It’s Day 5 of the Ducey “Next Step” Watch, which began Friday when the governor declared that Prop 123 passed. Lots has happened on the school funding front since then, but not much of it has come from Ducey.
If you remember, when he was asked what he plans as a next step after the passage of Prop 123, Ducey dodged the question, saying, “We’re going to take the rest of the day off. We’re going to celebrate a little bit.” Now we have another quote from Ducey which gives us a bit more to go on.
“We’re going to keep this coalition together, from the education community to the business community to the elected leadership in our state, and we’re going to talk about how we continue to improve K-12 education.”
Interesting. Let’s start with what’s not in Ducey’s statement: the words “funding” or “money.” People can read whatever we want into his assertion that we should “continue to improve K-12 education,” but Ducey has made it clear from his first day as governor, he doesn’t want to spend a penny more from the general fund if he can help it. He’s pushed to lower school funding in the two state budgets since he was elected.
As for Ducey’s “coalition,” it was always more of a temporary, uneasy alliance than a genuine coalition. On one side of the alliance, Ducey and his Republican cronies think Prop 123 is great. It gives a little money to schools to deflect the growing voter consensus that we need to increase funding even if it means raising taxes, and most of the money comes from the children’s state land trust fund rather than the state coffers. “Maybe that’ll satisfy ’em so we can get back to budget cuts and tax breaks for our rich supporters.” On the other side of the alliance, some supporters of public education reluctantly joined with Ducey to get a little money for our schools sooner rather than later, knowing it’s unlikely Republicans will follow the court order to replace the school funding which was taken away illegally. They hate the fact that the money comes from the state land trust fund, but they held their nose and supported Prop 123 anyway.
On Day 5, it looks like Ducey’s fraying coalition has been replaced by another coalition calling itself AZ Schools Now!, and it doesn’t include Ducey and his buddies.
The group held a press conference Monday saying it wants the next step to be more money for schools beyond Prop 123, which only replaces 70 percent of what the legislature took away, and it should come from the budget surplus and maybe also from all those tax credits which have been lavished on businesses over the years. AZ Schools Now! has a long list of supporters including the Arizona Business and Education Coalition, Arizona Parent Network, Arizona PTA, Arizona School Boards Association, Arizona School Administrators and the Arizona Education Association, among others.
We’ve heard nothing directly from Ducey about the latest turn of events, but his press aide Daniel Scarpinato made his usual ambiguous replies to the press. He sees “a lot of options on talking about further investments in education.” We can talk about finding more dollars for education by improving the tax code, he says, so long as no one pays any more taxes. And so on.
The plot thickens.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2016.
End the drama. Cut to the chase. When will the liberal teacher’s union be able to put the hard cold cash in their pockets that is being exploited from the 85% of the women illegally crossing the border getting raped?
Trolls are gonna troll, right What, Again?
It baffles me why Safier thinks anyone is interested in the vigil he has decided to keep, watching Ducey’s post-123 game plan. The big news is that, through the proposition Safier and his TUSD friends just helped to pass, permission has been obtained to alter the state constitution, tap the land trust which already belonged to the schools in an unsustainable way, and put caps on the percent of the overall budget that can go to education (49%) so when Ducey cuts the other 51% of the budget — no doubt that he will because his game plan is to increase the private sector in every possible way at the expense of the public sector — he can then say “oops, we didn’t increase education funding, but because we’ve cut other sectors so much, the rock bottom education funding we have is now more than 49%, so we need to cut it further.
The only news I’m interested in at this point is this: what law suits have been filed to block implementation of the proposition?
But no doubt Safier will keep reporting on various pro-123 groups continuing to play games with their new friend Ducey in the aftermath of the successful betrayal of public education in Arizona, accomplished so that TUSD admin et al. could get a few more quick and insufficient bucks to apply to try to distract the ignorant from the sad effects of the ongoing gross mismanagement of the district.
Part of the game plan is to try to destroy Ducey with the daily drip of negative misinformation. Some have decided that they can’t win with heir own ideas so they must lie about the competition.
Arizona Republic ran articles about this last week. Too bad the AZ Star doesn’t report anymore.
I feel like in reading David Safier’s post-passage-of-123 blogs, I’m watching a kid who gave his lunch money to the bully on Monday tugging at the bully’s sleeve on Tuesday, saying “Hey, I gave you my lunch money yesterday. Today you give me your lunch money.”
Memo to David Safier et al.: bullies and blackmailers are not noted for their belief in the value of reciprocity. Tug at their sleeve too much and the most likely response is they punch you in the face.
You’ve already ponied up what they wanted from you: changes to the constitution, unsustainable rates of distribution from the land trust, caps on education spending, etc. What exactly is it you think you have to bargain with at this point? “Give us more money for education from the general fund now… or else!!!” Or else what?
The plot does not thicken here. We’re in the sad denouement of this particular tragedy: the hero (public education) was betrayed by people he thought were his friends. Now we watch the villain laughing up his sleeve and walking away with the hero’s life savings, easily shaking off the ineffective pleas of those who think they are achieving something by taking the hero’s part after they had already served as accomplices in the theft of the greater part of what he owned.
Safier writes, “some supporters of public education reluctantly joined with Ducey to get a little money for our schools sooner rather than later, knowing it’s unlikely Republicans will follow the court order to replace the school funding which was taken away illegally. They hate the fact that the money comes from the state land trust fund, but they held their nose and supported Prop 123 anyway”
Safier: You forgot to mention that they not only “held their noses,” but some of them wrote and said things to promote the proposition that did not convey to the public the reality of what it was. In the aftermath, when it is clear that the so-called “supporters of public education” who aided and abetted Ducey in shoving this proposition through did in fact, with their betrayal, tip the balance on this, they don’t get any points for making clear now that they in fact understood everything that was wrong with it while “holding their noses” and voting for it and propagandizing in support of it.
The fact that you knew how bad it was while supporting it CONVICTS you. It does not EXCUSE you.
It’s all very Monty Python-esque. Kind of reminds me of the Knights who say “Ni”!
No wait — though it seemed that saying “Ni!” was a ridiculous threat, guaranteed not to produce any results, if I recall correctly, they did get something out of saying “Ni!” — a shrubbery. It seems unlikely that those asking Ducey for additional education funding in the wake of the passage of Prop 123 will get as much as a shrubbery for their trouble.
Perhaps it’s more like King Arthur (Ducey) vs. the Black Knight (Supporters of Public Ed). The King chops off all the Black Knight’s limbs and as the Black Night continues to threaten him, the King says, “What are you going to do, bleed on me?” Then, as King Arthur rides through the pass the Black Knight had been trying to defend, he shouts after King Arthur: “Come back, you coward! I’ll bite your legs off!”
Nope, that’s not it either. Because the Black Knight, unlike some of our “supporters of public education” in Arizona, actually fought to defend the pass before being felled. He didn’t voluntarily lie down and invite King Arthur to whack all his limbs off.
Tucson Edication Association supported 123.
At least one superintendent in Tucson is paid at least $200,000 annually.
At least one university president iin Tucson is paid at least $500, 000 annually.
Please do the math regarding prop 124! (First responders)
It is very important not to raise taxes.