I'm writing this as I listen to the rain come down in the midst of a brutally hot summer. I'm thankful for even a modest rainfall, as my mind has been on the folks whose livelihoods don't bend or ebb with drought or blistering heat; they just head into work every day and pray for rain.
My dad worked with his hands. He was a firefighter and worked days off in an alternator and starter repair shop. My mom was a classroom teacher and picked up shifts at a video rental store or the gas station out on Arkansas 35 when we needed it. We were a family where hard work and hands covered in grease were badges of honor.
My family's story isn't much different than a million others in Arkansas. There were five of us in a two-bedroom trailer on three acres of land, and when a sixth member came along--hey, sister--that's when my parents decided it was time to try for a house.
The note on a Veterans Affairs loan my dad was able to get because of his service in the Marine Corps finally made sense with nearly a decade on the fire department and my mom teaching school. And a house comes together quickly with the skilled hands of firefighters who moonlight at framing, roofing, insulating, flooring, siding, and so on.
Where there had been a crowded trailer now stood a dream home.
I tell you part of my family's story not to establish Arkansas bona fides, but so you know there's little about us that's special or different or exceptional, in that Arkansan or American way that says the good measure of privilege to be born in this country opens a lot of doors that just aren't there for everyone.
The things that my parents achieved--land, housing, good jobs, healthy kids--all came at the cost of bone-deep commitment to hard work. Much of it shouldn't have been so hard. I take pride in my parents' commitment to their family and their careers.
My dad has been honored as a lifesaving hero. Countless kids were fed or clothed or mentored by my mom. Each of my siblings has gone on to meaningful careers that fulfill their individual talents. For much of our lives, though, money was a concern for my parents.
It shouldn't be that way for the people who work the hardest, while the very wealthy seem to do better and better each year.
Right now, we are engaged in a great debate on how to use a bounty of $1.6 billion our state Legislature has piled up by raking in federal pandemic relief and, by some measure, underfunding critical government services around the state. I think a lot about families like mine--a generation later, the teachers and firefighters and nurses and others who aren't looking for a handout, but the dignity of pay that recognizes their hard work and dedication to their fields.
My simple argument is this: Give the teachers a raise.
Teachers are the first people we encounter who are professionally committed to making us better people. They delve out love by the bushel through their craft, building up kids at school while parents do the necessary work to sustain their families. Teachers work on the front lines of shaping the next generation, and it's unacceptable to me that they often leave their classrooms dog-tired but headed into a shift at a second job.
In Arkansas, a starting teacher may be guaranteed only $36,000 a year. Many parts of our state face a grave shortage in teachers as neighboring states raise salaries and openly advertise better pay on billboards right here in Arkansas.
We can do better--we must do better.
Arkansas Democrats in the Legislature have a proposal on the table called the RAISE Act. It would spend under 40 percent of the budget surplus to give sustainable $4,000 raises to Arkansas teachers. It would raise our minimum teacher salary to a more competitive $42,000. And it would do this by setting up a fund with the bounty of this surplus to make these raises sustainable into the future.
We can't wait. We deserve this investment in ourselves and in our education system. We simply need the courage and will to prioritize our kids and our schools above another tax break for the wealthy and powerful. Arkansas is worth it, and our teachers are worth it.
When I think about the impact an extra $4,000 a year would have had on a family like ours, I think about extra shifts and hands covered in engine grease. I think about a lot of other families like mine.
Give the teachers a raise. For all of us.
Will Watson is the director of strategy for the Democratic Party of Arkansas. He is a native of Bauxite and lives in Fayetteville.