After walkout and pay bump, what’s next for #RedForEd movement?

PHOENIX — After Arizona lawmakers signed a $10.4 billion budget bill last week, effectively bringing an end to a six-day teacher walkout over low pay and poor classroom conditions, one question remained: What was next for the #RedForEd movement?

Organizers with Arizona Educators United, the group behind the movement, and the Arizona Education Association asked teachers to start collecting signatures in an effort to get an initiative on the ballot in November.

The proposal, called the Invest In Education Act, would raise the income tax rate by 3.46 percent on individual incomes above $250,000 or household incomes higher than $500,000.

The rate would increase by 4.46 percent for individual income above $500,000 and household incomes above $1 million.

Sixty percent of the new funds would go toward teacher salaries. Forty percent would be added for all-day kindergarten and other uses.

Kelley Wendland Fisher, an organizer with Arizona Educators United, said in a private Facebook video on Tuesday that 94 percent of educators across the state were in support of the initiative.

But now educators have been tasked with collecting at least 225,000 signatures in an effort to get the proposal on the ballot.

The measure required more than 150,000 signatures filed by July 5 to get on the November ballot.

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