This week I resigned from the Arizona Education Association, Retired Chapter. I have been a member of AEA since I began teaching in Arizona in 1980. The reason for this resignation was their support for the deceptively worded and band aid proposition 123. I’ve read it thoroughly and it changes the state’s responsibility for funding K-12 and secondary (college level) education. This proposition mitigates state funding by changing the state constitution to lower their disbursements from the general fund for education. This frees up money for tax breaks to large corporations (who funnel monies toward re-election campaigns to elected officials thru lobbying and anonymous organizations).

This proposition also rapidly depletes the state trust lands which were given to the state in 1912, upon entering statehood, by the federal government. This was to be used as a supplemental fund, to help with inflationary costs. It is currently sold at 2.3 percent of principal. Under proposition 123, it will be sold off at about 7 percent a year, diminishing the principal of the fund.

Even though proposition 123 funnels some money towards education, there is no guarantee that the state legislature will continue funding education adequately. When proposition 301 was passed, the tax monies generated for education were not used as a supplement for inflation. Instead, the state legislature subtracted that same amount of money from the education budget. This was a classic bait and switch ploy, with the result of schools, teachers, and students suffering. What needs to be done is for the state to pay the 330 million dollars that the court has ordered it to pay for the schools. This proposition is nothing more than a distraction! We need to elect pro public school representatives to the state legislature and fire those legislators who would destroy public education.

I would like to end with two quotations: The first is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican President. “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.”

The final quote is from St. Francis of Assisi. “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

Let’s vote no on Proposition 123 and elect pro education candidates to our state legislature!

Thank you,
Marty Drozdoff

This article appears in May 12-18, 2016.

9 replies on “Guest Opinion: Vote No on Prop 123”

  2. “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

    Obviously, the governor and his like-minded fan boys in the Arizona legislature would rather take control from the people than educate them. If the people cannot see this they deserve these neo-fascists wrapped in the cloak of supposed fiscal responsibility.

    I am not a very religious person myself, but since the governor and his ilk lay claim to being so, here is a passage they may be familiar with: Matthew 7:20: So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

    So then by enabling more prisons and raping the land trust are we to believe these people care about the education and future of Arizona children, I think not.

  3. I understand the need to oppose Prop 123 but I have not found what happens to public education afterward if it loses. What happens for the next “who-knows” years for short-changed schools while lawyers engage in unending squabbles about funding at taxpayers expense? Have the pro 123 people thought through carefully its possible failure.

  4. As a retired former AEA, etc., member I was shocked at the terms of the settlement when I read it in its entirety. How could AEA have accepted this plan? Glad to see my old friend, Marty, speaking out about the issue. Tomorrow will tell the tale in its entirety as to the vote. The job is not done if we leave those in the Legislature who say this is the best way to fund our children’s education. There is work to be done this fall.

  5. “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” – Thomas Jefferson
    “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin
    All of our politicians have sold America’s democracy out for a few dollars, paid by the concentration of wealth and power. Requiem for the American Dream – http://www.rottentomatoes.com/…/requiem_for_the…/

  6. One of the comments asks the question, “Have the PRO Prop 123 people thought through carefully its possible failure.” Wow!…first time ever that someone questioned if the ‘Yes campaign’ actually had a plan if this failed. So, why wouldn’t the ‘Yes campaign’ have another plan? Because ‘how could they lose?’….they have millions in funding, they co-opted the AEA et al, they held the teachers hostage with salary contracts…had it sewn up! In the bag! They even provided the argument to assist the weak Legislative opposition, “Well, if this doesn’t pass, Arizonans have spoken, they don’t support public education”
    Who authored this diabolically genius Prop 123? (many say it was written by the ‘Freedom Center’ at ASU) Now Happy as pigs in…, well, happy as clams, Doug Ducey and disciples proceeded to apply the dollars that the state should be giving to the schools to tax credits for the wealthy and oh, by the way, let’s give $5,000,000 to those ‘Freedom Centers’..what a f’n surprise!
    I can’t even be nice anymore. We are being duped and without the grass roots effort of a few people at the NOPROP123.com committee, there would be no way that the truth would have reached so many people.
    Thank you to Morgan Abraham and all the committed citizen volunteers of AZ that understand that if we allow this to pass, we are being a party to the demise of public education in our state.
    There is so much more to this story…and the plans have been in the works since Ducey was Treasurer: Classrooms First Initiative and A for Arizona are jointly going to pick and choose those schools that will benefit from state dollars.
    Vote NO and don’t stop there…get involved. With your help we can make a significant change to the make-up of our legislature this November…make a commitment for the next 6 months to actively get out the vote, find out about the candidates, not just are they an R or D, what have they done? Who do they align themselves with? What have they sponsored and promoted? If we truly want to make a difference in Public Education, this is how we do it!

  7. Response to TK: I oppose Prop 123, maybe passing as we speak. My initial email re “what if it doesn’t pass” was designed to help us understand both sides of the issue, not to support a yes vote. I believe you are advocating the “no” side only. Before we go one way, I helps me to know the consequences of another way. If 123 fails, maybe unlikely but not assured right now, what are those consequences. From what I can make out, it turns into a prolonged squabble where lawyers and pols can hold forth indefinitely, The chances of receiving what public education really needs become very remote.

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