Even if Doug Ducey, somewhere in his heart of hearts, wanted to advocate for higher taxes or put a brake on Arizona’s private school voucher programs, he couldn’t. He’s addicted to the massive doses of dark money he gets from the Koch brothers network, and the Kochs are for lowering taxes and dismantling public (read “government”) schools, ever and always. Ducey doesn’t dare mess with the supplier even if he thought it would be good for Arizona, lest his vital flow of cash dries up. Lack of supply could lead to a painful withdrawal from public life.
On January 14, Ducey went on Sunday Square Off with Brahm Resnik. It was Ducey’s first time on the show since he’s been governor, and it may be his last, given the tough questions Resnik threw at him about his positions on education and his political debt to the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers. Before I get to the interview, some background is in order.
Doug Ducey first made a name for himself on the national anti-tax stage in 2012 when he was state treasurer and led the fight against Proposition 204, which would have added a billion dollars to education funding by increasing the sales tax. Anyone fighting a tax hike is a friend of the Kochs, and they showed their support by putting $1.8 million into the effort. Their money was instrumental in defeating the measure. [See Note at the end for a correction.]
In 2014, Ducey was running for governor, and he wanted to make sure his Koch connection was still solid.
The Kochs don’t supply all the money for candidates and causes they support. Much of it flows from a loosely connected group of fabulously wealthy people who form the Koch network. They come together during regular summits at fancy resorts to plot their strategies and offer up the money necessary to put their political plans into motion.
Ducey attended the network summit in June, 2014, along with conservative favorites like Tom Cotton, Jodi Ernst and Cory Gardner. These gatherings are very secretive. Nothing is supposed to leak out. But someone managed to record the proceedings, including Ducey’s moment in the spotlight.
Ducey was introduced to the gathering as someone who “really stood up to a lot of cronyism in the business community in Arizona and led the charge against a tax hike ballot initiative” — referring, of course, to his fight against Prop 204. Ducey followed his introduction with a five minute self-congratulatory talk which let the deep pockets in the room know he was their man. He told them about himself while he stroked their oversized egos, hoping to open their pocketbooks.
“I’ve been coming to this conference for years,” Ducey told them. In politics, he continued, “You’re known for the company you keep,” referring to the ultra-rich members of the network and the politicians they support. He stated that he had “confidence in the messaging we have here at the conference.”
“I can’t emphasize enough the power of organizations like this,” he said as he concluded. “I’m grateful for what this conference does.” What the conference does is fund candidates, both through direct contributions and infusions of dark money. That’s “the power of organizations like this” Ducey was talking about.
It’s hard to pinpoint how much money the Koch brothers network put into getting Ducey elected governor. That’s the nature of dark money. Estimates range from $1.5 million to more than $5 million. Some of it went to promote Ducey. The rest was spent tearing down his Democratic opponent, Fred DuVal.
Ducey has a big reelection fight coming up. Though he should be the odds-on favorite, he knows a Democratic wave has been gaining strength with every election since Trump was sworn in, and it could crest in November. He’s going to need all the help he can get from the Koch network. So he attended another Koch brothers summit in June, 2017, and made sure to give the oversized egos in the room another stroking. When he talked about the expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, Arizona’s private school voucher program, a project dear to the heart of the Kochs and their allies, he made sure to give the wealthy donors the credit.
“These type of innovations are making a huge difference,” [Ducey] said. But, he added, to make it happen, “I needed the power of the network.”
When Brahm Resnik interviewed Ducey, he asked why a program Ducey claimed is popular with Arizona parents needed so much help from the Kochs. Ducey’s response echoed addicts’ usual rationalizations. First he maintained he was in total control. It was a distortion to claim he was dependent on the Kochs and their money. When that didn’t fly, he tried to shift the blame, claiming his addiction isn’t his fault, it’s the fault of the media. They made him do it.
Here’s a transcript of the portion of the interview about the Koch brothers’ influence over Ducey and his policy.
Resnik: [Empowerment Scholarship Accounts] have grown over the last few years, and it was presented to voters as something Arizona parents wanted. And yet at a Koch Brothers donor summit last year, you were reported as saying, you needed the power of the network to get this expansion passed. So the question is, why is Arizona education policy being set by
Ducey: That’s, that’s a distortion. I said
Resnik: That didn’t happen?
Ducey: I set Arizona policy with our legislature and our education community.
Resnik: Did you thank the Koch Brothers?
Ducey: Because I have to overcome the media oftentimes, of how they talk about Arizona education.
Resnik: You use the Koch Brothers to overcome people like me?
Ducey: No, I, I need resources so I can communicate directly with the voters, because oftentimes on this show on Sunday morning, all that’s happening is dumping on Arizona education rather than talking about the excellence that we have inside our system, and then I’m addressing what resources we can bring so that we can further improve it across the state for all of our kids.
Resnik: So what exactly do the Koch network do aside from helping counter things that people like me might say on Sunday mornings?
Ducey: Well, I would say it’s more the educational champion or educational choice network that I’m addressing, people that, this is an issue of passion for them. They want to see improvement in public education across the board.
As our current president might say, it’s sad to see Ducey denying the truth about his Koch addiction. But that’s how the underground world of dark money works. The more you’re dependent on it, the harder you have to deny it.
[Note: I wrote that Prop 204 was a sales tax increase. In fact its purpose was to continue a temporary three year sales tax increase which was due to expire.]
This article appears in Jan 18-24, 2018.
So if public district schools — even increasingly troubled schools in a conspicuously, disastrously mismanaged district like TUSD — are better than the charter schools and private schools families elect to attend through choice policy, why do you need to eliminate charters, vouchers and ESAs to get people to stay in these supposedly fabulous public district schools, David? Might the steep declines in enrollment we’ve seen in TUSD for the past decade be a reflection of the fact that many of the schools the district runs don’t actually meet students educational needs? Might choice policy be, not a sign an intractable “Koch addiction,” but a way to address the bad situation parents living in districts like TUSD find themselves in, vis a vis the availability of a sound education for their kids?
Eliminate the problems in the public district schools, including the decades-old, entrenched problems in our largest local disaster of a public district, TUSD, and then whether or not charters exist, whether or not vouchers and ESAs are offered, no one will leave the neighborhood public district schools that are always the easiest, cheapest, most convenient option for those who live near them. (Even with charters, vouchers, and ESAs, the need for transportation and the potential differences between the full cost of tuition and the amount available through vouchers and ESAs will make charters and privates always a less convenient, more costly options for the vast majority of parents who use them.)
Unfortunately, your utopian SAVE PUBLIC EDUCATION project has some lies at the heart of it, David. One lie is that all that has gone wrong in TUSD is the result of insufficient funding and it is possible to fix the problems in TUSD just by applying more funding. Anyone who has got anywhere near the district knows that is not true, including the parade of former Superintendents who never last very long in office (why IS that?) and the current Superintendent, who just made public a secret “blacklist” he unearthed that prevented qualified faculty from being hired in a district which is still staffing many of its classrooms with under-qualified long term subs.
http://tucson.com/news/local/long-rumored-tusd-blacklist-revealed-many-on-it-for-little/article_5d49cd2b-5c32-54a8-a287-01ee62c82371.html
Another lie is that what goes on in many of TUSD’s schools deserves to be called by the name of “education.” Putting students in a classroom with an un-credentialed adult, sometimes without the necessary textbooks, and frequently without the disciplinary support that allows the un-credentialed “teachers” to keep order is not educational. It is a tremendous, malfeasant waste of students’ time and a betrayal of their potential.
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/discipline-problems-at-secrist-trigger-special-tusd-task-force/article_2c7cfee0-2dec-5e6c-8298-743298b3abf2.html
http://tucson.com/news/local/tusd-pours-resources-into-east-side-school-in-effort-to/article_d3d0b851-48ac-5b35-8de9-1d7d3e0c6776.html
Another lie is that the architects of choice policy are all villains out to destroy the public system so they can make a quick buck through for-profit charters and privates, rather than people who are trying to provide opportunities for refugees from failed public district schools to attend valid, well-managed non-profit schools. There are some of the former and some of the latter on the current scene, but reality is more complicated than the black-and-white fairy tales your crowd tells to try to restore its monopoly on the use of public funds for education and to keep money flowing into the coffers of the political machines associated with mismanaged public school districts.
As for Ducey’s contention that he needs money to communicate with the public and to correct some of the lies circulated by people who oppose choice policy, he is correct about that. See above for a partial list of just a few of those lies.
Throughout the early days of this legislative session, one voice has been heard with clarity, insight and knowledge: Steve Farley. Anyone who has read his first two Farley Reports for 2018 has seen how he has exposed all the lies and half-truths Ducey has tried to peddle as he wheeled out his Koch-inspired budget. With all due respect to David Garcia, he simply can’t match Farley’s knowledge of state government and how it should be run. Farley is our best choice for governor this year by far.
Only two things count for Ducey’s national ambitions. One, he wants to brag to the Koch network that he never raised and always lowered taxes. Two, he wants to brag about his school choice creds, even if it’s the hypocrisy of private, religious tuition with public money, and charter schools with no cap and no demonstrated need either. The wants and real needs of Arizona citizens are secondary to those ambitions. Water issues, infrastructure problems, mental health funding mean nothing. The only reason he is mouthing some alleged new support for public schools now is the actual polling numbers he is getting. But if course no new money, only voodoo revenue increases. He has himself in a dilemma of his own ambitions. The voters of Arizona should relief him of his problems in November.
I wish Ducey would bail out of the Governorship and get down here to Pima County. We could use some tax cutting in this county. Hell, I wish he would run for Mayor in Oro Valley, Oro Valley residents are taxed to pay for a money losing golf course so a minority of old duffers can play golf at the majoritys expense.
Where are the Koch Brothers when you need them?
“Frances Perkins” notes that Ducey’s “school choice creds” involve “the hypocrisy of private, religious tuition with public money.”
What is more important in K-12 education, “Frances,” whether the student actually gains mastery of the subject matter taught (literature, history, science, math, etc.) or whether successful and valid instruction in these subjects happens to take place in a Church-affiliated institution?
If parents (not the State; the State is not the party making the decision) voluntarily decide to apply per-pupil funding derived from taxes they have paid in a Church-affiliated school that produces better educational results for their children than their neighborhood public school does, who should have the right to say that that is an impermissible application of public funds? You? Other citizens who happen to share your beliefs, but not fellow citizens who disagree with your value system or those who belong to a church of which you disapprove? How does our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion enter into the degree to which you and others are granted the power to create economic disincentives for fellow citizens to educate their children in the institutions they prefer?
The sad reality about commenters like “Frances” is that they seem to care a lot more about ideological purity and the potential to influence the value systems of other people’s children (or to “protect” other people’s children from the influence of value systems of which they do not approve) than they care about whether students are given real opportunities to LEARN in the schools they attend.
The sad reality about commenters like “How much”, is the rank hypocrisy they display. They want public money to subsidize their “choice”, for any sectarian school. But god forbid, the public money comes with any regulations, curriculum review, or any questions of accountability. Commenters like me fully support good student outcomes and school “choice”, but not the use of taxpayer money for every choice a parent makes. So while bought and paid for legislators clamp ever harder on public schools for “accountability”, the opposite is for the school choice crowd just give us our “choice” money and don’t ask questions. We even have home schooled kids who want public money for outings and CTE tuition, and want to be on public school sports teams for schools they don’t attend. I guess the operative term in this article is “money laundering”. Money laundered campaign donations in the guise of “free speech.” Money laundered, unaccountable, taxpayer money in the guise of “school choice.” And commenters like me haven’t even touched the unsaid reason for much of this “choice”, segregation. Be it by class, income, race, or religious affiliation. (Taxpayers should pay me so my kids don’t have to association with “those” kind of people)
Many who favor choice policy would be fully in support of the right kind of accountability going with public funds applied in private schools, Frances, but weve yet to see the public system come up with an accountability system that does not do more damage than it does good. Weve also yet to see many public district systems actually uniformly and responsibly APPLY what safeguards are supposed to be in place in public districts to keep these school systems functioning well and meeting students needs. The full blown system of democratic governance, fiscal transparency (?), and test-based accountability certainly has not worked in TUSD to keep the district from descending into deep dysfunction, and that is an easily observable, verifiable fact.
Its important to note that people who promote the kinds of public policy you favor do NOT advocate for better accountability across the board, in public districts, charters, and privates receiving public funds. They try to cloak or distract from the serious problems in local public district systems while they promote the supposed transparency and accountability of public districts as a reason to advocate for abolishing the use of public funds in many charter and private institutions that do a better job delivering sound education than the public districts for which these advocates would like to retain a monopoly on the use of public funds. What would be served by abolishing choice policy is NOT the common good, as these policy gurus like to assert, but the particular good of entrenched local networks that have proved to be extremely poor custodians of the public funds and educational tasks entrusted to them.
As for the segregation motivation you allege, it is not demonstrable because we dont have universal access to the real motives of people using choice policy. Among those whose cases I know, most are looking for better education, and in some cases, while looking for better education, they find greater racial and socio-economic integration in a private setting than they do in a public one. That would be true, for example, of any student that transferred from District 16 to a school run by the Diocese of Tucson. So lets not pretend that the public district system is a bastion of racial and socio-economic integration any more than it is a bastion of transparency and accountability. Its simply not true.
If you want students to go to private school get your private funding. ..And, then brag about the excellent results. No public citizen’s taxes to your ideology schools, eh?
What is an “ideology school”? One person’s belief system in a pluralist country where the constitution guarantees freedom of religion is another person’s “ideology.” To many, the belief that “per pupil funding derived from tax dollars all citizens pay can only be applied in something called a PUBLIC DISTRICT SCHOOL, whether or not that institution actually educates children adequately” looks like one of the most destructive and negligent ideologies out there.
It’s bad public policy and damaging to the common good when we impose penalties on families that have reasonable academic standards and goals for their children because they take the trouble necessary to enroll their children in schools that actually EDUCATE them. Until opponents of voucher policy can ensure that all PUBLIC DISTRICT SCHOOLS are capable of doing that — something they have not yet been able to achieve with the largest public school district in Tucson — they have no right to impose economic penalties on other tax-paying citizens for being responsible stewards of their children’s educations. Per-pupil funding is there to effectively educate the citizenry, not to waste children’s time while subsidizing entrenched networks of cronies like the one surrounding TUSD.