Since I write about education, I try to see everything written about schools and schooling that pertains to Arizona. (You can too. It’s easy! Just create a Google alert: Arizona + Education. You’ll have dozens of links emailed to you every day.) So I might be overstating things when I say the major focus of Arizona’s 2018 elections will be education, but not by much. Unless Arizona Republicans can distract the white electorate by making them fear everyone who doesn’t look like them—Trump figured out how to do it, and I’d say he’s just following Arizona’s lead—schools are going to play big in the minds of voters. And that gives Democrats an opportunity to close the numbers gap between Democratic and Republican voters and pull out a few narrow wins in close races. Education is a Democrat-friendly issue, especially in a state like Arizona where Republicans have starved the schools for years.
Doug Ducey may talk about education even more than he talks about the economy. He knows he has to get in front of a losing political issue so it doesn’t spin out of control. Voters put K-12 education at the top of their list of priorities A majority have said they’re willing to spend a few extra bucks to raise the amount we spend on students and teacher salaries. And they know Republicans are responsible for our bottom-of-the-barrel per-student funding.
So what does Ducey do in response? He dubs himself the “education governor” and demonstrates his commitment to our children by sprinkling a little budget money over a few high-profile education programs, then acts like he’s Santa Claus. Every time he visits a school, he makes sure the story, accompanied by a picture of him surrounded by children, makes it into the local media. And he’s full of promises about all the money schools are going to get in the next budget. He tends to be short on the details of his intended largesse, like how much he plans to spend and where he plans to spend it, but he wants everyone to know he cares. Especially when facts give the lie to his promises.
Ducey was furious recently when a report showed the state’s spending on education is down since the recession. Taking a page out of the Trump playbook, Ducey complained it was “a false report by a left-wing public interest group.” Except that it’s true. Even the governor’s press aide Daniel Scarpinato had to admit we’re spending less per student than in 2008. Then he quickly added, “We think we’ll be back at 2008 at some point.” At some point. No idea when.
A few days later, out comes a new way to fund education. Ducey’s new chief operating officer says he’s going to cut the budgets of state agencies without harming their effectiveness. Scarpinato says, optimistically, the savings could be in the “tens of millions,” and some of that can be used for education.
A little basic math reveals how little “tens of millions” is when it comes to schools. Arizona has a million school-aged children. That means “tens of millions” works out to tens of dollars per student—a nickel or a dime spent on each student every day of the school year. Right now, we’re spending nearly $200 less per student than we spent in 2008, accounting for inflation. That comes to $200 million. “Tens of millions” is less than ten percent of what we need just to catch up to where we were in 2008, when we were already among the bottom three states in education spending.
The Democratic gubernatorial candidates know all this. David Garcia is a college prof specializing in education research and policy. He’s worked on education issues with the state Department of Education and the legislature. Steve Farley has been in the state legislature since 2006 as a representative and senator and has advocated regularly for adequate school funding. Both candidates are harsh, constant critics of Ducey’s education policies.
Farley and Garcia should keep their focus on education, and other Democratic candidates should echo the message. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Unfortunately for Democrats, they’re easily distracted. Ask them questions requiring long-winded answers, and they’re likely to turn into college debaters rather than politicians. Accuse them of making unrealistic campaign promises, and they’re likely to blush, stammer and equivocate.
If they’re smart, they’ll all write a four word cheat sheet on their palms in indelible ink that reads, “It’s the schools, stupid.” It’s not the only issue they have, but it may be the only one they can ride to victory.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2017.
I wish that what you wrote about was education. But let’s be honest. You write about money. Money and hatred of those in power that control the money. Money is not the major problem in the public schools. Why not find out what the problem is and write about that? Lord knows we have spent literally tons of money, and it has gotten worse.
Spending more money does not create better outcomes in and of itself. It’s just easy.
Illegal immigration (which sucks money from schools) and the economy (which funds the tax base) will likely be bigger issues.
Yes the issue is MONEY. If you are paying the teachers less money,(which Arizona is) the better teachers move to other states where their abilities are appreciated. and rewarded. Republicans, especially Arizona Republicans are as cheap as you can get when it comes to funding anything that benefits education. Their fear is that an educated public will not vote Republican which is true. You will not find many Republicans in the universities and colleges of higher learning because they don’t have the brains for that kind of stuff.
I just finished evaluating County teachers requests for $500 classroom mini-grants funded by a local foundation. I was shocked at what many were asking for. Chairs, Chrome books, books, paper and classroom supplies all of which should be funded by our schools. Those who say “money is not the problem” has their heads somewhere dark. Money is the problem since the legislature took school money back in 08 and used it to fund other stuff including tax cuts.
Lack of education funding is at the root of Arizona’s school funding crisis. Make no mistake!
The never ending comments about “throwing more money at public education” fail, as the same commenters and legislators have no problem “throwing money” at for profit charters and private school vouchers.
Unadjusted education spending per student: $7,528
https://www.edweek.org/topics/states/arizo…
How much should we spend? maybe if we had not decided to educate the illegal population and deport the lawbreakers we could afford education for American children.
First you must accept the fact that not everything can be afforded. Please cut the unnecessary and then see what you have to work with.
Michael S. Ellegood — you are correct that there are shocking shortfalls in what teachers have to work with, but you don’t acknowledge that there are two problems, here, not just one:
1) overall funding levels too low
2) in some LARGE school districts, what money there is does not get to the students and teachers as it should.
Your party fails in statewide election after election because the majority of voters in this state focus on problem 2) rather than problem 1). That problem is just as real as problem 1), but your party’s candidates never acknowledge it, never address it, never come up with feasible policy plans that can fix it.
Tucson is a Democrat-majority city. There has been relentless press coverage of public school funding shortages here, but TUSD could not pass a bond in the last election. Why is that?
I wish Garcia and / or Farley would address BOTH sets of problems honestly and effectively, but somehow I doubt they will do so.
Too bad. If they don’t have anything to say other than the standard-issue “MORE MONEY IS NEEDED,” and they fail to add “AND WE KNOW HOW TO ENSURE IT WILL BE APPLIED FOR THE BENEFIT OF STUDENTS AND TEACHERS” their bid for the governorship may go the same way the last TUSD bond initiative did.
2018 is an electoral off year with voter turnout historically hovering around 40-50% in a state dominated by Republicans. So, no, the election is not going to be about education. It’s going to be about sound and fury signifying nothing. Republican turnout will be higher than Democratic turnout, with predictable results.
The key to a possible Democratic victory is the even larger electorate of independent, non-aligned voters who the Democrats assume will join them as a protest against the Republicans led by Trump. This is the same miscalculation that cost them the election in 2016.
Someone wrote in the NYT today that the Democrats arrived at a gunfight armed with a fistful of kale. This is in response to throwing Franken under the bus in the pursuit of ideological purity. In this state, they – the Democrats -rarely show up at all with a message and a messenger attractive to the largest bloc of voters in the state. “It’s the schools, stupid” is not the message and neither Farley or Garcia are the messengers needed to shake things up.
In response to Wayne Olson’s comments. I accept the fact the not everything can be afforded and I certainly agree that we should cut the unnecessary spending. We could start with our defense spending; like we spend more than the total of the next 5 or so countries. Bottom-line, given that the U.S. is the richest nation on Planet Earth, we have the wealth to provide the richest education on Planet Earth. The reason we don’t is greed, not the cost of providing an education for the children of illegal immigrants.
The purpose of public education is to maintain, and hopefully enhance the quality of life (QOF) for the individual and for the society as a whole. Is the QOF of an American child more important than the child that was brought to the US illegally by his or her parents. Does that mean that we shouldn’t provide public education for any American child whose parents are criminals? Is an American child more deserving of decent education than a Mexican or Iranian or Syrian child? Note that a child doesn’t choose it’s parents, it’s citizenship; nor is a child responsible for the actions of it’s parents, it’s country, etc., etc.
Finally, our focus should be on providing a sound education for all of the children, rather then attempting to NOT provide an education for a selected group, just to save a few bucks.
So that sounds like we’re right back to blaming something else, much like Al Franken tried yesterday. Pension plans must go. Tenure needs to be eliminated. Non classroom positions need to be reduced by 50 %.
Then we can talk.
It seems like the underlying assumption is that Republicans are bad and Democrats are good. But some of the worst school districts in this country are bright blue. Think Newark, Chicago, Baltimore, LA, Atlanta etc etc. Yes they jack up the budgets. But the money goes to educrats current and deferred income. Pensions bloat and condo owners in retirement communities rejoice. As I recall per pupil spending in Baltimore is more than the tuition of some of the most prestigious prep schools in the country. So if it is about students and not the educrats, you may want to go beyond the lefty talking points.
Democrats have created the situation in which Republicans have formulated policy that allows exit from public district schools. They did it by treating public district schools as their fiefdom and not respecting the reality that community schools in a pluralist society needed to be places tolerant of and respectful of a diversity of beliefs, not just secular liberal orthodoxy. They did it by allowing all kinds of abuses on the part of the governing board politicians and administrators affiliated with their political networks. They did it by hiring unqualified people in the network who delivered poor services. They did it by neglecting the tedious citizen advocacy tasks that keep public institutions healthy.
It would be better if they had had enough civic virtue, honesty and tolerance of diversity not to have created this situation. But they did create it and now they blame everyone but themselves for it. In Southern Arizona we sit in our cities and our schools in the cesspool they’ve created in their public institutions and listen to them rant about the evils of PRIVATIZATION. They’d be a lot more credible if their own public sector didn’t stink to high heaven of every kind of thing they like to call evil when they see it in the private sector: greedy and self-serving behaviors, promotion of in-groups and business interests at the expense of citizens, neglect of poor minority populations.
One of the main ways they get away with their BS is by preaching to and mobilizing a crowd of Democrats who have retired here from other states and who don’t have on-the-groud experience of how local Democrat-controlled institutions are actually run. Comparing the propaganda in blogs like this with what is actually going on in local governance and in the schools highlights the hypocrisies of this network of “humanitarians” and is more than enough to cure anyone of the belief that anything worthwhile in the social justice arena can be accomplished by affiliating with or listening to Southern Arizona Democrats. If given the reigns of state as well as local governance, they will run this sad shambles of a state right into the ground.
The false mental paradigm that David and most of the commenters bring to this debate was revealed once again this week. Stanford came out with a massive, very sophisticated analysis of public school districts across the nation.
Three school districts in Arizona were revealed be among the top twenty, two were revealed be among the top ten.
Chandler Unified School District was shown to be among the top ten school districts in the nation at improving student results across grade levels.
Recognize that name? I’ve written about them a lot. Since 1998, the percentage of Chandler Unified parents rating their school excellent has risen two points a year.
Chandler Unified is now at 75% of their parents rating their child’s school excellent, up from 38 percent in 1998. They measure that rigorously, with an independent phone survey.
That’s modern school management and the Chandler School Board and administration are among the very best. Their excellence rating might easily be the highest percentage in the nation among large school districts.
Chandler has 75% market share in its district. Brutal competition has not caused them to be weak, it has driven them to be strong.
Eight percent of Chandler’s students come from other districts.
Do their results just come with the territory of an upscale urban area? No, all we have to do is compare their results with that of the Chandler City Government. Since 1995, the percentage of chandler citizens rating city government excellent has dwindled from 55% to 38%.
Did Chandler just ride a national wave? No, the national wave headed in the opposite direction. From2011 to 2015, the national percentage of parents rating their child’s school excellent dwindled from 36% to 24%.