Teacher Union Demands are a Bottomless Pit
Teachers Lies on Facebook Post, Uses 1998 Pay Check
Every state has a teacher union clamoring for more money. Arizona for instance just passed a 3.5 billion dollar education tax increase, something that should have silenced the teachers for a while yet they are once again demanding more money and claiming that Arizona is dead last in teacher pay. Wait....West Virginia claims that spot, Oklahoma says it is #2 from the bottom, and Missisippi also claims the last spot....
According to this article from Arizona the teachers had to do some convolutions to justify that bottom of the nation pay scale claim. Once the cost of living is factored in Arizona dives down and Oklahoma is used as an example of how much further dollars go in a low cost of living state! They also removed their special education teachers from the calculations, the highest paid teachers of course. No longer apples to apples. They also didn't mention the 100% paid medical and life insurance.
All of that came from research on a news story where a teacher in Paradise Valley United School District posted a picture of her paycheck, claiming an annual pay of $35,621.00, using a screen shot that quickly became her undoing as the picture had an April 1998 date on it. The teacher was busted by sharp eyed commentators on the story, leading to her claims of that date being the teacher certification date, not the paycheck date. Which is a problem if you look at the woman's picture, twenty years plus the average age of a teacher graduate don't make you look like you are in your mid fifties and fighting a losing battle.
So we dug a little deeper and found that the average teacher wages were a lot more like over $50,000.00 per year in the state.
A little more digging turned up her exact school salary range, from two years before, showing a $37,000.00 to $58,000.00 salary range and if the woman claims to have 20 years of teaching experience she wouldn't be anywhere near the bottom of that range much less $2000.00 below the range. With 20 years tenure she would be at the top of that salary range.
Sadly the teacher unions aren't that much different than most politicians; they will lie with a straight face to get their way.
