David Safier 
Ed. MDB: I got this note from my good buddy David Safier, a former teacher who used to write for this blog, and then the Tucson Weekly, about education matters, on this wild evolving story, and we decided I should share it here on the Blog. I’ve been living in Baltimore, Maryland, for the past … Read more
by David Safier I just put up my first introductory post on The Range, which means this is my last piece at BfA after 6 years and 3,000-some posts. You can continue to follow me over there if you wish. And (maybe I shouldn't say this, but…) if you aren't interested in the music/food/entertainment/weird-videos postings … Read more
by David Safier
As I count down to my exit from BfA and entrance onto The Range, I'm taking a look back on my tenure here. Mike Bryan says I've written over 3,000 posts, and I believe it. Even scrolling through them at lightning speed takes some time. Here's a continuation of my first self-indulgent trip down memory lane, stopping just before the horrific January 8, 2011, shooting.
• I started blogging about charter schools in earnest in 2009, looking at the Imagine School chain, which has gone from bad to even further downhill, BASIS, which does a good job at what it does but lies through its teeth about how it does it, and other charters.
• I went after candidate Steve Kozachik in a post in 2009 when he ran for city council for the first time. Boy, was I wrong. Sorry about that, Steve.
• I began my series about the "Creative Headline Writing Team" at the Star in 2010 when it was coming up with jaw-droppingly misleading and/or politically slanted headlines. I capped the series with a "Worst Star Headline of the Year" contest in December. Probably coincidentally, the paper's headlines have gotten better since then.
• The Goldwater Institute's education guy, Matthew Ladner, was pushing the "Florida education miracle" pretty heavy. I wrote a series of posts, "The Floridation of Arizona Education" in 2010, taking apart the not-so-miraculous educational progress in the Sunshine State. Since then, Arizona has adopted a number of Florida education ideas, while Florida has backpedaled on some of them. Ladner now works for Florida ex-Guv Jeb Bush.
by David Safier The Arizona Chamber of Commerce announced its 2014 legislative agenda. Along the way, Speaker of the House Andy Tobin, who's running for Congress in CD-1, said Washington is what's wrong with Arizona. “If the federal government took its foot off the throat of Arizona, we would be doing a lot better,” he said. … Read more
by David Safier In the interest of full disclosure, I need to mention that I write a monthly column for The Explorer, a weekly distributed mainly in the Marana/Oro Valley/Foothills area. But seeing as how I'm criticizing the paper, it probably isn't necessary. A few days ago, I went to the online home page of … Read more