public education

Arizona Daily Star endorses political newcomers Leila Counts & Adam Ragan for TUSD Governing Board

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The Editorial Board of the Arizona Daily Star endorsed educators Leila Counts and Adam Ragan, both political newcomers for  2 seats on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board.  Both incumbents on that nonpartisan board Adelita Grijalva (4 terms) and Michael Hicks (2 terms) are running for re-election. Also running is property manager Doug Robson … Read more

The Arizona Republic endorses Kathy Hoffman for Superintendent of Public Instruction

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Four years ago it was widely assumed that David Garcia would be elected Superintendent of Public Instruction. His opponent, Diane Douglas, barely ran a visible campaign for the office. But due to a GOP voter registration edge in Arizona and mindless GOP tribalism in the voter booth, Diane Douglas won in the shocker of the 2014 election.

Douglas has been controversial and a complete disaster during her tenure as Superintendent of Public Instruction. This is why she was defeated for reelection in the GOP primary back in August. Hindsight is always 20-20. These Republican voters should have been more discerning back in 2014 instead of voting out of GOP tribalism. They could have saved everyone a lot of unnecessary trauma from the antics of Diane Douglas. Republicans should keep this lesson in mind this year.

The Arizona Republic endorses Democratic candidate Kathy Hoffman for Superintendent of Public Instruction. What’s the best quality to help Arizona public schools: Experience or energy?

The race for superintendent of public instruction hinges on the answer to one simple question: Is experience or energy needed more?

The superintendent doesn’t have the power to boost teacher pay or raise taxes to bolster education funding, the two issues driving current education debates. That’s up to the Legislature, the state Board of Education and local school boards.

But this race matters because the winner will oversee the Department of Education – which is basically broken [after the disastrous tenure of Diane Douglas].

There has been heavy turnover during outgoing superintendent Diane Douglas’s tenure. Many experts have left, and morale is in the tank for those who remain. Not surprisingly, this office is no longer producing the helpful training, reliable policy direction and robust student-achievement data that Arizona’s public schools need.

It needs a fixer – someone who can break up the status quo and reinvigorate the department.

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So we’re all agreed: No on Prop. 305 (and elect a Democratic legislature and governor)

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The Arizona Capitol Times reported Voucher vote creates dilemma for school-choice supporters:

If voters approve the voucher expansion law in November, many believe those changes would be locked in under the Voter Protection Act.

A “yes” on Prop. 305 would keep SB1431, (the “vouchers on steroids” bill), in place as approved by the Legislature in 2017.

That means modifying the statute in the future would be incredibly difficult, and that is where the problem lies for the school-choice crowd.

Indeed, the prospect of locking that law in place has been enough to give even the staunchest supporters of Empower Scholarship Accounts pause.

“If Prop. 305 passes, it could hinder our ability to make crucial improvements to the ESA program,” said Kim Martinez, a spokeswoman for the pro-voucher American Federation for Children.

Laurie Roberts of The Republic expands upon this in Dark money groups’ stand on Prop. 305 shows the public got played on voucher expansion:

Here’s a curious and rather enlightening development.

The “dark money” groups that spent big bucks to get a Legislature willing to vote for a massive expansion of Arizona’s school-voucher program are not going to campaign to try to save their crowning achievement.

The Republic’s Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez are reporting that the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity will sit out Proposition 305. Meanwhile, the Betsy DeVos-created American Federation for Children actually will urge people to vote no.

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Focus People, Focus!

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Cross-posted from RestoreReason.com.

I was at a SOS AZ presentation on public education funding last night and after a slide about corporate tax credits, one young woman advocated for holding the corporations responsible for not supporting our schools. Although I would normally be one of the first to vilify corporate America for their greed at the expense of the rest of us, I think her ire was a little misplaced. Arizona corporations after all, are just taking advantage of the laws incentivizing them to act a certain way. These aren’t loopholes that corporations are paying high-powered lawyers and accountants to find for them, but incentives the Legislature has directly handed to them to. It isn’t after all, like the tax credits allow the corporations to pocket more profit, they are still paying out the same amount of money (whether in taxes or credits), they just get to choose where their taxes go.

THEREIN lies the rub. THEY get to choose where their tax dollars go…not us, the people. That’s the problem with all these tax credits and exemptions, 331 is the number I heard last night, that the Arizona Legislature has granted. You see, ideally, tax credits should be granted to incentivize behavior that voters want and that produces good for all of us. We’ve all heard the saying though, that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When all the power in a government is consolidated on one side, the tendency is not to look at the common good, but the good of “your” people. And, when it is apparent to lawmakers that they can act with impunity because they will continue to get reelected despite their failure to provide for all the people in their care, the tendency is for them to do whatever they want.

Yes, corporations also have a responsibility to care about the common good, but I really don’t blame them for taking advantage of legal incentives for directing their tax dollars where the Legislature wants. The rest of us suffer though, because these incentives reduce the size of our general fund “pie”. We also suffer because the diverted funding, essentially our tax dollars, then has no accountability nor transparency associated with it. We don’t know if it is being used for the purpose intended and we certainly don’t know the return on our investment.

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