Ah, for the good old days when Arizona was a liberal state. According to a 1940 Arizona guide book:
“Along political and economic lines, a great majority of Arizona people are liberal minded almost to the ‘try anything once’ point.”
Those Arizonans of yesteryear were even developing an environmental bent, at least from a 1940s perspective.
“There is considerable evidence that earlier tendencies to exploit natural resources, to take all that could be taken and move on, are being tempered.”
And when it came to education, they spared no expense.
“One direction [Arizona’s] liberalism takes is toward provisions for popular education that might seem almost extravagant, considering population and taxable wealth. Arizona people insist that Arizona schools be of the best, regardless of cost. Parents who never went beyond the grammar grades are determined that their children shall have university diplomas. Arizonans are generous in providing libraries, recreational facilities, especially anything that promises to help children enjoy childhood and become better equipped to meet the battles of later life.”
“Generous.” “Extravagant.” “Regardless of cost.” Be still, my beating heart!
So what happened to reverse the “almost extravagant” spending on our children and their educations, and when did it happen? The graph below, created from information in a 2009 study of educational spending put together by the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, gives us a clue.
The “100%” line across the center of the graph is the national average for per student spending from 1966 to 2006. In 1966, Arizona was spending nearly 10 percent above the national average. By 2006, we were almost 25 percent below the national average. What happened?
Arizona’s state legislature was dominated by Democrats until 1966 when the Republicans gained a majority in both houses. That’s when our spending relative to other states began to plummet. In six years, we went from above the national average to dead even. Three years later, in 1975, we were 10 percent below average.
In the four years after 1975, the line turned upwards again, bringing us nearly even with the national average. That was when, for the first time since 1966, Democrats had a majority in the State Senate, (the House was still Republican) and the Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General were all Democrats as well. It was the last time the Democrats controlled that much of state government.
The line moved up and down until 1987. After that, it started a regular descent until 2006, which is where the study’s information ends. As we know, the descent, and Republican dominance in state government, continued.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2015.
Wrong. It’s because deluded liberal democrats are abjectly irresponsible with taxpayer money, yet sheeple keep electing them to office. Try doing some actual investigative reporting next time.
Billions of dollars stolen from taxpayers so liberals can have their permanent second class citizens, Grijalva’s army of toilet cleaners, yet the author is blind to it and even resorts to bigotry to weave his lie.
Know why he’s blind to it? Because like all the rest of the public school teachers, they’re stuffing their pockets and retiring on the most generous pension plans of all, paid for by the taxpayers, stolen to educate the illegals.
How does it feel, Safier to be part of the biggest exploitation of illegals in the country? Are you aware that up to 80% of the females crossing the border illegally have been raped? How do those dollars in your pocket feel?
Pin the tail on the pissed-off middle aged white men, eh?
If you could import Democrats from Vermont to run Arizona, that might bring about a change for the better in the management of Arizona’s public school systems.
Giving people like the so-called “Democrats” who control TUSD the reigns of state government would just result in different kinds of abuse than what we currently get from the Republicans.
Perhaps this — the total absence of responsibility and sound management on either side of the political spectrum — is one of the results of decades of BOTH underfunding AND exploiting / mismanaging the public schools systems that educate most of the students in the state. The state is currently an “ignorant-ocracy.” There are precious few of our elected officials on either side of the fence who demonstrate that they understand proper public governance and expect to be held accountable for behaving like educated adults and professionals. If you doubt this, go to the TUSD website and watch yesterday evening’s board meeting. No one in their right mind would want “public servants” (?!) like the current Democratic board majority running ANYTHING, including our state government.
I see the koolaid was handed out in large glasses today at the Republican Whiners breakfast. Thank goodness they always have someone else to blame for their mistakes!
Well said bdfPDwoe. This is exactly what happens get government gets too big. It will take years to right size it again.
Increased money flowing into districts like TUSD under its current leadership would actually benefit “our children’s” futures? That’s pretty naïve.
And who is this “our children”? I wasn’t aware that David Safier had children enrolled in Arizona schools. Many of those of us who do would prefer not to have David Safier’s opinion taken into account — he excuses dishonest leadership and does his best to change the subject when it comes to holding people he has endorsed for public office accountable.
As with any other objective presentation of historical fact, if the trends are bothersome to folks of the republican persuasion, they react with silly anecdotes they are convinced somehow justify the behaviours that result in the degradation of the subject topic. It is a mental illness that goes by the name of cognitive dissonance. The most common cause is a culture that government is always bad that is a result of very wealthy people succeeding in getting everyone to carry water for them in avoiding taxation.
And now you know what to reply when someone says, “Well, the one thing we know is that it wont help to throw money at it.”
Just don’t expect that fool to know he’s wrong.
The Republicans are not just defunding Education in Arizona as a way to conserve the budget for other projects. It is a concerted effort by the Republican party to make our Education system so ineffective that the next natural step is to “PRIVATIZE” the system which gives our public money to private companies the same way that they gave CCA our prisons. And can you even imagine all of the re-election money that Republicans will get from their partnership with these private companies. Privatization is being instituted in many states wherever there are Republicans in control of state legislatures and it’s not just in the education field but every aspect of government controlled industry that is being whittled away from government control.
One of the worst things that has happened to Arizona is to allow our State Legislature and Governorship to be controlled by Republicans. Republicans only care about themselves and short term gain; the idea of caring for others or the environment, and the ability to engage in long-term comprehensive planning is simply alien to most of the Republican Party.
What happened to the money AZ got from Feds for Special Education? I think AZ was one of eight states to receive this special funding for special education professional development and support . I haven’t heard anything since. Can you write an article about that?
If no one likes the way the legislature is being run, likes the way the state is being run then get away from the keyboards and do something about it. Field viable candidates and then get them elected. It seems all that has been REALLY done since 1966 is crying about the GOP and nothing else. Even David has found a place for him to spend his last whiney years after being run out of Oregon…..among a bunch of fellow “do nothings”.
Truth hurts. The future is bleak. Funding schools is an evil little game, argued constantly in the minds of those who really do not like kids, especially poor ones.
Insane! Governor taking money away from public schools with certified teachers to give to Charter Schools without Certified teachers, Arizona becomes the dumbest State.
I have thought long and hard, why would you want to dumb down your children? What society can maintain growth and development and dumb down the future?