Arizona

Making People’s History In Arizona: Educators Rise Up

May 3, 2018 Sarah Giddings, Rethinkingschoolsblog.com Resist! Arizona, Education, History, Protests

My house has recently become muddled with protest signs, event flyers, red T-shirts, and simply, chaos. How it came to this point resides in the story of how I decided to volunteer to be a liaison for the #RedForEd grassroots movement in Arizona. I decided to move to Arizona from British Columbia, Canada, 18 years ago to teach. My decision would take me on a journey of unforeseeable experiences that entailed teaching on Native American reservations, in charter schools, in public schools, and having a second job as an adjunct professor for Northern Arizona University. I eventually found myself involved in a powerful, historic, educator-led grassroots movement that has revolutionary possibilities. I was drawn into this movement at its conception. In my 18 years of teaching, I have experienced low and stagnant salaries, overcrowded classrooms, increasing work loads, deteriorating buildings, and fewer resources and support.

Arizona Strike Enters Second Week As Teacher Union President Opposes Calls For Nationwide Strike

May 3, 2018 David Moore, Wsws.org Resist! Arizona, Class Struggle, New Economy, Strikes, Teachers

On Monday, nearly 50,000 Arizona educators and supporters continued their walkout against underfunded schools and low pay for a third day. Although the teacher unions have done everything to isolate the teachers and wear them down with fruitless appeals to hostile politicians, educators came out to the state capitol in Phoenix en masse Monday to demonstrate their determination as the strike began its second week. Several of the largest districts announced they would remain closed on Tuesday as the Arizona Education Association and the national teacher unions scramble to come up with some justification to end the strike without meeting teachers’ demands, as the unions did in West Virginia and Oklahoma.

Teachers In Arizona, Colorado Stage Mass Walkout For Better Pay

April 27, 2018 Staff, Telesurtv.net Resist! Arizona, Class Struggle, Colorado, Education, Teachers

Encouraged by similar protests in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, organizers said the action would send a message to political leaders about their dissatisfaction. Tens of thousands of teachers in Arizona and Colorado walked out of public school classrooms on Thursday to demand better pay and more education funding, in the latest revolt by educators that has spread to the U.S. West. At least 50,000 teachers and their supporters wearing red T-shirts streamed down city streets in Arizona's capital of Phoenix, carrying placards reading '35 is a Speed Limit NOT a Class Size' and 'The Future of Arizona is in my Classroom.' The teachers are demanding an immediate 20 percent increase to salaries which are among the lowest in the country; increased pay for support staff; restoring education funding to 2008 levels, and a freeze on tax cuts until the state's education budget reaches the national average.

Arizona Teachers Vote To Strike

April 21, 2018 Jerry White, Wsws.org Resist! Arizona, Class Struggle, Labor, Strikes, Teachers

Teachers in the southwestern US state of Arizona have overwhelmingly voted to strike to demand improved wages for educators and support staff, and restore more than $1 billion in school funding cuts over the last decade. At a press conference Thursday night, officials from the Arizona Education Association (AEA) announced that 78 percent of the 57,000 educators who cast ballots over the last three days voted for strike action. According to Noah Karvelis, an elementary school teacher and one of the leaders of the Arizona Educators United (AEU) Facebook group, teachers will continue to hold “walk-in” protests at their schools next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then walk out in a statewide strike next Thursday. The powerful strike vote takes place after statewide strikes in West Virginia and Oklahoma, a one-day strike in Jersey City, New Jersey, and sickouts and protests in Kentucky, Florida and many other states.

Thousands Of Teachers And Staff On Strike Across Oklahoma And Kentucky, Arizona Might Be Next

April 4, 2018 By Ashley Curtin, Nationofchange.org Resist! Arizona, Class Struggle, Kentucky, Labor, Oklahoma, Strikes, Teachers, Unions

Schools shut down on Monday as thousands of teachers and staff in Oklahoma walked out to protest the low wages, benefit cuts and lack of school funding. Leading up to the planned strike, Oklahoma educators gave lawmakers an opportunity to pass a bill that met their demands, but could only come up with a $447 million compromise to the $3.3 billion requested by the teachers, Vox reported. The bill, which would have given teachers a $6,100 raise, support staff a $1,250 raise and $50 million in education funding, was going to come in part from raising taxes on oil production, diesel fuel and cigarettes, but the deal was rejected by the Oklahoma Education Associate, the group negotiating on the educators behalf.

Inspired By West Virginia, Teachers Spread Red For Ed Movement Across Arizona

March 20, 2018 By Rebecca Garelli, Labornotes.org Organize! Arizona, Education, Labor, Strikes, Teachers

This all got started two Fridays ago, March 2. I had become friends with Jay O’Neal from West Virginia, who helped start the teachers and public employees Facebook group there, and he let me into their group. I’d been hanging out, just watching things, thinking, “Why is nobody in Arizona doing this?” So my Chicago blood got boiling, and I said, “I’m just going to spark the fire, I’ll be the catalyst.” I had been communicating with some folks on the Arizona BATS page—Bad Ass Teachers. I had been posting some things coming out of West Virginia, and others would get fired up too, so we started a dialogue. And then one of the admins of that page said, “Anybody else think Arizona should do something like that?” I said, “Yess!!!” I and another teacher started a Facebook group that day: Arizona Teachers United. There was no mention of striking, no mention of action.

Arizona Unconstitutionally Banned Mexican-American Studies Classes

August 24, 2017 Roque Planas, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Arizona, Courts, culture, Legislation, Racism

By Roque Planas for The Huffington Post. PHOENIX ― A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the state of Arizona violated students’ rights by banning a Mexican-American studies program from Tucson public schools. The ruling issued by U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima found that a law passed by Arizona’s Republican-dominated state legislature in 2010 violated both the First and 14th Amendments. It marks a major victory for educators and activists who viewed the ethnic studies law as a flatly discriminatory effort by Arizona Republicans to keep Hispanic students from learning about their history or studying writers of color that are often ignored in public schools. Curtis Acosta, one of the former teachers of the banned program, celebrated the ruling on Twitter.

Police Tear-Gas Demonstrators At Huge Anti-Trump Protest

August 24, 2017 Julia Conley, www.commondreams.org Resist! Arizona, Donald Trump, Police, Protests, Repression

By Julia Conley for Common Dreams - Contrary to Trump's claims that protests were small, many thousands showed up to peacefully condemn the president. Tensions soared and police ultimately dispersed crowds with tear gas at the huge anti-Trump protest outside the Phoenix Convention Center on Tuesday night, where Trump was inside raging about the news media's coverage of his administration and dog-whistling his defense of white supremacy at a campaign-style rally. Contrary to Trump's lie that only a few protesters were outside, many thousands of people had shown up to demonstrate peacefully and condemn the president's rhetoric and agenda. Mayor Greg Stanton said officials would examine whether excessive force was used by the city's police. The police said they only responded with force after protesters threw water bottles and other objects at them, an account that was disputed by witnesses. The Los Angeles Times along with several demonstrators reported that officers first fired tear gas after protesters tried to move police barricades as the president finished speaking.

IWW Miners Of Jerome & Bisbee Loaded Into Cattle Cars & Deported From State Of Arizona

July 18, 2017 Janet Raye, www.weneverforget.org Resist! Arizona, Deportations, Mining, Working Class

By Janet Raye for We Never Forget - The above photograph shows more than 1000 working class men, mostly members of the Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World, being loaded into cattle cars in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12th, for the purpose of being deported from the state of Arizona. The men were force to stand in manure and left without food and water for hours until they were hauled across the state line and into New Mexico. More than 1000 men were left stranded in the desert near Hermanas, New Mexico. The sixty-seven men deported from Jerome were taken across the state line and left at Needles, California.

Cost Of Cuts: Arizona Tax Carve-Outs Last Year Hit $13.7B

June 7, 2017 Jim Small and Evan Wyloge, www.azcir.org Educate! Arizona, Budget Cuts, New Economy

By Jim Small and Evan Wyloge for Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting - PHOENIX – Teachers who marched on the Capitol this past week in support of doubling the salary boost that lawmakers were considering went home empty handed, as Republican lawmakers backed a budget proposal that grants them a two-percent increase over the next two years, saying there simply wasn’t money available. The cost of doing so would have been an additional $34 million per year in the first year and $68 million in the second, a tiny fraction of the $9.8 billion spending plan approved May 5. But that figure is dwarfed by how much tax revenue the state doesn’t collect each year: In fiscal year 2016, state law allowed $13.7 billion in taxes to go uncollected through a litany of exemptions, deductions, allowances, exclusions or credits. And that number is likely to grow by another $1-to-2 billion once individual income tax deductions are tallied. According to data compiled by the Arizona Department of Revenue, more than half of all state taxes haven’t been collected for at least the past ten years. Called “tax expenditures,” they amount to $136.5 billion since fiscal year 2007 – roughly equivalent to sum of state budgets spanning the past 15 years.

Arizona Utility Signs Game-Changing Deal Cutting Solar Power Prices In Half

May 30, 2017 Joe Romm, www.thinkprogress.org Create! Arizona, Solar Energy

By Joe Romm for Think Progress - Remarkable drops in the cost of solar and wind power have effectively turned the global power market upside down in recent years. We’ve seen prices for new solar farms below 3 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh) in other countries for over a year now, but before this week, not in the U.S. That changed on Monday when Tucson Electric Power (TEP), an Arizona utility company, announced that it had reached an agreement to buy solar power at the same game-changing price. TEP says that this is a “historically low price” for a 100-megawatt system capable of powering 21,000 homes — and that the sub-3-cents price is “less than half as much as it agreed to pay under similar contracts in recent years.” For context, the average U.S. residential price for electricity is nearly 13 centsper kwh, and the average commercial price is 10.5 cents. NextEra Energy Resources will build and operate the system, which also includes “a long duration battery storage system” (whose price is not included in the 3 cents/kwh). Also worth noting: The sub-3-cents contracts that have been signed in other countries such as Chile, Dubai, and Mexico are unsubsidized, whereas U.S. prices include the 30 percent Investment Tax Credit.

Arizona GOP Kills Bill That Would’ve Treated Protesters Like Terrorists

March 2, 2017 Brian Grenoble, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Arizona, Legislation, Protesters

By Brian Grenoble for The Huffington Post - “People need to know we are not about limiting people’s rights,” Arizona House Speaker J.D. Mesnard said. An Arizona bill that would have let the state government charge protesters the same way it charges terrorists will not get a hearing in the state House, Speaker J.D. Mesnard (R) said Monday. Last Wednesday, Senate Bill 1142 passed the state’s upper chamber on a party-line vote, prompting an outcry from watchdogs like the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona over its chilling implications for free speech.

Arizona Senate Votes To Seize Assets Of Associated With Protests

February 24, 2017 Howard Fischer, www.azcapitoltimes.com Resist! Arizona, Protests, Senate, Violence

By Howard Fischer for Arizona Capitol Times - Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened. SB1142 expands the state’s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others. But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association — and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated. And what’s worse, said Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, is that the person who may have broken a window, triggering the claim there was a riot, might actually not be a member of the group but someone from the other side.

Protests Erupt As Longtime Arizona Resident And Mother Hauled Off In Deportation Van

February 10, 2017 Nika Knight, www.commondreams.org Resist! Arizona, Deportations, Protests

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - "We're living in a new era now, an era of war on immigrants," Rayos' lawyer, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, told the New York Times. Rayos came to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in 2008, when she was discovered to be undocumented during a raid ordered by the former anti-immigration sheriff Joe Arpaio of the theme park where she worked. The Los Angeles Times explains: Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, had lived in the country since she was 14. She was arrested in 2008 during a workplace raid ordered by then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at Golfland Sunsplash amusement park in Mesa, Ariz., and convicted of felony identity theft for possessing false papers.

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