Roberts: 866 Arizona teachers have already quit this year

We are now up to 866 teachers who have fled Arizona’s public school classrooms during the first four months of the school year, according to a report issued Tuesday.

The Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association says 627 teachers have resigned. Another 83 never showed up and 156 flat-out abandoned their classrooms.

Didn’t even stick around to reap the considerable benefits of that massive 1 percent bonus offered by Gov. Doug Ducey and the Legislature.

The report, based on a survey of 172 school districts and charter schools, says the state is still short 1,968 teachers this year.

Another 3,403 teaching spots were filled with people who weren’t trained as teachers. That is, they haven’t passed the state’s subject- and professional-knowledge exams and in some cases, don’t even have bachelor’s degrees.

Still nearly 2,000 vacancies

Translation: more than 62 percent of the state’s nearly 8,600 teacher vacancies this year have either not been filled or they were filled with people who couldn’t qualify for a standard teaching certificate.

ASPAA says the teacher shortage crisis isn't going away any time soon, given the poor pay offered in Arizona.

"Even Nevada is advertising in Arizona to lure teachers as Nevada has a higher salary," it said, in a statement accompanying the study. "This is an issue of supply and demand. Our children deserve, not only a teacher, but the best teachers in the nation. Key leaders in Arizona need to make a collective effort to ensure the recruitment and retention of effective teachers in Arizona."

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that.

To fill the empty classrooms, kids are being taught either by long-term substitutes or administrators and coaches or by teachers who are working without a planning period. Another 281 positions were simply left unfilled and the kids crammed into other classes and to heck with policies that govern class size.

MORE: Why are Arizona teachers leaving in droves?

Expect things to get worse before they get better, given our leaders’ refusal to do what it would take to bring teacher pay out of the nation’s cellar. Currently, the state is investing $802 less on a child’s education, when adjusted for inflation, than it was a decade ago, according to an analysis by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

Is it any wonder that Arizona’s elementary school teachers are the lowest paid in the nation? According to a report earlier this year by the Morrison Institute, the median pay for an elementary school teacher is now 14 percent less than it was in 2001, when adjusted for inflation.

Pay for Arizona high school teachers, meanwhile, ranks 48th of 50 states. After inflation, they are down just 11 percent from what a teacher made in 2001.

It'll get worse before it gets better

And I don’t see that changing. The money just isn’t there given two decades of tax cuts and Ducey’s determination to keep cutting taxes every year in order to bolster his political resume for higher office.

Ducey has recognized that we have a crisis on our hands. He's just not willing to meet it head on. (Unless you consider a 1 percent pay raise and lowering standards a solution.)

He has offered university tuition waivers to 236 students who want to be teachers.

Which sounds good until you realize that 866 teachers didn’t even last until the Christmas break.

That 1,968 Arizona classrooms are still missing teachers.

That 3,400 others are filled with people heretofore unqualified to teach until Ducey and Legislature lowered our standards for what it takes to be able to teach Arizona's children.

Something to remember going into next year’s elections, when the self-proclaimed education governor waxes on about how education is his top priority.

MORE FROM ROBERTS:

526 Arizona teachers have already quit this year

Arizona ranks as the worst state to be a teacher

Arizona teacher: My job 'made me break down in tears'