Last week’s issue garnered a substantial amount of response.
First, the good news: While I was unable to attend Pride in the
Desert last weekend (I was in Phoenix at the Arizona Newspapers
Association annual convention), the Tucson Weekly folks who
manned our booth said numerous people stopped by to thank us for doing
last week’s Pride section. As I mentioned last week, we plan on making
the Pride section a regular quarterly part of the Weekly. Look
for the next one in January.
And now, on to less-good news: Ann-Eve Pedersen, who is one of the
driving forces behind the Tucson Unified School District override
ballot measures, Propositions 401 and 402, was rather upset about last
week’s story on the measures.
She was upset for several reasons. For one thing, nobody from her
Invest in Our Kids group was contacted for the story. While we did talk
to TUSD governing board president Judy Burns, we didn’t talk to anyone
from Pedersen’s group, so she makes a valid point.
Pedersen was also upset by several remarks made by override opponent
Mary Terry Schlitz; Pedersen went so far as to demand a correction to
the story, claiming that Schlitz’s remarks on desegregation money,
previous bond money for technology and state funding for all-day
kindergarten were false.
Problem is, they weren’t. Yes, Schlitz did do some serious spinning
… but that’s what happens in political campaigns. We’ve
double-checked things, and our story was accurate; we stand behind
it.
Pedersen sent a letter to the editor that came in too late for this
week’s issue; we’ll print it next week.
In any case, vote for Prop 401 and 402, OK? Our schools need this
money. Badly.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.
The self-described ‘pro education’ anti-override person interviewed for the last article used the words “horrendous”, “preposterous” and “outrageous” when describing the possibility of providing more money for our Tucson skills.
I think those words were misplaced and her facts were erroneous, at best. Ms. Pederson should be upset that this rhetoric was given a wide audience, and the rest of us should be upset that there is so much well-funded propaganda being slung in our community in an attempt to further undermine our schools.
What is ‘horrendous’ is that some people are disparaging money for education in a state that has one of the fastest growing prison populations in the US. We are hammering our schools despite the fact that they receive over $2,500 less per student than the AVERAGE US school…and yet we spend over $22,500 per inmate each year to house prisoners. I searched the internet and could not find evidence of Ms. Shiltz’s outrage on this matter, though I could find a large number of articles which link a lack of educational investment to an increase in crime rates and recidivism.
What is “outrageous” is that the lack of support for our schools is costing the average Tucson business much more than $839 dollars per year (the highest cost of the override) in lost productivity and consumer spending. We rail at spending dollars for educating our children, but we forget that they are our future workforce and that we are training them to be successful contributors to our economy. When we fail in that mission, companies have to spend more for training, recruit further afield or slow their growth as they spend more time trying to recruit qualified and able employees. The true cost of our neglect to our schools compounds over time: businesses leave Tucson or choose not to locate here at all; and when the number of good-paying jobs becomes scarce, those of us who are paying taxes end up paying more simply to maintain basic services.
When you allow your base to weaken, the impact to the rest of the community is resounding.
And, finally, what is “preposterous” is that our local school districts have to operate under constant attack from a very vocal minority in the community. When it comes to the future of our community, there is no “us” or “them”. A rising tide raises all ships, so to speak, and if we let our schools fail then we will all pay the price.
Schools do not have millions to spend on public relations or a staff to repudiate all of the erroneous information out there – nor should they…that would be a waste of our tax dollars. They should be given enough money by our community to pay for the true cost of providing an excellent education for the children in our community. The next time one of those $12 million dollar A-10s flies over your head, think about how Tucson is currently prioritizing education. Saying ‘I support our schools’ while sneering about their many perceived inadequacies is not productive or a valuable contribution to our society. Time for all of us to step up and start doing something positive for TUSD.