A hundred people, mainly students from Tucson High, PCC and UA, marched from Tucson High, held a rally at UA, then made a circle around the Festival of Books holding signs and chanting slogans, to a warm, receptive audience.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2015.
Nobody’s future is being cut short. Cute little group of activists they have put together to whine for money. I have funded libraries, as has every taxpayer. Use them.
David W, you are the only one I see whining. I am so proud of these kids for standing up for their education. Go kids!
David W. can you please tell us how the education cuts that are being implemented, along with mandatory bed-fill policies in private prisons that are being funded do NOT cut a future short? It doesn’t take a whole lot of intelligence to see that cutting schools and funding prisons does not add up to much of a future. Not for the children and not for Arizona. Perhaps you are a prison guard, or own a private prison–so perhaps you are among the few who will benefit from this draconian budget. But it sure doesn’t reflect the majority of Arizona’s residents’ priorities.
I honestly don’t think anyone really can see the effect that these cuts will have on the long term future of education. I would bet to venture that it will be more than some people are willing to admit and perhaps less than some are saying, but there will be an impact. TUSD being the largest district in the state will surely be a good measure as the cuts will be seen in higher dollars due to the size of their budget, so 9% is a big number. More than likely there will be more schools closing in the district and it will trickle down to the class room… Remember, the price of fuel for buses, electricity, gas, water and all the other utilities continues to grow…
Now on the bright side, when all of these kids who now feel that their state cares nothing for their education, drop out of the stream they will have nice new prisons to land in.
Who votes for these idiot Governors? There is NO EXCUSE… we MUST VOTE and make sure these idiots quit ruining our state. It’s great to see people standing up against Doug “The Douchebag” and actually caring enough about their education, however we must also exercise our right to vote. The whole “my vote wont count” is not true, and this is what happens when people think that way.
https://www.facebook.com/DougdouchebagDuce…
The “For Profit” education system will be a direct path to the “For Profit” prison. Guys like Douchey and his friends will make money hand over fist, and isn’t that what it’s all about. Idiots like David W will continue to vote them into office by making them afraid of the bogey man “Librul.”
Our Governor and our legislature has broken their trust with the people of Arizona. They have taken money from education k-12, community colleges and our universities to give tax cuts to corporations and to build private prisons; they have swept funds provided by the federal gov’t to compensate losses to people who lost their homes, they have gone to the Supreme Court to overturn a voter initiative on redistricting; they are trying to overturn the initiative on election funding. And on and on. Unfortunately, we can demonstrate, write, fuss, complain, meet but all to no avail. They have taken pledges to out of state special interests to do what they are doing. We need to vote them out.
I still can’t figure out why you insist on combining education spending with prisons. People have to want to learn. If you can’t obey the law you go to jail. But throwing money at education has consistently shown an increase in the incarceration rates.
You are defeating your own argument.Did somebody advise you that this would be an effective approach to increasing school funding?
Draconian BPH? Come on. Now you’re sounding like Al Gore and his fear mongering.
I have heard this so many times it’s laughable. Schools closed because kids left, not because the funding was cut. They wanted to take a chance on a better education, and I think you would find many happy parents and students out there that made a great choice.
And no I don’t own a prison….it’s so much easier if you you just resort to name calling.
David W you sound like you are in a prison. You are so unaware of the world and people. Public education has been very very meaningful to a lot of people for decades and decades . Your party for whatever reason has decided that prisons are more valuable and that we need to incarcerate people for everything. I hope you look at our country’s rate of incarceration compared to the rest of the world. People are making money off of others going to prison. You really don’t believe that our judges are being bought? Their buddies who own the prisons are getting rich. It’s getting worse and worse and worse. There is so much data about the fact that the less educated people are the more likely they are to get in trouble. Also there are many that are looking for and targeting people that are the most vulnerable to make money off of their incarceration etc.
Here is one of many links that I hope shakes you up a little David W. Google it… pages and pages of the same information. Definitely not something that makes me proud of our country…… then look at what is happening in our state and our rate of incarceration and the amount of money we spend on education. I know we get prisoners from other states but wouldn’t we rather get students from other states because our educational system is top-notch? Think about it. Not going to happen now in fact I am pretty sure there are companies that will not relocate here because of how little we value education by what is going on right now and for the past many years.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archiv…
And just in case you didn’t see the whole budget and listened to what our untruthful governor said, here it is:
http://www.friendsofarley.com/farley_rpt_2…
Robin we could debate this ad nauseam and accomplish nothing.
Two weeks ago I asked the spenders if they got an extra billion for education how would they spend it. To date there has been no response. And don’t tell me that you would promote smaller class sizes. We have seen the larger model working quite well.
It is so sad to see that you have taken to exploiting 8 year olds in your quest for even more money with no accountability. It plays like Saddam Hussein videos with the children serving him meals in his mansions.
The stae universities have gobbled up all the available money along with local municipalities. They believe that Tucson will only advance by what can made from college students. Thus Rio Nuevo and the Disneyland type theme park of food courts, bars and restaurants including the monorail that loops around it 20/7.
There are some real big Democratic donors making millions off that plan.
I would have been happier to see the 8 year old really concerned about his future by holding up a sign that read:
MOVE THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY TO TUCSON.
Can I get an Amen?
I really wish I could’ve attended this march. For TUSD high schools, the budget cut means half of Career & Technical Ed. funding is gone. Half as many students will be able to benefit from classes like Graphic Design, Journalism, Digital Photography, Commercial Art, Biotechnology, Accounting… the list goes on. I’m one of those students and nearly a third of the classes I’ve taken in high school are/were CTE. In fact, my Graphic Design program has made me career-ready and I do freelance work for Arizona businesses in my free time. I’ve heard my peers talk about how their CTE classes are what kept them from dropping out.
As for how community colleges are being affected, I’m thankful that Pima and Maricopa aren’t enacting tuition raises that are too drastic (you can google both), but the complete cut-off of state funding is a reason to worry for the future of faculty, facilities, resources, and programs at these schools.
Lastly, I look forward to attending ASU’s Barrett next semester, and I hope that the vast decrease in funding won’t rob future students like me of resources, faculty, and a high-quality campus.
It might be difficult to understand why these cuts even matter if you haven’t been in a classroom for decades. From the perspective of a modern-day Arizona student, it’s devastating.
I applaud these youth for stepping up and being involved in one aspect of our democratic process. I also hope those involved, especially the outspoken individual providing the photos, helped these youth to understand the private ballot is just as important as the public display.
Harold R. Simpson you probably missed an early post with many of these same students proclaiming that they will be able to vote next year and they WILL NOT for Governor Ducey. I am really impressed with these young people for I have been present at times. They seem to be really good kids who know a lot about the programs that are being cut and how it will affect them. They have reason to be very upset.
My apologies for being too hasty here; not only is the vote important but even moreso is the time necessary to get a candidate or an initiative on that ballot. This is the most important step in the long trek to the ballot box which takes far longer than a public display. The public display only highlights an issue for a very short period; the more enduring work takes longer.