Dem state party blues
by David Safier Tedski has written an excellent post at R-Cubed about the Arizona State Democratic Party hiring a head hunter to help find a new Executive Director to replace Maria Weeg. I'm going to approach the topic from a somewhat different angle than his. He mainly discussed whether it was a good decision to hire … Read more
Was NCLB designed to destroy faith in public schools?
by David Safier About a week ago, I put together a post, Majority leadership wants to move away from public education. In the post, Javan Mesnard, the Senate Majority (read, Republican) Staff Policy Advisor, said that a goal of the Republican leadership was to move toward charter and private schools and away from traditional public schools. … Read more
SWAG re: 2010 Arizona Attorney General race
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The folks over at The Yellow Sheet (Arizona Capitol Times – subscription required) recently engaged in speculation and some silly wild ass guesses (SWAG) about the 2010 Arizona Attorney General race. The Yellow Sheet is of the opinion that Republican Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas will resign to run for Attorney General. … Read more
Update: Doubting Thomas
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over whether County Attorney Andrew Thomas is its attorney. Suit OK'd against Board of Supervisors The judge on Thursday also ordered Thomas to disclose all cases in which attorneys on staff or on contract … Read more
March4Schools at the State Capitol March 4
by David Safier A number of groups have banded together, headed by the Arizona Education Association, to put together what they hope will be the largest mobilization for education in the state's history. It's Wednesday, March 4, 4pm at the Arizona State Capitol: 1700 West Washington, Phoenix. If you want to be even more involved, there … Read more
Private vs. public schools in D.C.: a draw
by David Safier Here's the money quote from a N.Y. Times article about the Democratic push to limit or end vouchers in D.C. Last year, a Congressionally mandated review of the program by Department of Education researchers concluded that there were no significant differences between the test scores of students who received a voucher and … Read more
Summing up the Safier vs. Ladner comments smackdown
by David Safier
Over the past few weeks, Dr. Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute and I have engaged in a spirited back-and-forth in the comments sections of two posts: An interesting number and More Fool's Gold: Ed tax credits save us money. For my money, I won both arguments. I'm sure Ladner disagrees and, of course, he's welcome to put his opinions in the comments. As always, he'll get all the unedited space he wants.
The reason I picked a fight with G.I. in the first place is because I want to make it clear they have a purely political agenda. Their "research" is given far more credibility than it deserves, both by themselves and by the press who treats G.I. as a reasonable source of information. What they call "research" is often a travesty, a cynical misuse of scholarship to help conservatives get elected, then help them pass conservative legislation. Most of the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
Follow the link below to read my discussion of the two comment threads.
