It’s worth sitting up and taking notice when a poll says almost two-thirds of Arizonans support a tax increase—especially when 50 percent of Republicans are on board.
Nearly two-thirds of Arizonans, including more than 50 percent of Republicans, would be willing to pay an additional $200 in state taxes annually to better fund K-12 education, according to a new poll.
Why are respondents willing to dig into their own pockets to support our children’s educations?
Respondents overwhelmingly chose K-12 education as their top priority, and 50 percent said Arizona high school graduates are not as prepared as students in other states. Almost three-quarters of those polled said Arizona spends fewer tax dollars on K-12 education than other states, and almost 80 percent said the state doesn’t spend enough.
Those are amazing numbers. Even if the poll is a bit skewed and overstates the pro-education sentiment by 10 percent, it’s still an impressive show of support for education, a sign that Arizonans understand that we need to spend more money on schools.
So. Democrats. Have you ever seen numbers so strongly in your favor when it comes to education and taxation here in Arizona? I haven’t. Now is the time to throw off your natural reticence—I’ll refrain from calling it cowardice, though I’m tempted to—and Man Up! Woman Up! Stand Up! Say it loud. We need more funds to educate our children, and we can only get those funds if we increase taxes.
Everyone who’s looked at the numbers knows it’s impossible for Arizona to have a balanced budget while supporting education and other necessary services adequately if we don’t put more cash in the state coffers. And really, as sensible as it would be to cut back on all those tax breaks legislators have lavished on businesses, and as sensible as it would be to bag the current round of business tax cuts, that won’t bring in all the required revenue. We need to raise taxes.
As generous as the people who took the poll said they were willing to be, they really don’t have to kick in an extra $200. Those who have benefited most over the past 40 years from our growing income inequality should be paying their fair share, meaning their state income tax rates need to go up. They can afford a significant tax hike, which will hurt their pride more than their pocketbooks, far more easily than the average taxpayer can afford $200. Our current dependence on sales tax puts too great a burden on bottom 50 percent of wage earners. The only fair thing to do is raise the tax rates at the top income levels.
Only Democrats can tell that truth, and they should. Starting now. Of course, Democrats have every reason to fear if they advocate for higher taxes for the rich, they’ll be assaulted by a haboob-intensity money storm of negative TV ads, print ads, internet ads, robocalls, whisper campaigns and whatever else the forces of dark money can throw at them. And they’re right, that’s exactly what will happen. If they continue to hold firm, if they keep pushing out the tax-and-education message in spite of the assault, the storm clouds are sure to grow even stronger. It’s possible, come 2016, a few of them could even lose their seats.
You know what? Much as I like the Democratic legislators I know, if a few of them lose their seats standing up for what’s right for Arizona, I’m not going to shed many tears. Hell, they’re already a minority. If it comes to that, a few less Democrats in the legislature won’t matter nearly as much as keeping a few more spineless Democrats in office who are more worried about their reelections than standing up for their principles.
What matters is hammering home a strong message over and over until it resonates with voters, until those voters who aren’t hard line anti-taxers decide that Republicans are harming our children and our economy, short term and long term, and Democrats who are willing to stand up and be counted are worth voting for. Who knows, maybe some of those Democrats who sit out elections — because, why bother to vote for Democrats who can’t be bothered to speak out for what they believe? — will decide it’s worth their while to cast a ballot for candidates worthy of their hire.
Of course, it’s not a slam dunk that Democrats will lose seats if they stand up, especially in a presidential election year which always brings out more casual voters, which usually means more Democrat-leaning voters. There’s no way of predicting what the political zeitgeist will look like two years from now. It could be more favorable to Democrats. But it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that if Democrats don’t stand up, things aren’t going to get any better around here no matter who ends up getting elected. And things could get a hell of a lot worse.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2015.
Over 90 % of Arizonans have no clue how much waste their is in education. The media drones on until they will believe anything they hear.
Propagandists will repeat lies until it sounds like the truth.
They respond from a guilt complex that is very similar to bring called anti Semitic Or a racist or a homophobe.
It invokes a fear of judgement.
Grow a pair and get the real facts. What are they paying principals? How bloated is the admin? Can we afford the golden pension plans they have been promised.
Fully fund classroom education by cutting out the waste. If you are really in it “for the children.”
Otherwise it is only self serving, just like politics.
I’ve never read such childish arguments like Safier, well at least not since the fourth grade.
“Only Democrats can tell the truth…”
“…Republicans are harming our children and our economy…”
Liberals have been in charge of Tucson for the last twenty years, and what do we have to show for it? 6th poorest city, 5th poorest roads, thousands and thousands fleeing the Radical Chicano Indoctrination center known as TUSD whose leaders conference with terrorist Bill Ayers, homeless that have taken over downtown and sleeping in coffins where hundreds of millions have been taken from taxpayers. And their appreciation, defecating in the streets. Typical liberals.
What a couple of humps.
I agree with Safier. Arizona school funding is an embarrassment, especially with the new trog administration refusing to “man/woman up” and pay back the funds they stole from K-12 public education and continue to slash from our state universities. But asking our Democrats in the legislature to grow a spine is like training a marshmallow to run sprints. Ain’t gonna happen. And as What, Again not too subtlety notes, when given the chance to build the golden city on the hill (Tucson), the local Democrats routinely screw the pooch with revenues disappearing like a monsoon rain into the caliche leaving only puddles and a few frogs.
There are three major voting blocks in the state (and locally): Republicans, Democrats and non-aligned Independents. My guess is the Independents resonate more with increasing taxes to support public education than with the slash and burn circus led by the Republicans. Not only do the Democrats in office need to grow a spine, however unlikely that might be, they need to hone a strong message and offer legislation increasing tax revenues for schools attracting Independent voters.
Assuming the Democrats actually could morph into sprinting marshmallows, races will be lost, votes will fall short of passage and the status quo will continue for a long while. Kind of like the history of the women’s suffrage, labor union, minority rights and marriage equality movements. But frankly, there is no Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King among the ranks of the Democrats in Phoenix or Tucson. Like Barnaby the Scrivener, they prefer not to. Not stand up, not fight, not organize, not march, not rock the boat.
If adequately funding the education of our children is not a worthy battle, pray tell what is?
Good article David S. A few Republicans that I know are waking up. THey had no idea that our new governor would throw public education out the window in favor of prisons and building more charter schools(which they did not want). THey really are starting to see the agenda is just about getting rid of regular public schools and have only charters for profit. Talk about a waste of money! Doesn’t seem to matter how well a school is doing in the regular public schools. Keep putting the word out as I do. A few of my Republican friends are watching and seeing but this is not easy to put out. I encourage people to do their own independent research and come and visit the schools. I welcome anyone to my school… I am so proud of it. Teachers and students are working so hard even knowing they are going to probably go another year without even a cost of living raise. I think Steve Farley is great by the way. He is standing up for TUSD but he can’t do it alone. There are others too but the people must rally. TUSD is operating on a very thin budget already and they are very transparent.
I just want to add for anyone interested in public education and do not want just more and more charter schools … call your congress people…..I do and they listen… They really need to know what we want. More and more corruption is being discovered in charter schools. Transparency is not necessarily happening there at all. They can hide behind other companies and not disclose what the public needs to know.
Ask Chuckelbarry and the tax thieves at county government to spend all of our property taxes on three items. Schools, roads and police. (in that order)
Tell all the (tax exempt) churches in the county that they have are required to take care of the homeless, the underserved, all eldercare, and the cats and dogs at the shelter.
Despite the “super majority” in Phoenix, there are some very good schools right here in Arizona and school districts in Arizona, and I have seen them operating to the benefit of many smart kids and grateful families. To hold the entire public system in perpetual scorn is ignorant, and lacks strategic planning for future generations at all levels. I prefer my future neighbors and younger citizens to be literate, socially confident types with decent employment, and who can afford to buy the things that support a healthy economy. Otherwise, it’s back to the dark ages, with more tax money (and tax breaks) for a depraved, for-profit prison system. The prisons yield a different type of graduate.
Rat-t was point-on “Over 90 % of Arizonans have no clue how much waste there is in education – waste the result of entrenched incompetent administrations. “The media drones on until they will believe anything they hear.” Safier was correct when he admitted that as a teacher, but administration was out of his element. That’s the problem, we have teachers who have morphed into administrators and have screwed things up so badly, no amount of monies can fix. I’m against more taxes. Educators start looking at your internals and ether sink or swim.
Thank you Ciro. I have tried not to blame the teachers but they are morphing into pseudo administrators. They are becoming entangled in the debate. If and when ALL charter schools fail parents would have to come back to many poorly run school districts. Vail is not one of them. Why don’t they run TUSD?
Thank you Ciro. I have tried not to blame the teachers but they are morphing into pseudo administrators. They are becoming entangled in the debate. If and when ALL charter schools fail parents would have to come back to many poorly run school districts. Vail is not one of them. Why don’t they run TUSD?
Another load of shit. We have a bloated education bureaucracy and this guy wants to increase taxes. That’s loopy. We need a tax decrease, not an increase.
Republicans run the state mostly, any fiscal issues will fall onto them in future, voters vote and get the elected officials they vote for, let the self professed fiscal geniuses do their will, they ran the nation into economic collapse and can do no better in a state they dominate, its not the democrats who need to man/woman up but the independents who swing the elections right or left, neither party has the magical 50.1% majority, not in this state or nationally!
You dissenters are so wrong. One school I know of has rationed paper to three pieces per child per day. Site administrators, haven’t had one raise in 15 yrs. Teachers the same. All the disdain thrown at schools is totally uncalled for. Teachers are among the hardest working people in America, and as Mr. Curry noted, we have plenty of good schools all over the state, in spite of low funding. There is a concerted effort by conservatives in this state to destroy public education and replace it with every man for himself charters, vouchers to give public money to private schools, and more prison beds for a school to prison pipeline. This is a wrong headed agenda, and will eventually end up hurting the AZ economy even further.
Just a comment about the idea that’s it’s terrible for teachers to morph into administrators. Should we have MBAs with no teaching experience running schools? That’s a recipe for disaster. The fact is, human beings morph into administrators, no one is born that way, and there’s no reason a teacher is somehow less able to make the transition than anyone else. And to become an administrator, an educator has to take advanced courses and be certified. It’s not like they just walk out of a classroom and into an administrator’s office.
I’m not an apologist for bad administrators. As a teacher, I’ve worked under a few, though I’ve also worked for gifted administrators who were once teachers. But to say teachers can’t become good school and school district administrators is ridiculous.
Pima Mujer is right: “There is a concerted effort by conservatives in this state to destroy public education….”
Actually that effort is nationwide and led by the Koch brother back ALEC.
While they bemoan the little amount of dollars that are spent on public education and point to “waste” as the problem, they have no problem sending their own children to very expensive private schools.
They are hypocrites and Safier is correct: It is time for those who care about public education, as Thomas Jefferson did, to stand up to those who are hell-bent on destroying all things public. Large tax breaks for the wealthy over the past few decades are harming the commons, and our democracy.
Thank you David G. and David S.
David G.,
I have friends who are teachers all over the country and you are absolutely right. We are first or close to it because we never had unions so union busting doesn’t have to come first. So from what I can tell is Michigan will really be talking badly about teachers and pension funds soon. The state government there owes the teacher pension fund a lot of money because they have not put anything in it for a long time. My retired teacher friends tell me they keep getting emails saying what the state government would like to do with the pension money (and none of it belongs or came from the state) and they keep telling the legislature to keep their mitts off of it! It is theirs. They are now a right to work state and were a union state for a very long time. Charters are growing much more slowly because some are getting busted for fraud!! BUt they still are being encouraged.
We know what is going on in WI… same story but a little different order. I have family there are as well as Michigan and my cousin who is a Republican feels royally betrayed by Walker. He never mentioned breaking the unions while campaigning. I kept warning him what was coming. He believes me now. Koch brothers are very busy as I hear other rumblings of breaking up unions from other states. I wish people would remember their history and what it was like before unions(no child labor laws and extreme high earners and very low.. no middle class). Also, what it was like before public education…. very few got the education we have been able to get…. I want an educated country as well as a middle class. If people don’t start fighting, it won’t happen. First we all need to accept what this is about…. not about poor education in public schools or because the unions were corrupt. If there was corruption and it was known, it certainly could have been dealt with. ALEC is one organization the Koch brothers are behind but they are behind many who are buying elections. One more time for those who doubt, read “Wrapped in the Flag” by Claire Conner( I took it our of Pima County Library). It is what she grew up with which is why she has seen this coming again for a long time.
David S. I too have had administrators who were not teachers first. Not good for me or the kids that I could see at all. They didn’t last long thankfully.
Can anyone prove there is a direct correlation of money increase to performance of education or just the probability as such as been funded before. History has proven different, Education as it is now does not work and is not adequate for the populace as a whole. Cited cultural, race, religious economic, environmental, tax appropriations, language, all the disparities are a cause of paying others to raise our children. While the class room is necessary keep the income disparity widening and these problems will always exist. So go republican or democrat really is of no consequence. As long as Americans we make all government entities a growth business, with the right to take away the problem will always exist. Like this story in the budget reduction Education was cut the least 5%. While some agencies wee cut and eliminated like, or like limited men from ACCCESS to fund Medical School Students and campus construction, The register of Contractors 80% cut enough left to answer the mail. However Education was the first refunded . Can you believe the desegregation issue is not wholly base in income disparity Yea never let a crisis go to waste.
Arizona is a “Low Tax State” Overall, But Not for Families … Just FYI…..Arizona corporate tax rates just went down again at the beginning of the year. So when someone says that taxes went down… ask for whom? In Arizona that means corporations now.
Robert R. I have seen plenty of data showing that it does matter but the Heritage Foundation which is very right-wing says no. Example that I saw not too long ago: Massachusetts was number 1 in the nation in education spending. At that time # 3 in achievement. Last data I have seen on Arizona: 48th in nation on spending, 44 or 45th in achievement. THere is a correlation but not a strict one. Look up Arizona achievement national ranking. I went state by state up to a point and there is a correlation by everything I saw… one state at a time.
Now, I want to add I think it is important to also look at how and where the money is being spent. Public schools (probably charter also but I have no idea what their wages are or how they spend their money), in Arizona have been operating on a shoe string budget for a long long time and it keeps getting worse. Money is going elsewhere and charter schools for profit definitely get their share. We have a huge teacher shortage in Southern Arizona- I don’t know about the rest of Arizona. We have to have materials , and decent pay for our teachers. So much of the money is being spent on prisons, and giving tax cuts to the people who make the most. So by doing so we are creating less income on a yearly basis and our debt is supposedly being addressed but it truly is not. If we continue to give tax breaks to the wealthier, we will never end this cycle and more money will continue to be taken from education
The same thing is happening around the country. Republicans in both Michigan and Wisconsin have done the same. Democrats keep screaming… as long as you keep cutting taxes for the wealthy we will continue to have inadequate funds for a budget without any additions. Walker in Wisconsin says on his website that he has cut taxes and has a surplus. What he is not saying is that he borrows money to pay bills so the accounts look good. They are now 47million in debt and climbing. Previous governors in WI had debts of 4%. Walker now has a debt of over 5%. This is all very verifiable. We have a debt in AZ of 50M and we keep giving tax breaks to the wealthy. This is the pattern with Republican governors throughout the U.S. Demand from your state government no decreases in taxes for corporations. No more private prisons and charter schools built for profit. Give the money back to education and raise taxes so we can get out of debt.
I am solution oriented. One thing you can do to speak up for Public Education is to join our “Phone the Governor.” Campaign. Go to http://www.ArizonaStandsUP.org and click on CALL TO ACTION.
90 percent of people said they would pay $200 more a year for education? I was not asked and would not have said yes. How many empty schools and land do we have that has not been sold, for how long now – 2 years?
You can’t throw money at problems, just look at the VA. Gotta trim the fat at the top, too many vice principals and cronyism.
I would maybe pay $1 more a year.
I liked this comment!
“Grow a pair and get the real facts. What are they paying principals? How bloated is the admin? Can we afford the golden pension plans they have been promised.
Fully fund classroom education by cutting out the waste. If you are really in it “for the children.”
Otherwise it is only self serving, just like politics.”
Looks like the Governor is manning up and directing more spending to the classroom. That is fiscal accountability. Thank you Governor.
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/ducey-stands-behind-education-funding-shift/article_e9894a24-f849-5ffc-affc-882588e2a6a6.html
Fiscal responsibility is used to define how our governor just wants things. period. All about priorities. More on education means to him more on charter schools, a lot on prisons, and tax cuts for people who don’t need them(that is how he is budgeting our money). His first argument was that too much is being spent on out of the classroom services. THen he goes on to say he knows some districts don’t spend too much in that area but he is making them shift more back to the classroom anyway. This governor has his own agenda and fiscal responsibility isn’t on it . Taxes for the top earners just went down the 1st of the year and they will again go down. Creating more charter schools and giving more to private prisons are choices he is making . All about the agenda to hurt public education. He said this budget is a mess. He is right and he is making more of exactly the same mess and pretending he is improving our ‘fiscal responsibility’. I wonder if the prison food will have maggots in them like other private prisons? I hope the prisoners won’t have to riot too much to get decent food and healthcare.
what a terrible and idiotic article. Republicans are trying to fix the joke that is Tucson. Democrats voted in a 200 billion dollar street car that goes 6 blocks, instead of using that extra cash to fund education and fix our schools. Arizona is ranked 50th dumbest state. Why would big business and enterprise want to invest in a bunch of morons who can’t spend money correctly? Republicans are trying to fix this place and thank God they took the majority in office. Our Governor is making decisions based on what was left over from years of Democrat laziness and poor management.
The Democrats haven’t been in power or in control for a very long time …1980s in Arizona. (This may not be 100% accurate but it is close). Anything that has happened that was created by a Democrat had to have Republican support. This budget mess lies in the laps of Republicans…. Even our Democratic governor Janet Napolitano had a Republican congress. Brewer had a Republican congress. So to expect that anything will get better is really silly …. same people are doing the same things . However Republicans are now really attacking education. Most people recognize that education is the foundation of a healthy culture. I wish we could all get on board to support that.
Robin catch your breath. The governor asked that of the money now going to public schools more MUST be spent in the classroom as opposed to on administration.
I thought that’s what you wanted.
Rat I don’t know which comment you are responding to. My latest, I was responding to the post before mine. She made a comment that Republicans were finally in power and things would get better. I said they have been in power since the 1980s. So why would she think things would improve? However I do post a lot and sometimes the conversations can get confusing.
The money is being cut from janitorial, transportation, etc…. All necessary. There are definite cuts being made . Yes 11 million more is going into education but to the best of my knowledge which I learned at the state of the district address and the board meeting it is going to charter schools. The cuts would amount to 28M to TUSD( no one said it was going to the classrooms… just cut.) If some money is really going to the classrooms they might be referring to the charter schools.I am not sure. I love to hear that 28M was going to the classrooms.
I have looked at the budget again and talked to a couple of law makers. For regular public schools, the money is not going back to the classrooms. Supposedly some money is going to the teachers which is a very good thing. In charter schools it will go back to the classroom if we understand it correctly. There is a lot of money being moved around in an effort to not pay back the money the state stole from education that the voters wanted education to have(Over time 1.2 billion). I still cannot figure out why the people responsible for that are not in jail. In any other situation, that is just plain robbery and that is what the legislature did.Everyone who voted to do that is culpable. There is also 53 million more than previously budgeted going to private prisons. There is also more going to charter schools but it is hard to discern how much and in what way. The public schools are losing a lot of money.
Just in case you still think that this is just moving money from ‘waste’ to the classroom, this is a summary of cuts to be made in our state which they want to have finalized by Friday: It is appalling and believe it or not, I have no more words. Note : private prisons and cuts for the wealthy take priority over many things in our state. Apparently a lot of people don’t care about children, health and education.> Cuts to hospital and provider rates for those providing care to Medicaid / AHCCCS patients total $127 million over two years which mean a loss of another $508 million in federal matching funds from Arizona’s economy over that time.
–> K-12 schools are cut $98 million in FY16 and another $157 million in FY17.
–> Community colleges in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties are zeroed out completely from state funding.
–> Universities are cut 14% for a $104 million cut in FY16.
–> JTED programs are cut by $30 million in FY17.
–> TUSD is singled out for a $8 – $15 million hit annually from elimination of the 1% prop tax cap which may lead to higher prop taxes.
–> $10 million cuts to the Department of Child Safety.
–> $360 million left untouched in the Rainy Day fund.
–> and no discussion of suspending the remaining $883 million in corporate tax giveaways that will go into effect in the next three years or the $12.6 billion in special interest sales tax loopholes.
Protest today in Phoenix… I am teaching so I cannot go. If you possibly can, please go.
OK Rat T: When is the last time you visited a school to look at the waste? A lot of hot air comes from your keyboard but not much in the way of facts. The FACTS are that teacher pay AND the pay for principals in Arizona can easily be described as “Not very much.” And very often working conditions are “pretty bad”
I once remember accepting a teacher position in a remote AZ school only to be warned away because the last teacher was beat up. Guess you must have missed that school in your wide ranging statements.
Just a reminder to those who have a fixation on money being wasted in school districts and that our gov just did a good thing by “moving money to the classroom.”
That tale appears over and over again like a tired old record in a jukebox. In many school districts (yes there are districts other than those in Tucson and Phoenix) there is NO money to move to the classroom. Those districts are running bare bones. They are short of teachers, with run down facilities, underpaid staff and worn out equipment. Admin costs happen to include school buses, fuel for those buses, maintenance and clean toilets and employees outside of teachers to keep the whole affair functioning, more or less. It also involves meals for children (In one district west of tucson 90% of students receive federally assisted school meals-(thanks to the faltering arizona economy, the parents of these children lack the means to feed them properly). In those districts, there is no tax base from which schools can get sufficient revenue.
The governor and his legislature lacked the courage (and the intelligence) to increase the budget to invest in schools, instead they went down the road of stupid-promising tax breaks to mythical companies who might appear from who knows where to magically save Arizona’s economy and cowing to the legislature’s bully boys like Andy Biggs. Anybody who thinks admin funds are being wasted should go visit districts and show us where money is being wasted. Go visit the creaky run down schools in Winkelman and Superior and San Manuel, go to the maintenance section and see the worn school buses. Go visit the classrooms and see the missing math and science teachers. Go visit the new hire teachers and ask them how little they are being paid. Go and check to see how many teachers leave arizona because they can’t make a decent living here. Its all great to sit at a keyboard and pontificate-go out in the real world and see the disgusting mess the arizona legislature is turning Arizona’s school system into. And yes we have buildings standing empty. That is the end result of a political party sabotaging our educational system.