Meanwhile, in Phoenix . . .

by David Safier

A few legislative updates.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 for Karen Johnson’s bill to allow guns in schools. It passed because she removed K-12 schools from the equation. It’s limited to public colleges and universities.

(TASL) Education Superintendent Tom Horne plans to appeal the recent appellate court ruling on ELL, which set a March 4 deadline for the state to comply with the ruling or suffer possible sanctions or fines.

Republicans against the bill are citing the cost as the reason why they don’t want to comply. Here’s the “money quote” from Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert):

It would just cost us an extremely huge amount of money and it would be basically the same thing as saying the more money you throw at it, the sooner you’ll fix the problem.

I am so damn sick of hearing the phrase “throwing money at the problem” applied to education! Can you imagine what would happen if someone said, “We can’t afford all the money we spend on soldiers and weapons. You can’t just throw money at Defense and make us safer.” Or how about, “You can’t just throw money at the Iraq War and think everything will turn out all right.”

The Bull Elephants of the GOP would charge the speaker’s platform in the House and Senate and bellow, “You Weak-kneed Liberals are soft on Defense! You Hate America!” Over and over and over and over.

Fine. From my platform on Blog For Arizona, I hereby proclaim: Tom Horne, you and your fellow callous Republicans are Soft on Education! You Hate Children! And when it comes to ELL funding, let me throw in for good measure, You Hate Latinos!

There. Now I feel better.

The ELL story brought to you by the newly formed Tax-And-Spend-Liberal (TASL) News Service.