The stand

I'm the beneficiary of Arizona public schools. At Kenilworth in the 1960s, we never suffered textbooks falling apart or holes in the ceiling. No, this elementary school whose alumni included Barry Goldwater, Paul Fannin, and Margaret Hance, which was integrated and taught everyone from poor kids to the scions of the Palmcroft elite, had superb teachers. It had a library and a verdant playing fields — the monstrous freeway only a line on a planning map — presided over by a magnificent, inspiring building.

At Coronado High School in middle-class Scottsdale, the story was much the same. Some of the finest teachers anywhere, one of the top fine-arts departments in the country, and Ralph Haver's inspired mid-century architecture. None of my teachers at either school were forced to buy supplies. Neither school was surrounded by a prison-like fence — and the '60s and '70s were hardly peaceful decades. There was even a brief teachers' strike in Scottsdale in 1971.

Now a statewide walkout is occurring. It is about much more than some of the lowest teacher pay in the nation. More even than gutting a billion dollars from public schools while dolling out tax cuts to the wealthy and politically connected. More than teachers seeing through Gov. Doug Ducey's cynical promise to raise wages 20 percent — something that wouldn't even bring their pay to the national average, and would require the Legislature to take money from other critical needs. Because...tax cuts. Taxes must always be cut.

Teachers have finally made a stand.

I have no idea whether it will be successful. I doubt it can change Arizona's trajectory. But the stand needs to be made. 

One of the great paradoxes of the past 30-plus years is how a significant plurality of successful baby boomers, most of whom owe everything to public schools, led or embraced policies to destroy them.

Nowhere has this ongoing civic vandalism been more on display than in Arizona.

Public education made great progress under the reforms instituted by Republican state House leader Burton Barr in the 1960s, then in the 1970s from his partnership with Democratic state Senate leader Alfredo Gutierrez. Power and money shifted from the historically anti-education rural lawmakers to cities.

But it turned into a losing battle for many reasons. One was that growth didn't pay for itself (in so many ways), with school funding not keeping up with population increases. Also, Phoenix was a checkerboard of districts, many of them formerly rural and lacking adequate funding. Sprawl thinned out population, increasing costs but also giving wealthier Anglos the opportunity to self-segregate in better-funded suburban schools. This fatally weakened the public connection to the commons, especially with so many newcomers. Arizona never approved an equalization mechanism to spread tax dollars across the state schools, leaving poorer districts deeper in the hole.

The big damage started in the 1990s when the Republican Party took sustained control of the Legislature and turned extreme. The pro-education Superintendent of Public Instruction Carolyn Warner was gone, replaced by Lisa Graham Keegan, an acolyte of the "school choice movement." To hear her tell it, she blocked even more destructive measures and sought to improve education by making existing public schools compete against charters, and, in theory, improve.

In practice, the charters siphoned off money from traditional public schools — and this at a time when the Legislature was beginning a long series of education funding cuts. Most charters performed no better, and many performed worse. Most lacked even the basics of a real school, using roach coaches to provide meals and "outsourcing" such essentials as libraries to public libraries supported by local taxpayers. Accountability was minimal. The charters often had ties to legislators and other powerful Republicans, a scandal never explored by the media. Who got the public funds and how? Why were so many charters left as financial wrecks to close? Even at their best, charters are a business. The universal education envisioned by the state's Progressive constitution is not intended to be a business.

Another stake in the heart was passing legislation to allow tax credits for people who supported their nearby schools — but this only widened the gap between rich and poor districts. Then came vouchers, paid by state taxes, to send children to "private schools." I use quotation marks because this was not something sought by the likes of St. Mary's High School. Instead, it was a growing number of schools founded by right-wing ideologues, again with unaccountable ties to politicians. These same people encouraged a climate of hatred toward public-school teachers as "parasites on the public purse." And they used Koch brothers' money to ram through vouchers — just the beginning of Koch-sponsored undermining of public education in Arizona.

Despite all the "choice" and "experimentation," Arizona schools fell in performance and funding, typically very near the bottom among the states. Teacher pay is among the worst in the nation. Education Week gives Arizona a D-plus. Thousands of Arizona children are condemned to lower economic and social mobility, many in the bad-schools-to-prison pipeline. The poor schools are a millstone to attracting advanced industries and jobs. It hurts the entire state, not merely the despised — but essential — low-income Hispanics. This was why Don Budinger fought tirelessly, but unsuccessfully, for more public school funding in the 2000s. "Gosh," he would say, "we could at least be No. 35" instead of at the bottom.

The constructive response is to raise taxes, not regressive sales taxes but on the rich and transaction taxes on real estate. It's not complicated. But it goes against the ideology and racism of those in power.

 

 

 

Comments

[Bradley Dranka]

Let's be honest here--I fully believe the Republican "powerholders" in Arizona made two very cynical calculations. One was teachers so "loved" their profession they would "settle" for next-to-nothing to practice it. The second was the allegedly "perfect" weather was so much of a "draw" that teachers would be "satisfied" with the pittance they were grudgingly paid by the skinflint legislature.

I think the real reason education has been so shortfunded is that the republicans want to create a large class of people that LACK critical thinking skills--and are easily led by the nose. In short, this is a political calculation designed to keep the Republicans in power without regard to the gross immorality of shortchanging a huge number of people out of their life's potential.

The real "monkey wrench" here is that the Republicans have fired up the true critical thinkers--the educators. I think there's a chance they'll teach these arrogant Republicans a sorely-needed lesson.

GO TEACHERS--RED FOR ED....

[Petro]

I agree 100%.

Shared.

[Kim Hamblin]

Mr. Jon, like you, I’m a product of AZ education. As a teacher for the past 27 years in PHX, I’ve become more and more disgusted with corporate tax cuts, vouchers and the general mismanagement of funds by many charter schools. Our public schools have suffered as a result.

I have always donated to the tax credit account of the club I run at my school. I was told by my accountant that I could lower my AZ tax burden if I would donate to either a charter or private school as well. Why the HELL would I do that? Why can’t I reduce my tax burden by donating MORE of my $$ to a PUBLIC school??

Side note.......I LOVED Carolyn Warner! I met her while I was in school getting my teaching cert and was smart, quick and super funny. Wish we had someone remotely comparable.......haven’Thad anyone yet.

[drifter]

Arizona is a low wage state. Teachers can be paid less and be mostly retained because there are so few higher paying alternatives. Employees throughout Arizona including teachers are treated badly and disrespectfully as a matter of course. Land of Stupid Arizona is a state that any informed, educated and thinking wage earning person should avoid. Best wishes to the teachers in getting pay increases.

[Patricia Hale]

We are where we are for all the reasons you shared, Jon. Plus 25 yrs of an R majority legislature ideologically driven to defund public schools, or government schools as they call them. Twenty out of 26 yrs with R governors who have the same mindset. Add in immigrant retirees from Iowa, who think they already paid for their kids' education, why should they pay for AZ kids? (Sun City West residents pay no school taxes.)
Cause and Effect. Arizona is last in per pupil funding in K-12 education.

[El Kabong]

Starting in the early 90s, legislative conservatives started cutting taxes. Many were motivated by a desire to see government shrink. They figured that if they kept reducing revenues, state government would eventually have to cut spending. They were right.

The tax-cutting has continued ever since. It continued under Napolitano. Since she always had a Republican legislature, she had to make concessions to get things done. The concession they often wanted was another tax cut.

Cuts in spending reached their zenith during the recession. There's nothing left to cut that won't hurt people or impair the functioning of state government.

I've never agreed with the tax cutters but I think most of them meant well. Many have been true believers in the notion that tax cuts would spur business growth and eventually cause increases in state revenues. Governor Ducey is a sincere adherent to that view. I think the evidence has become overwhelming that it doesn't work. (Can anyone say Kansas?) But, like Santa Claus, it's an appealing belief. Its adherents are a tenacious lot.

State revenues are simply too low to sustain an adequate level of state government. We need tax increases. Because of the super-majority required for tax increases by the legislature, the only practical way to increase taxes is by ballot measure. That's expensive, unwieldy and uncertain. This is a dumb way to run a state.

[Jeff Johnson]

“We gotta keep ‘em ignernt so’s they’ll keep a-votin’ fer us.” So says the governor and the legislature.

[Cal Lash]

A liberal version of a Warren Jeffs Educational program?

[Chuck Albertson]

I'm a proud product of the Prescott and Scottsdale school systems of the 1960s, which worked wonders even though they were bursting at the seams with all the baby-boomers moving through. "Portable" classrooms at Paiute Elementary instead of increasing class sizes, and double-shifting at Mohave Middle School (which was moved into Saguaro High, which had just opened and had some extra classroom capacity). The teachers were really dedicated to their students, and the districts had the resources to provide a lot of classes that gave students a leg up (algebra in eighth grade, which was radical at the time). I hope the teachers get some relief out of the walkout.

[Jerry McKenzie]

Glad I did not go into education.

I had the opportunity to get to know many of my old EHS teachers when I student taught at Central 30 years ago and was surprised how many were Republicans, but they were not like the ones running this state or voting to gut their very home.

[Concern Troll]

It is amazing to see the triumph of propaganda over reality with the Gov's slash and burn budgets, and stealing from the future to pay for today- and his bewilderment at the lack of trust. I would note once again, a dark deal made with the leg leaders, they are desperately buying time they don't have to deal with the long term crisis.

In short, you don't fix 28 years of stupid with five minutes of money.

There is no solution short of a long term overhaul of the tax system to make schools and state finances- as I said during the last round of epic stupid robbing the state trust fund.

I no longer bother talking to the R party- because all they can do is spout the Goldwater line due to the Koch money.

Nothing will get done until the crisis gets big enough to warrant a collapse in the Republican Party- and their defeat in the legislature.

The effect of their policies has been terrible, and by design.

The old school people from 100 years ago would have scorned them for their looting and corruption.

But hey, Boss Tweed ain't got nothing on Yarbough- got rich off the scam and is still walking this planet stealing more from the future.

[Ruben]

Any business neophyte would know that businesses look for the presence of an educated workforce well before they take a look at taxes when considering moving or relocating to a new state.

The fact that the AZ C of C and the legislatures of the past three decades "aren't aware of this" tells me that a more sinister plot is in play. (See Bradley and Petro's input above.)

Ducey and the R legislature are not pro-Arizona. They have an agenda dictated to them by outside evil forces. To make matters worse, several of these dispicable individuals in the legislature are advancing to the big league, Biggs, Lesko (two of the worst).

[Cal Lash]

Well Ruben U forced me back. I was going to leave this subject as its futile as Arizona is ruled by Joe. Ducey is no more in control than was tratior Saint Janet Who shortly after being elected bent a knee after getting off the plane in Salt Lake. And the Saints go marching.

Just back from Mexico where i saw many Mexicans on bicycles and also on bicycles tall albino appearing males dressed in black pants, white shirt and ties, carrying the book.

My dear departed mother left this world firmly believing in missionarys to save the heathens. That and Jonah and the whale were among the reasons i left home at 14.

[Chris Thomas]

As Bradley Dranko notes, the ongoing destruction of public education is not an inadvertent consequence of tax-cutting mania. It's intentional. Movement conservatives do not merely seek to reverse the New Deal, but also the Enlightenment.

[Liz Quinn]

The Arizona Legislature has a huge challenge.
They were hoping to continue the plan to destroy public education. They already had great success pushing for-profit charters, and almost met the goal of universal vouchers for private and religious schools.

But now, if they realize the public is aware of this agenda, what will they do?

Probably they placed a few calls to think tanks, ALEC, Koch brothers etc. to check the "game plan".

(Sorry for the cynicism. I hope I'm wrong and the Legislature will listen to the people)

[Liz Quinn]

Apologies for the previous comment.

I will feel feel better tomorrow at the Capitol, wearing red.
Yes, we need to make this stand.

[Bradley Dranka]

Just a "local" version of Republicans' valuing party over country. Their indifference to swindling children of their futures in the form of a political calculation is monstrously immoral.

[Ruben]

Liz, you do not need to apologize for walking around with your eyes wide open.

Most Arizona drones walk around in a daze with their self centered cell phone lives.

RedforEd is shining a bright light on the cockroaches and the vermin are running in circles looking for cracks to hide in.

[Sanjeev Ramchandra]

Check out my plan to increase state income taxes to generate more money for education in Arizona:

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/a-better-tax-plan-referendum-than-a-cent-sales-tax/article_622c7ed4-0b65-11e8-ad36-9f1d9786f313.html

[Bradley Dranka]

Ruben, and all the trump supporters will give these rip-off-licans plenty of places to hide while they try to pull the wool over everyone's eyes another time.

All the while, the Chinese are educating their children to call America's shots when they grow up.

And the rip-off-licans are short-changing education for the "quick buck" of keeping taxes low for their indifferent, uncaring, cheapskate constituents--and these constituents are at least half of the problem.

[Cal Lash]

Liz, in my opinion, apologizing for truth telling demonstrates a liberal weakness.
U R right in your beliefs and your mission. Onward!

[Bradley Dranka]

Liz, the legislature's republicans "listen" to only "their (kind of) people." That is, the ones that think like them....

[Concern Troll]

The bad decisions in dealing with this insurgency by the Republican Party will have some long term results that may end their dictatorship over Arizona.

The teachers are being mobilized, and quite a few of them were Republicans, but seeing the state representatives start tarring them with the radical labor brush has been instructive to them in realigning their loyalties.

A quick solution would have enabled politics as usual to continue. The long drug out battle demonstrates the goals of the Republican Party do not include any of the working class- and the instant hostility to tax increases looks insane after decades of tax cuts.

But hey, the strategy that worked can;t be changed, or the electoral mojo will desert the sons and daughters of Reagan....suckerz.

Going to be some interesting times from this.

[Ken Buxton]

Good Job. Red for Ed!!

[Chris Thomas]

Cal, I have inadvertently ordered two copies of The Bomb Shelter, which came today and is already gripping. Want one?

[Cal Lash]

Chris, thanks but I am in possession of 7 copies

[Ruben]

7 copies ! Do you think paper grows on trees?

[Cal Lash]

Ruben you been consuming them 11 leaf plants again and cant see the trees in the forest?