Arizona teacher union president not surprised by retention survey results

The president of the Arizona Education Association says she is not surprised with the findings of a recent Department of Education survey on teacher retention. The AEA is a labor union for public school employees in Arizona.

Nearly 1,000 teachers who left the profession in the last year were surveyed. Many said they quit due to a lack of administrative support for classroom discipline and a desire for better pay.

AEA President Marisol Garcia says that last year, her group brought these issues to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who then created an educator retention and recruitment committee.

“We need to look at teacher salaries, at lowering class sizes, we need to have a separate funding source that gives an influx of funding to public schools," Garcia said.

Garcia also said these issues are not new, and her group has been ringing the alarm for nearly a decade. She says support also needs to come from Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

“I would hope that from this survey that he took from former educators that it would lend him to stop encouraging flaming rhetoric that is negative about public schools and public educators," Garcia said.

She says those falsities include indoctrination and that critical race theory is happening in the classrooms.