Here’s a quote by Ed Supe-elect Diane Douglas from a media release:
“The courts have ruled that Arizona schools were deprived of increases guaranteed to them by a vote of the people.”
What does she mean exactly? I haven’t seen the whole media release (Gotta get on that email list!), and from the reporting I’ve read, Douglas is short on specifics, but it looks like Douglas is saying the lege should cough up the dough it owes the schools. Another quote:
“Funding is not the only factor in the success of education, but it is clear that Arizona schools are suffering due to years of frugal budgets and cutbacks.”
Here’s what’s missing — in a good sense — from that statement: the phrase “throwing money at schools.” I agree with Douglas, “Funding is not the only factor in the success of education.” But lots of conservatives take it a step further and contend that schools deserve less money because they’re doing such a terrible job, why reward them for bad behavior by “throwing money at them”?
Douglas states her disagreement with the “throw money at education” crowd by stating, “Arizona schools are suffering due to years of frugal budgets and cutbacks.” Yes, indeed they are.
Credit where credit is due. The superintendent has no direct control over the size of the state’s education budget, but if Douglas is making statements that move the conversation in a positive direction, she’s doing the right thing.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2014.
David, thanks for taking our views into account. It’s unfortunate that when most of us talk about public schools all we have experienced is TUSD. The only recourse we have if we object to their agenda is to support the cutting of funding, based on the waste, fraud and mismanagement.
And the man in charge of that is making more than $200,00 per year.
Thus our frustration.
But thanks for your balanced comments in regards to her.
Conservatives love to throw unsupported statements about public education. They use terms like “failure”, “fraud”, “top heavy administrators,” (which include bus drivers and cafeteria workers), and “waste”, unsupported by data at all. We don’t need more school “reform”, we need public school support. You can bet anytime the term “reform” is used by Arne Duncan, Goldwater, ALEC, or their puppet, Kelli Ward, it means traditional public schools are getting screwed. You want “waste”, try for profit on-line schools. Huge waste of public money. We need to support the 80% of this State’s population who have made their “choice”, their local public schools. I live near Cragin School, a wonderful school with a committed staff, and they need more support.
We have the Ash Fork School district, in the middle of no-where with little tax support, and no charter school in sight, being an incredibly successful district, with low income, high performing students. Great staff and superintendent and supportive, goal setting ELECTED school board. District of the year in Arizona. Charter boards, self-perpetuating, and answerable only to their corporate masters.
Is there any idea what percentage of state money comes to Tucson and then TUSD?
FP, whereas liberals just tell us to “bend over and take it”, throwing our tax dollars to whatever entities that they deem as appropriate.
If past performance and lack of vision in Superintendent Douglas’s campaign is any clue just hope the Legislature doesn’t do more harm while dismantling the district schools in Arizona while favoring for profit schools because we saw no evidence from her campaign any hope for a different track than we have seen in the past for public education.
Douglas showed no interest during the election of anything other than “common core” a nationwide measuring stick for public education. In this age of following the jobs has had one affect it is on the children who are transferred from one school to the next often finding no uniformity in curriculum from one school to the next.
Common Core if nothing else should aid in leveling the curriculum playing field for these up-rooted young folks. Something desperately needed in today’s world.
The new Superintendent has an opportunity to soar into the future bypassing the opportunity of staffing the department with ideologues or lackeys for private educational or for profit school systems and enrolling Arizona educators experienced in our existing educational programs.
We need a state educational department dedicated to preparing our young citizens for future job markets, supporting not just K-12 but community college programs where they can obtain professional credentials and move into good paying jobs and career paths. A university system bringing additional opportunities for serious growth and development of talent right here in Arizona at reasonable tuitions.
The December 15th issue of Forbes Magazine had an article entitled, “Here’s a Plan to Turn Around, US Education and generate $225 Trillion”. All of us with an interest in education should read it. It was written by the editor of Forbes, hardly a bleeding liberal journal that does an economic analysis of an investment in educating our kids. Five facets to the initiative, (1) Increase teacher salaries; (2) Universal Pre-K; (3)Empower the Principal; (4) Blended learning (computer with face to face) and (5) Common Core.
Makes for an excellent read and makes the point that there is a strong business case for investing in our public education system.
Now that she is in office, I hope that the new Ed Sup has the guts to fight for better schools and a more hopeful next generation. To represent and work for all the young people in the state will not be easy, and the fact that legislators have destroyed “the will of the people” with such short-sightedness and apparently no conscience is her first test of integrity.