Education

About that $9,700 per student figure

by

by David Safier Anyone who has been following my running debates with Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute has seen him write that Arizona actually spends more like $9,700 per student than the usually quoted figure of about $6,200. A recently formed group, LEAN (sorry, I don't know what the acronym stands for) has explained … Read more

Was NCLB designed to destroy faith in public schools?

by

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

March4Schools at the State Capitol March 4

by

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

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

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.