About the Maguire quote about the AEL being like the AZ version of the federal debt limit: this is particularly apt for the AZ Freedom Caucus emulating its big brother in D.C. In both cases, we are being held hostage for political and/or ideological reasons. Oh, and one other thing: you have a little bitty (but funny) typo. Just above the Duda tweet you say "Bone of the bills have received a ..." While "None of the bills" was probably what you meant, "Bone of the bills" is funnier. In a grandad kind of humor way (that would be me).
No question the aftershocks of Prop. 13 in Cali are still being felt here. Add the catalyst of State Republicans who are effectively anti-Public Schooling and, bingo, you have problems. Arizona is consistently at or near the bottom nationally in education rankings.
Why oh why cannot our elected officials take care of business so school officials don’t have to waste time stressing over budget cuts. Fix the problem! Our schools have enough problems to contend with, a stable funding stream should not be one of those problems.
The legistators should just pass the fix for the year so that disaster planning by school districts doesn't have to take place in case disaster strikes. Then they can work on important bills - like the Bolles monument. And they can start the 90 day clock to delete their notes, etc.
My twin daughters turned 5 in 2010, the same year the State Legislature imposed massive cuts to K-12 funding. They were in SUSD elementary school classes the two years in a row that the M&O Override failed. The will be seniors next year. They, their classmates and their teachers have suffered through the worst period of school funding in Arizona history. Worst of all, the Arizona political leaders who led the efforts to impose those draconian cuts came from our own LD23 (now LD3). John Kavanagh. Jay Lawrence. Michelle Ugenti-Rita. Joe Chaplik. As a then-life-long Republican I naively believed that if I met with those four, communicated with them, explained the damage they were doing to our schools and our children's education, they would listen and change their positions. Jay Lawrence might have been too goofy to understand what he was doing. But the other three share a pure hatred of public schools. And they truly enjoy the pained looks on the faces of those who they hurt.
That was a fine explanation of what has happened. I remember the Regan years in California. The first homelessness really started during those years when state mental hospitals were defunded due to budget cuts. And the beat goes on.
Gotta admit that it is sobering to see the Freedom Caucus' note that they have a fiduciary responsibility to public schools as they are doing this to public schools. Underfunding public schools makes them worse & lack of accountability for non-public schools makes them look better. But the legislature has a fiduciary responsibility to public schools. Yeah, we'll go with that.
About the Maguire quote about the AEL being like the AZ version of the federal debt limit: this is particularly apt for the AZ Freedom Caucus emulating its big brother in D.C. In both cases, we are being held hostage for political and/or ideological reasons. Oh, and one other thing: you have a little bitty (but funny) typo. Just above the Duda tweet you say "Bone of the bills have received a ..." While "None of the bills" was probably what you meant, "Bone of the bills" is funnier. In a grandad kind of humor way (that would be me).
No question the aftershocks of Prop. 13 in Cali are still being felt here. Add the catalyst of State Republicans who are effectively anti-Public Schooling and, bingo, you have problems. Arizona is consistently at or near the bottom nationally in education rankings.
Why oh why cannot our elected officials take care of business so school officials don’t have to waste time stressing over budget cuts. Fix the problem! Our schools have enough problems to contend with, a stable funding stream should not be one of those problems.
This is one of those cases, if the voting public trusted the legislature, none of this would be necessary.
Nice summary of the issue.
The legistators should just pass the fix for the year so that disaster planning by school districts doesn't have to take place in case disaster strikes. Then they can work on important bills - like the Bolles monument. And they can start the 90 day clock to delete their notes, etc.
My twin daughters turned 5 in 2010, the same year the State Legislature imposed massive cuts to K-12 funding. They were in SUSD elementary school classes the two years in a row that the M&O Override failed. The will be seniors next year. They, their classmates and their teachers have suffered through the worst period of school funding in Arizona history. Worst of all, the Arizona political leaders who led the efforts to impose those draconian cuts came from our own LD23 (now LD3). John Kavanagh. Jay Lawrence. Michelle Ugenti-Rita. Joe Chaplik. As a then-life-long Republican I naively believed that if I met with those four, communicated with them, explained the damage they were doing to our schools and our children's education, they would listen and change their positions. Jay Lawrence might have been too goofy to understand what he was doing. But the other three share a pure hatred of public schools. And they truly enjoy the pained looks on the faces of those who they hurt.
That was a fine explanation of what has happened. I remember the Regan years in California. The first homelessness really started during those years when state mental hospitals were defunded due to budget cuts. And the beat goes on.
Gotta admit that it is sobering to see the Freedom Caucus' note that they have a fiduciary responsibility to public schools as they are doing this to public schools. Underfunding public schools makes them worse & lack of accountability for non-public schools makes them look better. But the legislature has a fiduciary responsibility to public schools. Yeah, we'll go with that.