This Is What An Education Movement Looks Like #INVESTinED
#INVESTinED, a coalition of education advocates and business professionals, including Children’s Action Alliance and the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, held a rally yesterday at the Arizona Capitol to kick off petition gathering for the Invest in Education Act.
The Invest in Ed initiative seeks to address the K-12 education funding crisis by generating an additional $940 million of revenue annually for education. Arizona spends $1 billion dollars less on public education than it did a decade ago. Currently, there are 1,840 teaching positions not filled with a qualified teacher. All the revenue will be directed to a voter protected fund for transparency and accountability.
The revenue must be directed towards:
- 50% of revenues to hire and increase base compensation for teachers and classroom support personnel (e.g., nurses, counselors)
- 25% of revenues to hire and increase base compensation for student support service personnel (e.g., classroom aides, school safety, student transportation)
- 12% of revenues to career and technical education and vocational training programs
- 10% to be spent on mentoring and retention programs for new classroom teachers
- 3% of revenues will go to the Arizona Teachers Academy to increase scholarship amounts
Revenue will be generated through a 3.5% surcharge to the top one-percent of incomes in the state. The initiative only impacts personal income tax exceeding $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for families. For example a household with $501,000 in taxable income would pay $35 per year to invest in Arizona schools.
We have a goal to gather over 400,000 petition signatures before the July 2 deadline to qualify for the ballot in November - it's time to act.
Paid for by Children’s Action Alliance. Not authorized by any candidate.
