Matthew Ladner and I mix it up again

by David Safier Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute has made some detailed comments on a few of my recent posts, An interesting Number and More Fool's Gold: Ed tax credits save us money. I, of course, have responded and am waiting for what he has for me next. Once again, I foolishly rush into the fray … Read more

More Fool’s Gold: Ed tax credits save us money

by David Safier Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute put together "10 Myths about Arizona Education" to, in his words, "separate the reality of education funding in Arizona from several often publicized myths." As usual, he mixes truth with fiction and apple-facts with orange-statistics to create a stew of misinformation that "proves" all is well … Read more

An interesting number

by David Safier The Goldwater Institute loves to place Arizona's per pupil expenditures at around $9,000, thousands higher than the number cited in most national comparisons. That's to prove that we lavish a ridiculous amount of money on our students here in Arizona. Then it uses an apples-and-oranges comparison of its high figure with the … Read more

“Our No. 1 priority … must be education”

by David Safier From Nicholas Kristof this morning: So maybe I was wrong. I used to consider health care our greatest national shame, considering that we spend twice as much on medical care as many European nations, yet American children are twice as likely to die before the age of 5 as Czech children — and American … Read more

The birthday boys

by David Safier Lincoln and Darwin both turned 200 a few days ago. Amazing coincidence. These two images from a post on Daily Kos were too good to pass up.