Two months ago when Prop 123 passed, Governor Ducey said we had taken a “first step” toward addressing Arizona’s chronic underfunding of K-12 education. Everyone acknowledged it was a shaky, uncertain step. Some were pleased to see what they thought was a wobbly step forward by the young ‘un, while others thought it was a dangerous step backwards, but few people thought that one step was all we needed.
On the two month anniversary, the toddler has yet to take a second step, and its fathers and mothers—the Ducey machine, the business community, education groups—appear to be neglecting their child, if not abandoning it entirely.
An acknowledgement of the two month anniversary of that first step is in order—a cake, candles, something to mark the occasion. Since the parents of the tyke don’t appear to be in a celebratory mood, I will take it upon myself to blow out the candles and make a few wishes.
My first wish is that Governor Ducey reveal his plans for the next step to improve K-12 education. If he plans to increase the education budget next legislative session, that would be hopeful. If all he wants to do is shift around the deck chairs, using his Classrooms First Initiatives Council to move the cushiest chaises in the areas where the wealthiest Arizonans hang out, it would be helpful to know that so people can protest against his anti-poor, anti-minority agenda.
My second wish is that pro-education groups and individuals who worked with Ducey to pass Prop 123 start talking to the public about school funding once again. The Arizona Education Association and the Arizona School Boards Association, among others who promised they would continue pushing for more funding, need to make their voices heard so the funding issue doesn’t wither away. Gubernatorial candidate Fred DuVal, who ran against Ducey then embraced him like his best buddy in an ad promoting Prop 123, should speak out as well. If any of them are in behind-closed-doors meetings with Ducey, they need to throw open the doors and let the rest of us see what’s happening. Otherwise, they’ll be listened to by the folks holding all the cards, who will look very serious and nod their heads solemnly, then be left sputtering and fuming when they realize all their fine plans and ideas were ignored.
My final wish is that the hard hearts of the anti-public-education establishment be softened so they realize that investing in the education of our children is better for their souls and for the future of Arizona than helping Arizona’s one percent, who are making out better than at any time since the gilded age a century ago, get their hands on even more money than they already have.
Here’s hoping the three month anniversary of the Ducey ‘Next Step’ Watch is happier than the second.
This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2016.
Why don’t you put your energy into working in support candidates up for election in November 2016 who, if they join the AZ legislature, will tip the balance and make it harder for Ducey to push his noxious plans through? I believe one of your commenters suggested that recently and it seemed a good idea to me. Definitely more productive than this inane, ongoing “Next Step Watch,” which is never going to make a damn bit of difference with anyone.
RE the AEA, ASBA, etc.: do you really think they have credibility with the anti-ALEC crowd, after what they did with 123 ?
Guess he keeps dishing these out because he gets Facebook likes from the uninformed, who read the blog, but not the “fine print” in the comments section.
For those who do read the fine print: Who does Safier think he’s kidding when he criticizes DuVal for cooperating with Ducey? What did he think he himself was doing when he “held his nose and voted for 123” and kept blogging the misleading statement that the Prop would “restore” lost funding? Safier, like DuVal, was part of the team that got it passed. (And what would little Heliodoro have done is 123, didn’t pass, David? He wouldn’t have been able to use 30% of it to give piddling $700 raises to our underpaid teachers, causing all the recent outrage about failures of promise fulfillment. Then again, considering the negative PR fallout from that story in the months preceding the upcoming TUSD Board election, perhaps, for those who want the two members of the majority who approved that decision re-elected, it would have been better if 123 hadn’t passed, though they promoted it assiduously and in many cases with dishonest and / or misleading propaganda.)
Sometimes I think Safier writes these blog posts just so his candidate friends can have “news” stories to link in their Facebook posts. Those who don’t know that this is not real journalism can read the linked blog and get what they think is “independent verification” of what the politicians’ Facebook posts say. We’ll see how well this self-reinforcing closed feedback loop is working this election cycle come November.
We would be better off to eliminate the US Dept of Education, and split the money between the 50 states. Would that stop all this ridiculous bickering where NOTHING gets accomplished?
Arizona is a state where the population has been dumbed down by so much by their crappy education system that they keep electing the same ideology that has created and perpetuated said crappy system.
They’ve been in power for decades……..DON’T YOU THINK IF THEY KNEW HOW TO CREATE AN ADEQUATE EDUCATION SYSTEM, THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT BY NOW?
Now, all you Arizonans (Great Red Necked Lemmings) go out and do what you always do……vote for the same ideology……………………..they’ll fix it this time.
WON’T THEY?????????
If you want to understand what’s gone wrong with Arizona you have to look at the state of the Democratic Party as well. Why can’t they mobilize their base?
Read all of Safier’s blogs about TUSD and all the comments on them for the last few years and you’ll start to get the picture. It’s one example of what happens when factions practicing quid-pro-quo machine politics become a powerful contingent in a particular regional branch of the party’s operation. Public trust is destroyed.
How do you expect to build consensus behind forcing a “next step,” David, when close to 50% of those who voted in the election thought the first step should never have been taken? Don’t you realize that 1/2 the electorate — and now a sizable number of the TUSD constituents who voted for the Prop and are disgusted with what was done with the money, once it was received — believe that energy should be focused on undoing the “first step,” rather than accepting it as a given, leaving it in place, and moving on from there?
When will it dawn on you that the whole “next step” plan was based on the assumption that there would be a massive vote in favor of 123? If this had happened, those who supported the first step could perhaps then be mobilized to put pressure on Ducey for a next step. But this turned out to be bad political strategy: among the slightly more than 50% who voted for 123 were many who support Ducey and ALEC and don’t want a next step. All they wanted were the triggers and the changes to the constitution, which they got, thanks to you, DuVal, HT Sanchez, Jason Freed, TUSD, TEA, AEA, ASBA, Expect More Arizona, et cetera, AD NAUSEAM. So now we have the so-called “pro public education” groups who got tricked into helping Ducey get 123 passed, and the portion of the electorate they mobilized in support of the proposition is what percentage of those who voted in favor of 123? 10% 20%? 30% of the 50% voting in support of it?
David, did you and your friends attend schools so “progressive” that you never learned how to do math? 10% of 50% is 5%. 20% of 50% is 10%. Do you get the picture? I bet Ducey is shaking in his boots, worrying about what groups capable of motivating such massive portions of the electorate are going to do to him if he doesn’t come up with a “next step.”
Meanwhile, TUSD wreaks its own special kind of havoc in Southern Arizona, de-motivating the portions of their base they previously motivated. Do you think the people TUSD mobilized in support of 123 will do as they are told by their TUSD and TEA “leaders” next time they are asked?