Education

Summing up the Safier vs. Ladner comments smackdown

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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.

AZ Charter school advocates, take note

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by David Safier I consider myself an advocate of charter schools, but not the way they're set up here in Arizona, where it's too easy to get a charter and slip by without any accountability, and too rare for bad charters to be shut down. So I'm pleased to see there is a national movement … Read more

Parents and retirees who CARE

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by David Safier Dave Perry, publisher and editor of The Explorer, wrote a very good article on CARE — Concerned Area Residents for Education — a group recently formed by northwest Tucson parents and retirees as a response to the K-12 budget cuts. The group is scrupulously nonpartisan and independent of other organizations, and very … Read more

Presented without comment (because comment is unnecessary)

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by David Safier In a Star article about killing the suspended equalization property tax, quoting Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert: "Education does not create jobs," he said. "Entrepreneurs and businesses create jobs." Biggs added that it wouldn't matter whether Arizona has the best-educated work force in the country if higher taxes drive companies out of business.

Another good Star op ed

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by David Safier I don't know who Alfredo Diaz is, but he sounds like he's worth knowing. The Star describes him as "an entrepreneur in Tucson." He wrote an op ed that's both a logical and an emotion indictment of the forces in our state willing to balance the budget on the backs of children … Read more