Correlation between poverty, low school achievement
January 19, 2010
by David Safier No one should be surprised to hear that schools with more low income students also tend to have low test scores. But it's still amazing to see how clearly the Arizona stats make that correlation. A reader sent me an excel spreadsheet of data he compiled from 3 public sources on the
CD 3 Congressional race heating up
January 19, 2010
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Congressman John Shadegg's retirement has the wannabe Congress critters crawling out of the woodwork. Already Rep. Sam Crump, who had been exploring a run for Attorney General, and Sen. James Waring, who had been exploring a run for State Treasurer, have announced they will run for Congress. On Monday, Sen. Pamela Gorman
Scarpinato proves my point
January 18, 2010
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In the SWAG Update I posted that Sen. Jonathan Paton's pre-arranged roll-out in the Arizona Daily Star makes me question whether the Star reports the news, or is acting as the media arm of the Paton campaign as it did when Paton ran for state representative in 2006 while serving in Iraq,
Things that are more important than the state’s budget deficit
January 18, 2010
At least, more important to Arizona's state legislators, whose primary duty is to craft a balanced budget. They've had time to file 794 bills, memorials, and resolutions, but haven't had the time to address the current fiscal year's budget deficit. Some early bill filings that are either irrelevent to the fiscal crisis or counterproductive –
A brief history of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday
January 18, 2010
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This past Saturday, I was honored to join more than 200 people of all races, nationalities, and religious beliefs at the Pima County Democratic Party African-American Caucus reception at the Pima County Democratic Party headquarters (one does not have to be African-American
I wish we were this organized
January 18, 2010
by David Safier I envy the conservatives' ability to think 2 or 3 steps ahead when they're trying to sell an agenda to voters. I think they stink at governing, and their ideology tends to be anywhere from wrong headed to inhumane. But man, can they put together a frontal assault to push their agenda.
“All I got was a lousy Tea Party T-shirt”
January 18, 2010
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Conservative "values voters" bitterly complained that George W. Bush paid lip service to their political interests to get their votes, but failed to deliver on anything substantive on their political agenda (other than blurring the line of separation of church and state with federal funding to faith-based organizations). Conservative "values voters" rightly
SWAG Update
January 17, 2010
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: This has been a busy week for candidate announcements which, in some contests, has led to a reshuffling of the deck as candidates who were running for one office are now running for another office. Other candidates are just now filing as election season gets underway. You can play along at home
