prop 123

“Someone to Shine Our Shoes”

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Cross-posted from RestoreReason.com.

In a recent article titled “Chartered Cruise” on knpr.org, the author Hugh Jackson wrote: “Today’s charter industry, much like Nevada’s voucher plan, reflects a chronic civic defeatism. Echoing the perverse social Darwinism of more than a century ago, faith in free-market education is surrender to pessimism. Society really isn’t incapable of providing a fair educational opportunity to every citizen. Some people are doomed to fail, that’s just the way it is, so best to segregate those with promise, the achievers, in separate schools. As for everyone else, well, too bad for them.” Of course, this attitude isn’t confined to only Nevada; I have a real life example of it right here in Arizona. Three or so years ago, an acquaintance of mine asked an Arizona Senator whether or not he supported public education. He replied, “of course I do, we need someone to shine our shoes.”

It’s bad enough the Senator thought this, let alone that he said it out loud to a public education advocate. That says as much about the voter contempt some of our lawmakers hold (especially when the voter is from a different party) as it does what they think of public education. As the primary water carrier for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC), the Arizona Legislature has led the nation in efforts to offer school choice options. Proponents tout school choice as the way to help disadvantaged children, but truth is, they’ve already written these children off. Instead, school choice is really about resegregation (the highest we’ve seen since the mid-1960s) and profiteering.

The school choice and education privatization movement gives me great pause because:

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Great people you want to give $5 mil to, Governor Ducey

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

mises
AKA A Confederacy Of Jagoffs

If you’re following Arizona politics right now you know that a big issue is Prop 123, which will be voted on next month here in a special election. It would significantly increase the annual distributions from the state land trust to schools and is touted as a solution to settling the lawsuit against the state for underfunding education since the recession.

This happens to be going on at the same time as budget negotiations, and as many critics of Governor Doug Ducey and skeptics of Prop 123 have noted, the Governor and GOP majority in the Lege are not exactly acting with anything resembling humility in advance of asking the electorate to forgive them for failing to fund public education. For one thing, they want to give charter schools $100 million out of a bare-bones budget. For another, they are poised to give $5 million to a think tank led by a libertarian crackpot named William J. Boyes, who hates public schools.

No, seriously, he hates public schools! Per Laurie Roberts in the AZ Republic:

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Mad as Hell and You’re Not Going to Take it Anymore!

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Cross-posted from RestoreReason.com.

YOUTUBE-IM-AS-MAD-AS-HELL-AND-IM-NOT-GONNA-TAKE-IT-ANYMORE-12

Okay fellow liberal southern Arizonans, I get it. You are mad as hell and you aren’t going to take anymore. Prop 123 is a bridge too far, a river too wide and the proverbial final straw breaking the camel’s back.

I join you in being pissed off.  I’m pissed at the Legislature who has failed to follow the people’s mandate since 2009 and ignored the Superior Court judge’s order to follow that same mandate.  I’m pissed that Governor Ducey is dead set against raising the appropriate revenue to ensure our districts get the funding they are due.  I’m also pissed at the current and previous state treasurers who have come out against Prop 123 since I wonder where they’ve been as the Legislature has steadily eroded our districts’ budgets.

I’m especially pissed though, at the voters who continue to elect anti-public education candidates, whether they voted for them, or just didn’t vote at all. After all, we know that 89 percent of Arizona voters prioritize K-12 public education funding at the top and that two-thirds are willing to pay more taxes to make that happen. We also know that in 2014, only 36 percent of eligible voters actually voted. Polls tell us what voters want, but they aren’t voting in a way to ensure they’ll actually get it.

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Since a picture is worth a thousand words…

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Crossposted from RestoreReason.com.  My views line up with much of what AZBlueMeanie says, but can’t agree with him on Prop 123.  I am intimately aware of the deal and think it is the best we can do at this point.  Our schools need the money now, they can’t wait another 5+ years.  Plus, once we … Read more

Open Letter to Governor Ducey

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It was fitting that your propaganda piece, “Arizona schools win big in my budget” was published in AZCentral.com’s “AZ I See It” column. After all, I understand this is your view of reality. But, the fact that it is your view, doesn’t make it factual.

You open your piece speaking of last year: “we protected priorities, like K-12 education…” Not sure how you can claim you protected K-12 education when in 2015, you cut $113.5 million from K-12 district schools and reduced charter additional assistance funding by $10.3 million. This year, you claim credit for “an historic $3.5 billion funding package for schools.” Yeah Governor, you are just a regular education philanthropist, digging deep into the schools own coffers (state trust lands revenues set aside for education funding) to give our schools the money they’ve been owed since 2009. You offered this deal to take additional monies from state trust lands, despite Arizona ending last fiscal year with an extra $312 million in the bank and being on-track to end FY2017 with $621 million. To add insult to injury, you now plan to pad the states’ rainy day fund with an additional $10 million to bring the balance to $470 million. I have to wonder how many corporate tax breaks will that fund?

 Despite your largely unearned grandstanding, I’m going to hold my nose and vote for Prop. 123, because I think it is the only way we will get any significant additional funding for our schools anytime soon. Rest assured though that education advocates throughout the state are going into this eyes wide open. We know there are caps and triggers in the deal that could allow the legislature to cheat our kids yet again. Just know that we will be more vigilant than ever and that “Hell hath no fury” like advocates scorned after negotiating in good faith.

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