We have a collision coming in our state elections. The until-now irresistible force of the #RedforEd movement with meet a usually immovable object, the anti-tax, anti-public school Republican party. Something’s gotta give.
Before we look at Arizona, let’s take a trip to Oklahoma, a state that hates taxes as much as Arizona—it hadn’t passed a new tax in 30 years—and has cut school funding as drastically as we have. In March, its state Senate pulled together the needed three-quarters majority to pass a tax hike. The result was a substantial raise for Oklahoma teachers whose pay, like Arizona’s teachers, is near the bottom of the national heap. But like the teacher salary hike the legislature passed in Arizona, Oklahoma’s barely moved the salary needle compared to other states, so
teachers weren’t happy with the outcome. They staged a nine day walkout in April. They gained a lot of attention, but no more money for their efforts.
Oklahoma held its primary Tuesday. How did the voters react to having their taxes raised and watching the never-satisfied teachers demand more, more, more? They probably turned on the teachers, right? Wrong. The opposite happened.
Over a hundred educators ran for office, from both parties. Dozens either won their primaries outright or made it into a runoff. One of the runoffs is between two Democratic educators.
Back in March when the tax hike bill was in the legislature, ten House Republicans voted against it. Two of them lost their primaries outright. Seven others face runoffs. Remember, these are Republican incumbents in a state that hasn’t voted for a tax hike in three decades, yet voting against the increase was a losing issue for them.
What should Arizona’s state candidates learn from the Oklahoma primaries? That #RedforEd is alive and well, and Arizona may vote more than ever with students and teachers, and less than usual with candidates who push an anti-tax, anti-public school agenda. Voters may be ready for a few more Democrats in the legislature and in statewide offices. Who knows, they may even vote for a tax increase.
It’s worth remembering, two years ago Trump only won Arizona by four points. It was a purple presidential election. Arizona isn’t a guaranteed red state these days.
Ducey understands all this. He and his advisors are nothing if not politically savvy. So he’s taken his “I love public school children and teachers” tour on the road. That’s pretty much all he talks about, how great our schools are, how our teachers deserve more money, how nothing is more important than investing in our kids. When he’s not talking about raising school funding, he’s touting his plan to make schools safer. (His plan was weak enough to get NRA approval, but still too strong for Republican legislators to support, so it didn’t pass.)
Where is all the Republican talk I’m used to hearing every election cylce about incompetent teachers and failing public schools? Where is the praise for charter schools and private school vouchers? It’s nowhere to be found. Ducey knows voters don’t want to hear that old anti-public school drumbeat this year.
If we had truth in advertising laws, Ducey’s slogan would have to be, “Vote for me! I’m almost as good as a Democrat on education.”
We don’t know how many Republican state candidates will ride Ducey’s “education governor” coattails. But we do know most Democratic candidates are embracing the #RedforEd movement.
On the tax front, we’ll soon find out if the Invest in Education supporters have gathered enough signatures to make it on the ballot. The organizers are cautiously optimistic. If the measure makes the cut, will it pass in November? One thing that’s certain, the campaign against it is going to be fierce and well funded. But voters have been telling pollsters for years, they want to increase spending on education, and they’re willing to raise taxes to do it. Their vote will be easier because most of them won’t feel the bite. Only people with incomes over $250,000 for individuals or $500,000 for couples will pay more. That’s taxable income we’re talking about, meaning earned income will have to be close to twice that much before someone pays a penny in added tax.
Will 99 percent of voters take pity on the one percenters, or will they vote for school children and teachers?
A new study compares Arizona’s poverty levels to the rest of the country. Not only do we have a very high poverty rate, but we’re slipping compared to other states. It’s not just family income that’s low. We have 10 percent fewer children in early childhood education, meaning too many children who are most in need of educational enrichment before they begin kindergarten aren’t getting it. Facts like that may lead voters to decide that the richest among us can afford to pay a little more to help out all our children, including the poorest among us.
A Wet-Finger-In-The-Wind Extra: Republicans, Ducey included, would love to change the subject from education to immigration. Fear of brown people has been a winning campaign issue here before. But this year, the public sentiment surrounding immigration is a moving target. It’s impossible to guage where it will land by election day. When Ducey isn’t out campaigning, he’s holding a wet finger out his office window, hoping to figure out which way the immigration winds are blowing.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2018.
Fear of brown people? Really David? Are you trying to incite a race riot?
I hear the tune of “Desperado” playing in my mind. It’s all or nothing with you guys isn’t it?
Politics aside, not sure that the analogy with OK works. Big difference is that AZ has a sizable retirement community…. folks living on fixed incomes and have little interest in having it shrunk by some tax-happy politician. Usually these people come from states (think MI, MN, IL, WI) that have a history of aggressively raising taxes while public education ( what the kid learn not what the educrates get) deteriorated. Besides, OK is probably feeling fairly prosperous with the rise in oil prices. No such honey pot in AZ.
Good summary of the upcoming issues. It will be interesting to see how much power #RedforEd is able to gin up to finally help out teachers.
“That’s taxable income we’re talking about, meaning earned income will have to be close to twice that much before someone pays a penny in added tax.”
Uh, I hope you pay your tax accountant well. It’s pretty hard to find 250,000 in tax deductions. Unless you’re running a business in which those are expenses and it was never income at all.
I’d rather see a shared burden. When people treat rich folks as piggy banks, and don’t sacrifice anything themselves, they don’t take it as seriously. Even if it’s a small amount everyone should share the sacrifice so they value it more.
“Most Democratic candidates are embracing the #RedforEd movement,” David? A better way to say it would be to note that the Democratic Party has been trying to appropriate the bipartisan RedforEd movement so they can use it for their own purposes, which are politically driven and always seem to involve applying money in areas other than teacher salary improvements.
Will the “Invest in Education” initiative, if it makes it onto the ballot, be helped or harmed by the decision our largest local Democrat-supported and Democrat-excused school district, TUSD, made not to apply their RedforED funds exclusively for teacher raises?
https://tucson.com/news/local/at-tusd-teachers-won-t-get-the-whole-raise-redfored/article_7a53ce72-9385-500e-909f-5b565415d859.html
https://tucson.com/news/local/gov-ducey-disses-tusd-plan-to-spread-raises-for-teachers/article_6ab14532-c912-5e9f-bb8b-06e00d9ee0fe.html
This district and its advocates and propagandists have a history of begging funds with touching appeals to “help our poor teachers and students!” and then applying them in places not directly related to the quality of education delivered to students. It happened with 301 and with 123 and the only good that came of it was it created such interesting “spin” challenges for folks like David Safier:
https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2016/10/03/is-tusd-stiffing-teachers-the-star-says-so-repeatedly
Their behavior is at this point 100% predictable. Even in a context like the current one, where scores of their classrooms are manned with outsourced, underpaid, under-qualified “long term” (? – permanent) substitutes and they have a COMPELLING need to raise Step 1 salaries significantly, with RedforEd they repeated their chronic fund-application behavior and walked right into the trap that Ducey set for them. Their response to the receipt of those funds will no doubt be highlighted in the run-up to the November elections if the “Invest in Education” initiative is on the ballot.
Sad.
“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” Joseph Stalin
Trump has a meeting with Putin on July 16…probably to develop a strategy for the minupulation of the Novemvber Elections as was done in the 2016 National Elections!!!
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it”.. Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861
“….The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure….” ( Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787)
“Republicans, Ducey included, would love to change the subject from education to immigration.”
What if it’s the same issue? What if educational performance is tied more closely to demographics than to spending?
( Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris,13 Nov. 1787)
Only you Francis, only you.
Talk about manure.
More info on the budgeting practices of the largest school district in Pima County:
“Despite receiving the largest infusion of state funding in more than a decade, Tucson Unified School District failed to balance its budget Tuesday and will start off the new fiscal year having to make cuts. The district Governing Board approved a $566 million budget for the upcoming school year that relies on rosy enrollment projections, assumes money that is in legal limbo will materialize and leaves just a fraction of a percent of its funding left uncommitted and available for emergencies. Then, immediately after approving the already-tight budget, the board went against the advice of its budget guru and voted to spend more, plunging the district more than $100,000 in the red before the fiscal year even begins.”
https://tucson.com/news/local/tusd-receives-windfall-from-state-immediately-overspends/article_db85c996-43d3-53ab-b7ff-aab177141a45.html
Near the bottom of the article, we find a paragraph that reports this:
“The Governing Board […] voted to cancel its contract with a company that provides outsourced substitutes, a move that district officials said would force the Human Resources Department to hire several new staffers, and would cost an estimated $150,000 in the first year, increasing significantly in future years. That move, however, is not yet reflected in the budget district officials have to make cuts of more than $100,000 to find the money to pay for it first.”
So the long-term subs covering too many classrooms will no longer be “outsourced” subs, if TUSD finds the money to pay the cost of managing their own sub labor force. I hope they don’t think that keeping these classrooms filled with subs rather than with certified teachers is acceptable as long as management of the subs is not outsourced. Other changes in budgeting practices are needed: raising Step 1 salaries and / or attaching stipends to difficult-to-fill classroom teacher positions. If their priorities were focused on improving quality of education delivered, those would have been the first things the more than $15 million in RedforEd funds would have been allocated to cover.
How many people are really too stupid to understand that, in a context where budgets are extremely tight, it is even more important to pay relentless attention to how the limited funds are applied and what the order of priority for application is? How many people are too stupid to recognize a fake-you-out Wed like to get rid of outsourcing, but look!, too bad, so sad, we dont have enough money to do it! [because we chose to spend $15 million in new funds on other things and only got to this item once the money was already overspent.] Ouch! Ouch! (Limping conspicuously.) Were hurting ourselves trying to get rid of outsourcing!
Memo to TUSD Board members, who dont seem to understand what the job they asked the public to give them actually involves:
Yes, your job DOES include balancing your damn budget in a responsible way with realistic enrollment projections so you dont have to make damaging emergency cuts mid-year. (Who in their right mind believes TUSDs enrollment loss will be LOWER rather than HIGHER in the coming year when conditions and public confidence are what they are?)
Yes, your job DOES include staffing your schools with qualified teachers. Other districts in town serving similar SES populations with lower levels of per-pupil funding do it. You can too. (And why again are your Step 1 salaries $5K LOWER than Catalina Foothills? Heads up: when the working conditions are tougher, you have to pay MORE, at Step 1, not less, to compete for the same quality applicants. And once you get those qualified applicants through the door, you have to treat them well so you can retain them. Dare we guess that you dont actually WANT to fill those classrooms with qualified teachers, because you can get away with paying long term subs so very much less in wages and benefits?)
All the theatrical attempts to provoke people who dont understand budgeting or education into thinking, Theres STILL not enough money! Poor, poor TUSD.
Stop already. DO YOUR JOB. Your job is to ensure the schools entrusted to your governance are competently run and deliver quality education. It is not to grind out dysfunction that you think will provide good grist for the propaganda mill of the Democratic Partys attempt to flip the governorship this fall.
Budget so the schools will FUNCTION, not to make a filthy political point.