AFT rallies for Pay Teachers Act at Capitol Hill town hall

Hundreds of teachers, including many AFT members, converged on Capitol Hill July 24 to advocate for increased investment in public schools and specifically in teacher pay. At a lively town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), they joined Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), AFT President Randi Weingarten and National Education Association Vice President Princess Moss to focus on a promising solution: The Pay Teachers Act.

Sanders, who introduced the legislation, called it “simply unacceptable that in the richest country in the history of the world,” many teachers must work second jobs to make ends meet. “The situation has become so absurd that four hedge fund managers on Wall Street make more money in a single year than every kindergarten teacher in America combined—nearly 120,000 teachers.”

Sanders’ legislation would guarantee every teacher $60,000 a year and triple Title I funding—the federal funding allocated to schools for children from low-income families—to $36.77 billion.

“We need the best education system in the world, and that means we need the best teachers,” said Sanders. “To get the best teachers, we need to pay them what they deserve.”

Markey, who is a co-sponsor of the Pay Teachers Act, also introduced the Pay Paraprofessionals and Education Support Staff Act, setting a minimum of $45,000 a year or $30 an hour for workers Markey calls “the backbone of our schools.” When cafeteria workers rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and technical assistance staff can’t afford Wi-Fi at home, it is time to change, he said.

As it is, teachers and other school staff reach into their own pockets “regardless of what you get paid” said Weingarten, making sure children have coats in winter or food when they are hungry. They shouldn’t have to, and they shouldn’t have to worry about whether they can pay their own bills. Sanders and Markey understand that “we have to use politics to solve problems” said Weingarten, and “these two bills are bills that are going to solve problems.” The bills also send the message that “education is a national goal and a national priority.”

Defining the problem

Public school teachers experience more stress and anxiety than other workers, yet Sanders says that about 33 percent of teachers earn less than $60,000 a year and nearly 20 percent of first-year teachers earn less than $40,000.

These facts are reflected in the teacher shortage facing our nation today: Nearly 1 in 8 teaching positions in this country is vacant or filled by a teacher who is not fully certified.

The Pay Teachers Act shows a new way forward. Other key elements of the bill, listed in Sanders’ fact sheet, include:

• Tripling funding for rural education to $430 million.
• Doubling Impact Aid Basic Support Payments, which support “federally connected children” whose parents may be members of uniformed services or who live on tribal lands, federal property or in federally subsidized housing.
• Providing an additional $1.13 billion for the Bureau of Indian Education.
• Establishing grants so every teacher receives $1,000 for “flexible classroom supplies and related expenses.”
• Increasing paraprofessional and education support personnel pay to a minimum of $30 an hour or $45,000 a year.
• Investing $8 billion to support teachers’ career growth.
• Requiring monitoring to ensure students from low-income backgrounds, racial and ethnic minorities, students with disabilities and English language learners “are not disproportionately served by ineffective, out-of-field or inexperienced teachers, including long-term substitutes.”
• Funding state commissions to modernize education.
• Strengthening the Supporting Effective Educator Development program and the Teacher and School Leader Incentive program.
• Diversifying and expanding the teacher pipeline with a new “grow your own” program and teacher preparation programs at historically Black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions.
• Investing $300 million in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to support special education personnel.

[Virginia Myers]