Striking U.S. teachers and holes in education funding

For decades, those that wanted the American Dream were told to get an education, to help make it come true. And, generations of immigrants did just that - at church sponsored schools, night school -- to use an old school term - and high schools, where with foreign accents, and often shabby clothes, leftover from the Old World, they did the three R’s, and later on, some even became CEOs of major companies; many from public schools, but now with the recent teacher walkouts and strikes, an essential chunk of that dream has become a nightmare.

For much of the South, and parts of the Midwest, teachers are paid abysmally low amounts, and often well below the national average of $59,660, and with frustration gnawing away at them, early last month, thousands of them marched “on state capitals in Oklahoma and Kentucky, shuttering schools and demanding that Republican-controlled legislatures vote to increase their pay,” reported the Hill.

“And those very states are at the center of the current wave of protests. Arizona, Oklahoma and West Virginia pay their teachers far less than the national average. All three states are in the seven states where average teacher salaries are lowest, according to the National Education Association, the nation’s other major teachers union.”

Adding to the mix was “a  nine-day strike in West Virginia, where teachers secured a 5 percent pay raise, and protests in Arizona last week, where teachers wore red and gathered at the state capital to demand a much larger 20 percent pay increase,” The Hill also noted..

While the Oklahoma teachers strike and walkout ended, with a stalemate, and the realization that the Republican legislature was not going  to budge one more inch, in funding, they went back to work. And, some felt that while they did not get all that they wanted the resulting publicity of their plight meant that the next battle would be easier.

Taking a look in the rearview mirror, “Teachers in Oklahoma received a pay raise when the Republican governor signed legislation “hiking their salary as much as $6,100 a year, but they sought, a “bigger across-the-board $10,000 raise. Average teacher salaries in Oklahoma were lower than all but one other state before the recent hike.”

Meanwhile protests in Kentucky revolved around a pension reform bill replacing “the existing defined benefit pension plans with a plan that couples 401(k)-type savings accounts with traditional pension benefits.”

The past becomes present in our post recession environment where state budgets, already squeezed tight, and pay raises are thought impossible, but now these, and other demands are being made after years of frustration. And, while salaries loom large for some teachers, in certain geographic areas, there are those in some school districts, where teachers spend approximately $656 each year from their own pockets on books, paper, pens, and even meals, to sustain the gaping hole in the funding of public education..

Looking again at salaries, “A 2016 study by the center-left Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found teachers make 17 percent less than workers in other industries with similar education and skill levels, a gap that has grown in the post-recession years.”

In an interview with the Economic Policy Institute, Larry Mishel, a distinguished fellow at EP said, “Teachers in particular have seen their wages and benefits, their compensation in total, lag behind that of other workers for more than 20 years,”and furthermore, “In this recovery, teachers have not fared very well. [Legislatures] been cutting back on school budgets and letting teacher pay lag and attacking teacher pensions, all while they manage to give out tax breaks for corporations.”

That’s a dig at the recent Tax Plan by President Trump, but it also speaks volumes for a less than charitable view that many Americans feel towards teachers, and their profession.

In an earlier era some said, “those than can, do, and those that can’t, teach,” but while that is less true than before, the teaching profession has earned far less respect than it deserves, which is ironic, as no one argues the benefit of a solid education to ensure an economically prosperous community.

Taking a partisan turn to these recent events “give Democrats hope that union energy will spark high voter turnout in this year’s midterm elections. Coupled with antipathy toward Trump among energized voters, especially women and millennials, those voters could deliver Democratic victories in states where the party has struggled in recent years,” added the Hill.

Along with Kentucky, all four states voted for Trump in 2016.

As we have seen in other races, in a profession dominated by women, many have sought to run for elected office to break the pattern, and this alone, coupled with the successors to the #MeToo movement make this a threat to the GOP losing seats in the House, as well as the Senate; and, there are some who are saying that there might be an eight to ten point lead by the Dems; the so called “blue wave”, expected to hit this November.

While respect for the profession was a strong factor in the 2012 Chicago teachers strike, the central problem was, as it is for many areas across the country, is underfunded pensions that have nibbled, and gnawed away at money for public education.

PBS in its Newshour program commented that: “Teachers usually say a persistent funding shortage, which has cost public schools $6.6 billion since 2009, led them to walk off the job and close down schools last week. Among the biggest reasons for lagging pay is one of the least understood: The rising cost of state pensions.”

“Public pension systems nationwide face record levels of debt, totaling $1.4 trillion, according to a recent Pew Charitable Trusts study. That puts downward pressure on wages and benefit checks as governments struggle to close the funding gap. It suggests the recent outcry over teacher pay could spread in coming years, whether pension costs are widely acknowledged as a driving factor or not,” they emphasized.

Some  observers state that this is not the end, and “I think we’re headed for a big crisis across the country,” said Olivia Mitchell, executive director of the Pension Research Council at the University of Pennsylvania. “Pensions are now becoming the tail that wags the government dog, if you will.”

Colorado, a mostly Democratic state, the outlier from the Republican dominated states, is another example, and “school district payments to the public pension fund have roughly doubled since 2006, from about 10 percent of payroll to 20 percent. That has squeezed personnel budgets when the state also was cutting funding during the economic downturn,” added PBS.

For the most part, those recession area cuts were not restored, in the Republican led states, adding to the existing salary deficit, and coupled with the Trump tax reform bill which increased corporate profits, the die was cast, for a showdown.

For Denver, the “average teacher salaries have grown 21 percent, from $44,439 to $53,768, according to salary data from the National Education Association. But inflation in the greater Denver area has outpaced it, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, leaving teachers with an 8 percentage point drop in buying power.”

Going even further, “Additional contributions are not padding the benefits of current teachers. The bulk of the money that school districts spend on the Public Employees’ Retirement Association is paying off $32 billion in benefits previously promised to public-sector retirees but never properly funded.”

“Cutting future benefits worries teachers. Public sector workers in Colorado don’t receive Social Security, so proposed cuts to cost-of-living raises will leave them more vulnerable to inflation over time.”

The good news, of sort, came on Thursday with the end of the possible strike, and definite school closures, in Arizona, when Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a $644 million bump to increase teacher salaries, who were among the lowest paid in the nation.

He also cleverly made the announcement taking the momentum out of Arizona Education United, who represented the teachers; with the result that many teachers literally folded their tents on the lawn of the state capitol, where they had camped out.

The victory was only a partial one, and many did not consider the raise enough, it was only part of the package that the dissenting educators wanted which, first and foremost, would have been money to support the pre-recession funding levels of $1 billion; a pay raise for senior teachers; and an end to new tax cuts, until per pupil funding hit the national mean for per pupil spending; but perhaps most importantly, an increase in the ratio of counselors and social workers, to counteract the mental health and struggles of troubled students, especially in the aftermath of the Parkland school shootings.

Updated June 30, 2018 at 2: 53 p.m. (CSDT)