Well, as one-time acclaimed Arizona prep distance runner Vince Furnier once sang, “School’s out … for summer.” But the Arizona Legislature, which hates public schools and which began its marathon session back in the first week of January, is still in session with no end in sight. They’re going for some kind of record, apparently unaware that the breaking of certain records is not necessarily a good thing.
(For those of you who saw Almost Famous and learned that there is no limit to just how petty rock musicians can be, it’s funny to learn that since “Alice Cooper” was originally the name of the band and not that of the former Mr. Furnier, he has to pay his former bandmates royalties for the rest of his [un]natural life.)
Anyway, the legislators, hooked on the fat per diem and the free lunches and dinners with lobbyists, continue to hang around, trying to see what kind of trouble they can get into. It should be a part of the Arizona Constitution that once the temperature in the Valley of the Sun hits 90 degrees, all further legislative action must be conducted outdoors at midday. Then, once it hits 100 degrees, all out-of-town legislators must be marched to the city limits and sent home. For those who live in the Phoenix metro area, their punishment is that they have to stay there.
As a fiscal deadline nears, the legislators continue to pump out bills that fall into at least one of four categories: Mean, Stupid, Unconstitutional and/or Un-American. The un-American ones are generally an amalgam of the first three categories.
It’s sad, really. At a time when most Americans (and Arizonans) should be keeping a close eye on the workings of their respective governments, the average person is so beaten down by having to deal with an economy that has been in the toilet for more than half a decade that one must focus all of his/her energy on just getting by and making it to the next month. Much of the damage done to the economy was the result of direct action and selective inaction on the part of said legislative bodies. But instead of being punished for the havoc they wrought, they now get to go after their pet targets with near-complete impunity.
In places like Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, right-wingers have declared a war on public education. Because, you know, public schools have public-school teachers and those teachers have formed unions and we all know that unions are communists—not that communists actually exist any more—but if you look at history, you’ll see that unions led to a middle class in America and as soon as people reach the middle class they start thinking about moving up to the upper class but if too many people reach the upper class, it won’t be special any more so we have to keep them down. Beside, they’re just teachers. It’s not like they’re something important like financial advisers or pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Having destroyed the teachers unions and gutted the public-school budget over the past few years, there really wasn’t much left for this Legislature to do but maybe look for a dying ember that might be mistaken for a glimmer of hope and then stamp it out, lest an unwelcome gust of popular support for schools come along and fan it back to life.
What they did was really rather pathetic. First, they used your tax money to go to court to keep from having to pay a relatively small amount of money that they are bound by law to pay. When the court smacked ’em around and ordered the money to be paid, the legislators took off the table a sum three times the size of the court-ordered payment, money that has been promised to the schools for the past five years but was never paid because the economy was so bad.
Now that the state is running a surplus, one might think that the lawmakers might keep their word, but such is not the case. Instead, the legislators say that the slashed budget is the “new normal.” Some even got pissy that the schools didn’t thank the Legislature for handing over the money that they theoretically could have gone to jail for had they not done so.
That’s not the worst, however. They did away with the AIMS test, the passage of which has been necessary for graduation from high school. It will be replaced by something that is based on the hot new Common Core craze that is sweeping the nation. However, in their rush to strike another blow against teachers, the Legislature also rushed through a law that requires educators with more than three years in the classroom to be judged by a flawed formula that includes standardized test scores.
With AIMS on the way out (sometime between now and 2017) and the Common Core on the way in, logic would tell you to wait for the new test to be implemented. There’s no way that the scores of the two tests can be fairly and reasonably compared. When the changeover takes place, the AIMS results will become null and void, while the first-year Common Core results will become the new base. Apparently, nobody in Phoenix thought about that.
In Arizona, “legislator” is Latin for “moron.”
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 5, 2013.
Public education has become absolutely laughable. Major American universities are filling their classes with foreign students because American students are so hopelessly far behind. Yet American public schools continue to waste resources on things like Ethnic Studies, Bi-lingual Education, remedial classes for non-English speakers, Affirmative Action based policies, and a mindset among public faculties that prevent the best and brightest students from obtaining their potential.
Sadly the writer of this article seems to fail to recognize that teacher’s unions support the very programs that are destroying education in America.
Kinda makes you wonder; Why have a state run system instead of local anyway doesn’t it?
Common Core and all other Progressive, Socialist, Communist, etc… by any name they are efforts to completely shut down all opinions and systems bar one. America became the free nation it was not because of ‘progressive’ agendas, but because of Liberty under God. God and Liberty have been driven away, so we will learn AGAIN :(, that absolute authority under man will rule absolutely and wickedly. Children will become wards of state, parents sperm and egg donors, and education to serve the needs of the ‘party’. Nothing new under the sun.
In Arizona, “legislator” is Latin for “moron.”
This is definitely the best definition I’ve ever seen for the Arizona legislature!
But Cap’t Al Melvin says we are spending $9000 a year per pupil? And he wouldn’t lie to us, right?
Let’s keep this real. It’s not the legislature. It’s the Republicans in the Legislature doing damage to the public schools.
Teacher’s unions have virtual no power in this state. It’s a right to work state. So I don’t want anyone saying anything bad about the AEA. Bargaining for better and safer working conditions, etc is also in effect bargaining for better conditions for students. Like making sure air quality in the schools is maintained, for instance.
Quality education should be based on a well-rounded and diverse curriculum. I have an MS ED in Curriculum and Instruction. I have not seen any student succeed studying all day only reading and math. Many of the programs listed by Mr/Ms Catskinner (nice screen name btw, you freak) are very important to the future of this nation because, like it or not, Hispanics are the largest growing segment of the population and we need to have programs to fit their educational needs. So being racist in your feelings towards education is going to get this country nowhere.
Without language skills, students will not be able to reach their full potential. These kids whose do not have English as their first language (and it is many more than just Spanish speakers) have the potential to be our future doctors, scientists.
I have kidney disease. My nutritionist is Mexican. I went to occupational therapy. My therapist was Mexican. Both were/are experts in their field and I am getting top notch treatment. My nutritionist has saved my kidneys from the brink of dialysis.
Also, there may be many forgein students in our Universities (someone taught them English), but one of the reasons is the totally unreachable cost of a college education, even for our best and brightest. There is currently legislation in Congress that will skyrocket the rates on student loans. This will make it even more difficult.
Instead of making it harder for our kids to get into the Uof A, we should be making it more accessible financially. Again, it’s a lack of support from the state. The U of A gets a lot less support than ASU, too. Out of sight, out of mind? Both are public instutions. Have you checked even the tuition of PCCC or any of these smaller colleges that give specialized degrees?
Anyone who thinks the Democrats aren’t trying to do what’s best for public education hasn’t been paying attention.
So, to the author of this article, and to others who may write such articles about the failure to get support for public education from the state, be clear that it is the REPUBLICANS in the legislature responsible for that…and for funneling tax dollars, very legally, into a fund for private and charter schools.
I suggest to anyone who doesn’t like what the legislature isn’t doing to support public education to change what you are doing when you vote. You are ultimately the ones making the decisions.
We honored our war dead this Memorial Day weekend, flew Old Glory proudly & rejoiced that our Democracy remains strong! Meanwhile, here in Arizona, our liberties are under attack by the same people that we elected to run our beautiful state’s government. Governor Janice K. Brewer remains beholden to the private prison industry & she insists on another term even though the Arizona Constitution forbids it. Attorney General Tom Horne thinks that he’s above the law: he too aims to remain in office after being found guilty of a misdemeanor; he ascended to his office by violating our campaign finance laws & has engaged in inappropriate relationships. Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal won’t help our dying & under funded schools but is pushing for vouchers to further erode the public school system & didn’t lift a finger to defend T.U.S.D.’s MAS program. Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio allows prisoners to be murdered by his prison staff & is found guilty of racially profiling Hispanics, but doesn’t blink an eye in shame for his actions. The Arizona Legislature incorrectly believes that we sent them to the capitol to fight the Federal Government, cut funding for Planned Parenthood, destroy public education, pass laws to restrict local governments, try to minimize union influence in the workplace, raid any funds they like to balance the budget, etc. Oh how wonderful it is to be part of this grand republic in a sea of Democracy called the U.S.A. Veterans like myself wonder if we truly live in Arizona or in the Land of OZ?
Nice to see one person paying attention to the slash and burn tactics deployed by the Republicans in the legislature this session. They’ve tried every trick in the book to thwart the will of the voters who want public education to be fully funded. The only way to move AZ forward is exactly what crinkster said. Stop voting for Republicans.
So our ‘MS in CURRICULUM etc.’ thinks studying nothing but reading and math all day is a waste of time. If he knew his beans, he would know that the best public schools in the history of public education in this country – the one-room rural school – followed exactly that curriculum. Although the ‘reading and math’ took place under various course titles, believe me, we either read or calculated from 9 to 4. The result, ‘MS’, is measurable in the tests given to draftees in WWII (remember that one? it has dropped out of the ‘currculum’ in most cases), which demonstrated (they called them IQ tests, but we knew and know that they were achievement tests in fact) a 20 point plus differential from the rural midwestern – i.e. one room school – states as against the draftees from the urban areas. Put that in your statistical analyses and smoke it, unless you are (probably) smoking something else.
By the way, our one room school spelling bees taught us how to spell ‘foreign’. You should have had that experience. My email is chuckandjoan@msn.com.
I didn’t know the band was called Alice Cooper, and Vince Furnier made a grab for the name. It’s bueno he has to pay royalties to the band Alice Cooper, indefinitely. That original band was really a great Rock ‘N’ Roll band. I guess sometimes there is justice…just not in AZ. Micky Smythe.