Civil Nonobedience

by David Safier Russell Pearce and his cronies hate children. It's no big deal for them to cut education to the bone and eliminate KidsCare. But their animus increases when the children have brown skin. To further their extreme right wing agenda, they're willing to sacrifice those children's chances to get an education and potentially … Read more

G.I.’s “Busdrivers are bureaucrats”: an update

by David Safier The Goldwater Institute hasn't changed its answer to my "Are you really saying bus drivers are bureaucrats?" question. So G.I. is still holding to Ladner's laughable statement that there is "an almost 1-to-1 teacher to bureaucrat ratio" in our school districts. That can only be true if bus drivers, maintenance workers and … Read more

Arizona media in the news

by David Safier Here are a few bits and pieces about recent handlings mishandling of the news by local and state newspapers. Brewer screwed up and appointed people to the new Rio Nuevo board who are supposed to be Tucson residents, but aren't. Here's the opening line of Rob O'Dell's article: "At least two of … Read more

Arizona Ed Network tallies voting records on education

by David Safier The Arizona Education Network (AEN) has put together a chart of all the state legislators' voting records on education. AEN found twenty-one (21) different pieces of legislation that dealt directly with public education budgets and the dollars allocated to it. AEN totaled each legislator’s votes “FOR” and “AGAINST” public education. Not surprisingly, … Read more

Melvin scrambles, tries to “clarify” his convict-ions

by David Safier Al Melvin knows he screwed up big time when he told Dave Perry at the Explorer that he liked the idea of using convict labor in Arizona public schools. I jumped on Melvin immediately, then a Star editorial jumped on him a few days later. Rightly so. It's an idiotic — worse, … Read more