Arizona teachers rally as funding vote nears to end strike

PHOENIX — Striking Arizona teachers who won a big pay increase but came up substantially short of achieving their demands for more school funding flooded the Arizona Capitol for a fifth day Wednesday hoping it will be the last they are out of their classrooms.

The Republican-controlled Legislature was considering a state budget that promises the first installment of a 20 percent pay increase by 2020 and a partial restoration of cuts to education funding, but many teachers said if the lawmakers failed to act Wednesday, they would not go back to work.

Teachers didn’t get everything they wanted, but believe they made major inroads. They had sought an immediate 20 percent pay raise, competitive pay for support professionals, guaranteed annual raises, funding returned to 2008 levels and no new tax cuts until Arizona reaches the national per-pupil funding average.

“We here in Arizona have banded together as educators, we’ve set up a grassroots movement with 1,700 schools involved, 1,700 liaisons, and if we’re ever called to come back we will come back together and we’ll come back stronger,” teacher Scott Gebbie said.

The tentative budget deal between legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is a major victory for teachers, who were offered only a 1 percent raise in the governor’s initial budget proposal. The offer set for debate and likely passage was announced two weeks before teachers walked out last Thursday.

Lawmakers did tweak it with changes to the rosy economic projections Ducey relied on to make funding more sustainable. And a top Republican lawmaker gave teachers credit for keeping the pressure on.

“I think that they had a promise from us that we were going to do something,” House Majority Leader John Allen said. “Our track record of delivering that promise has not always been perfect, so I don’t think they wasted their time.”