South Pima News

David Lujan laments he could have recited the State of Education speech delivered by the state’s superintendent of Public Instruction earlier this month before he even heard a word.

“The crisis situation we now find ourselves in is the result of a decade of underfunding our public schools,” Lujan, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, told South Pima News. “Our public schools just don’t have the resources they need and teachers are not paid a competitive wage, resulting in many of them leaving the profession.”

In her address before the House Education Committee, Supt. Kathy Hoffman declared the problem a “state of emergency,” estimating that there are currently as many as 2,000 unfilled teaching posts across the state.  

Overall, an Arizona State University analysis of government data finds that the state ranks 49th across the country in median elementary school teacher salary at $45,353. In comparing those numbers to the nearly $60,000 salaries starting teachers in nearby Utah earn, Hoffman said it’s easy to see why educators in Arizona might feel undervalued.

“Just as Utah teachers deserve a living wage, so do our teachers in Arizona,” she told KJZZ.org. “If not, I fear we will continue to lose highly-qualified educators to other states and other industries that place a higher value on their leadership skills.”

Lujan argues that moment of truth has already come.

“The legislature here has the wrong priorities,” he said. “For three decades, we’ve seen tax cut after tax cut to corporations and some of the wealthiest people in the state. We need new investment in our public education system that increases resources for teachers. We may not still be actively cutting funding, but the schools are still struggling because we had the most cuts in the country from 2008 to 2014 and we haven’t restored any of what was cut. Schools actually have less now than they had a decade ago.”

For the system to change the way he thinks it needs to, Lujan said he also wants to see parents and residents do their part.  

“We need to start electing lawmakers that truly value public education,” he said. “I think right now we have too many legislators that say they support public education but when they get in office don’t really vote that way.”