out. Today my son attended a meeting at his Hight School that told them what to expect this coming Thursday.
My son is a 38 yr old Chemistry teacher with about 14 years experience. He has a BS in Chemistry and Masters in Education. I pay his dues to the AEA every year (because he can’t spare the extra money), both his grandparents were teachers in AZ for many, many years and always insisted that he be a part of “the closest thing we have to a union”. This is a right-to-work state and when my son called, he is more than a little apprehensive. This is no easy decision though he knows he has to walk out. Even after W. Virginia and Oklahoma, there is real fear of job security, lost wages, make up school days, and if there will be backlash in the community for parents who have to find day care. This is not a fun day of rallying at the Capitol. He has small children to take care of and it will be over 100 degrees out on the mall. He’s not convinced it will make a bit of difference to the state legislature, who he thinks will just sit back and run out the clock.
Arizona has some major problems in screwing up the state funding, implementation of Prop 301 (or lack thereof), teacher salaries declines that has been going on for decades. This is a very complicated problem and even though Gov Ducey has thrown out a plan for a 20% pay raise for teachers, my son just sees it as a publicity stunt.
I haven’t done as much of the in-depth factual research that I would like to have to explain this mess… I just felt the need to write something after hearing my son this evening. He was raised to be politically active but over the years he has been worn down. He is of a generation that is not doing as well as his parents did. He has only seen the deterioration of his state and his country. He doesn’t see much hope that things will change. It’s getting harder to give him the “pep talk” that if we just keep trying it will get better. What else can I tell him?