FAQ: Teachers vs. Politicians

Didn't the legislature fund smaller class size for k-6?
Last year Washington voters passed an initiative requiring smaller class sizes in all grade levels. After much debate the legislature decided to fund a small portion of that law.  Whether or not I-1351 was a good initiative or not is something we will not get into right now.  The fact remains that the legislature did set aside some money to fund smaller class sizes for some grades (read a little about that HERE).  So why aren't we getting smaller classes here in Pasco? Because Saundra Hill has said "no thank you" to those funds, arguing that we don't have classroom space or teachers to make that a reality.  This is a false argument however because funding for smaller class sizes can be used to hire additional support staff. Many districts assign extra para-educator supports to most (if not all) classrooms. In Pasco even our neediest classrooms (special education and bi-lingual) are often left with out extra instructional support staff.

The average employee doesn't get a cola or step raise, why should teachers?
This is a great point, and one that we would whole heartily agree with if we had an abundance of teachers. But the truth is we are desperately short on teachers across the state. In Pasco we are less than a month away from the first day of school and we still have more than 70 classrooms without teachers. This is a simple case of supply and demand economics. If there aren't enough people willing to go into teaching (supply is low and demand is high) then the price of a teacher (their salary) should naturally go up. If there were hundreds of applicants for every open position, there would be no need for raises. But that is not the case here.
Another point to mention is that raises based on years of service end somewhere between eight and sixteen years (this varies based on education level). Teacher salaries cap out at $38,000 for a bachelor's degree, $57,000 for a master's degree, and $64,000 for a doctorate.These are not exceptionally high salaries for this level of education. Once a teacher has maxed out the pay scale, there is little incentive for them to stay in the job at a current level of pay (or possibly less pay depending on a variety of fluctuating factors) when they could leave teaching and possibly make more money somewhere else.

Isn't the average salary of a legislator far less than that of a teacher?
Yes. In Washington the average legislator earns about $42,000 per year and the average teacher earns $52,000. But again let's look at supply and demand. There is no shortage of politicians but there is a teacher shortage. So if an average salary of $52,000 per year isn't bringing in enough teachers, something has to be done about that. It's not that a teacher's salary is too small to live on or that teachers deserve more than some other professions (those are both very subjective arguments).  The simple truth is we have a teacher shortage, that in and of itself tells us that we are not paying teachers enough to make it a desirable profession.

Legislators didn't get a cola for 8 years, so don't they deserve a raise?
No. They are public servants. It is not meant to be their full time job. There is no shortage of people applying for jobs as legislators, so why are we incentivizing the position? Do they need a raise? No. If they are unhappy with the salary, they can go back to their day job.  There are plenty more politicians to take their place. Unfortunately the same can not be said of teachers.

Why are you blaming legislators for giving themselves a raise when it was a third party that made the recommendation?
No matter who's idea it was, at the end of the day they still voted to give themselves a raise. They bemoaned the lack of funding for worthwhile endeavors and then boosted their own pay. 


Doesn't teachers asking for an 11% pay raise look like a tantrum?
Yes, we'll agree with you there. It was a crazy request.  But look at it from a bargaining standpoint. You start high and then dicker back and forth. It's just how it's done. It would be nice if it wasn't that way, but that is currently how salary negotiations are conducted.  However, we've already asserted that teacher pay does need to go up, so we aren't going to get caught up in whether or not they asked nicely.  It's a side argument meant to deflect attention from the real issue at hand.


If the state already gave teacher raises this year, why do Pasco teachers think they need more?
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that the raise given by the legislature was a fair and reasonable raise. That money was given to all teachers across the state. That sounds fair right?  The problem is teaching in Pasco isn't like teaching in other districts. Other districts have resources (fancy things like CURRICULUM) that make the job a whole lot easier. Because teaching in Pasco is arguably harder than teaching in other districts, PSD needs to sweeten the pot a little and offer teachers something more than they can get in Kennewick or Richland.  How do we know teaching in Pasco is considered less desirable? Because we still have 70+ job openings and Richland has 10. Last year 70 teachers left the district, this year it is already over 100.


Why can't we remove federal money and state control and make it all local?
In principal having more local control and less state and federal meddling sounds wonderful. However, different communities have different resources available. If all funding came from the local level, the equity gap among schools would be even more staggering than it already is.  Just a quick look at our own Tri-Cities and you can see this is true. There are a lot of things funded by big government, but a lot is funded by local levies and bonds. The difference in tax base just between Richland and Pasco means that Richland is building schools like they are made of money (because they practically are) and Pasco is struggling just to keep some of our buildings at less than 150% capacity. On a national scale the difference in resources between a poverty stricken urban school and a wealthy district in the suburbs is truly appalling.
A beautiful solution would be to have all schools equally funded by federal dollars, with all control of spending done at the local level. However, given the nature of politics/power/money that seems unlikely. The plain truth of the matter is, if we funded all schools locally, Pasco would come up short to cover even basic services for students.