No one has a greater stake in Arizona education than parents of school-aged children. No one. Except maybe parents of children too young to attend school who will be in kindergarten in a few short years (It’ll be sooner than you can imagine!). And people who are planning to have kids, whose future children will enter school within a decade. All of you are going to gain or lose based on the results of the upcoming elections.
So, my advice to parents is, VOTE! If you have a mail-in ballot sitting around beginning to gather dust, pick it up, fill it out and mail it in. No stamp required. If not, there’s early voting at the polls. And there’s November 6.
Vote for your children, which means, vote education — whatever that means to you. More on that later.
I figure there are about 400,000 of you parents with school-aged children registered to vote. (I’ll explain how I arrived at that ballpark figure at the end of the post.) If you vote at 35 percent, which is typical for non-presidential elections, that’s 140,000 ballots cast. Some of you who normally sit on the sidelines could, and should, decide this election is important enough to make the extra effort. If the number goes to 50 percent, that’s 200,000. If you double your voting rate, you’ll be pushing a quarter million.
Parents are an electoral force to be reckoned with. If you split along party lines as usual, not much will change. But if you vote for candidates who are long-time supporters of public education, not candidates-come-lately who, after years of bashing “failing schools” and “failing teachers,” have decided it’s politically expedient to say our schools deserve a little more money and support, you can be game changers.
I know what it means to me when I say, “Vote for education,” but it may mean something different to you. Here’s a thumbnail guide you can use to decide what you think “Vote for education” means.
Vote Democratic if you believe our public education should be fully funded, that Arizona should no longer occupy the nation’s bottom rung in per-student funding.
Vote Republican if you don’t want to “throw money” at failing schools and failing teachers because more money doesn’t translate to better schools.
Vote Democratic if you think charter schools need more oversight and regulation to get rid of the bad actors and profiteers.
Vote Republican if you think the current lax charter rules and regulations are just fine, that we should let the “invisible hand of the marketplace” work its magic.
Vote Democratic if you think our two backdoor private school voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, take money away from public education and favor wealthy families who would send their children to private schools anyway.
Vote Republican if you like the idea of vouchers for everyone who wants them.
Whatever you decide, parents, VOTE!
A Number-Of-Voting-Parents Note: Maybe the numbers are out there somewhere, but I didn’t find them. So here’s how I got to 400,000 Arizona parents of school-aged children who are registered voters.
Start with a million K-12 students. Estimate 2.5 children per family, figuring the range from big families and those with one child. That comes to 400,000 families. Estimate 1.5 parents per family. Now we’re at 600,000 parents. Estimate a third of the parents either didn’t make the effort to register or aren’t citizens and can’t vote. That leaves 400,000 parents of school-aged children who are registered voters.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2018.
Vote Republican if you like the idea of vouchers for everyone who wants them.
Thanks, will do.
In the November National/State Elections, the American Voter needs to Wake Up and participate in the electoral process, at all levels of Government; using their notion of what is in the best interests of all US Citizens and their Understanding of our Constitutionally Protected Liberties; that the primary focus of Government is the development of Citizens primarily through Public Education and Health Care; both should be provided at Public Expense and NOT through a “Free Market, Profit Based Economic System” where maximizing Profit and Salaries are the primary motivations and not First Rate Systems of Public Education and Health Care for ALL US Citizens; understanding that the very Nature of the Human Social System involves an Inherent Relatedness, Commonality, and Mutual Dependence; Domestically and Internationally.
The Agenda/Priorities of Donald Trump and his Supporters.
Domestic Agenda/Priorities:
1.) Appeal to His “Base”: Racists, Bigots, Neo-Nazis, and Misogynist (like Himself),
2.) Unfettered accumulation of wealth; the tools that His notion of society uses through which Individual and National ambitions for Freedom and Happiness may be reached.
Foreign Policy Agenda/Priorities:
1). Support for Saudi Arabia and Zionist Israel; both receive large amounts of Military Aid, and both are linked to 911 attack,
2). Admiration/Emulation of Dictators.
Donald Trump has Dangerously Divided our Country. He is a Threat to the Stability of our Social System!
We can only hope that the on going investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller will uncover evidence that will necessitate His removal from Office, and, the upcoming National/State Elections will boot his supporters out of Office as well!!
VOTE….VOTE in the November National/State Elections for Positive Political Change; The Control of Congress by the Democratic Party!!
Yeah, David, thanks much. But I only take information on what kind of votes will actually improve education in Arizona from parents who’ve raised children IN THIS STATE, using THIS STATE’s education systems. Otherwise I might mistake a party line that has little to do with what is needed to properly educate young people, given actual conditions on the ground in the schools IN ARIZONA (see your blog, above, and ad nauseam for the last decade and more) for information about what kinds of political choices will actually improve the cognitive functioning of children in this state.
Unlike some who post in these streams under “used to be a Democrat” or “former Democrat,” I actually WAS a Democrat who voted for, donated to, and volunteered with Democrats for more than 30 years. This year, for the first time in my life, I voted straight R, and against the Dem’s position on every ballot initiative except the pension issue. Also voted for the first time against funding initiatives within my public school district. As I marked each item, I thought of you and some of your friends and associates. It wasn’t so much support for Marquez-Peterson and McSally and Ducey (though I did vote for all of them, and other Republicans) I was expressing, as it was contempt for people who mix notions of “SOCIAL JUSTICE!” and “EDUCATION!” up with lies, exploiting ignorance, and mismanaging public institutions.
Congrats. You’ve been working so hard all these years, and, let me tell you, you and friends did achieve at least one genuine conversion: mine.
Vote Democrat if you want to pay for the education of a few hundred thousand children of illegal aliens including ESL classes to teach them English.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of good choices as Republicans will probably talk a lot without doing anything to enforce immigration laws.