Teachers union calls for $1.7 billion in new school funding

With legislators still undecided on how to spend the record $5.3 billion dollar budget surplus, the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, is demanding massive increases in education funding.

Heather Ayers, president of the Isaac District Association and a teacher at Joseph Zito Elementary School in Phoenix, said that the unwillingness of lawmakers to mobilize the surplus to support classrooms is frustrating for teachers, who feel left behind.

“(Schools) aren’t being valued. Our students aren’t being valued. Our families aren’t being valued, our teachers aren’t being valued,” she said.

The AEA this week released its “Educator’s Budget” to address those concerns, which calls for $1.2 billion in new ongoing funding for public schools and another $450 million in one-time spending. In addition to a $505 million increase to the basic education funding formula, the plan calls for creating new funding sources for schools through Tribal Student Weight, Opportunity Weight and Junior High Weight, each of which would allocate extra dollars to schools based on their student populations.

Read more: https://www.azmirror.com/blog/teachers-union-calls-for-1-7-billion-in-new-school-funding/