Debbie Lesko is the Betsy DeVos of Arizona. She hates public schools and wants to privatize them. She is active in ALEC, the rightwing corporate bill mill.
Read about her campaign for Congress here, in an article by Graham Vyse in The New Republic.
“Lesko resigned from the state Senate in January to focus on running for Congress, and she’s now the Republican nominee in the April 24 special election for Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District. A darling of the Koch brothers in her own right, she’s the clear favorite to replace former Representative Trent Franks—a Republican who resigned in disgrace last year over sexual-misconduct accusations. Conventional wisdom says Democrats don’t have a shot in this heavily conservative district. It includes former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s political base, and Trump carried the district by 21 points in 2016. But after Conor Lamb’s victory this month in a Pennsylvania district Trump won by about the same margin, Democrats are allowing themselves to hope. “Arizona can be harder than Pennsylvania,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, recently said on Pod Save America. Yet, Pfeiffer argued, the two districts have “essentially the same political dynamic.” “There could be a real shot here,” he said. “There’s a good candidate who won the primary a couple weeks ago.”
“Pfeiffer was referring to Hiral Tipirneni, an Indian-born emergency-room physician and advocate for cancer research, who won the Democratic nomination with a moderate message. Even the conservative publication Newsmax calls her “a strong candidate,” which might explain why the Republican National Committee just invested $281,250 in this race along with $170,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee and $100,000 on the way from the Congressional Leadership Fund. These investments come as polling by Lake Research Partners shows Tipirneni down 14 points, but Lesko’s record should motivate local Democrats looking to notch another upset victory. “Debbie Lesko has made it clear she’s representing ALEC,” Tipirneni told me. “She’s representing the Koch brothers. She’s representing her lobbyists.”
Could the Big Blue Wave that Elected Ralph Northam in Virginia, Doug Jones in Alabama, and Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania topple Lesko?
Most families in Arizona send their children to public schools. Do the public school parents in Lesko’s district know that she wants to defund their public schools?
Lesko has promoted vouchers in Arizona.
“Arizona was the first state in the country to enact Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, also known as Education Savings Accounts, in 2011. Championed by the state’s Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank also tied to the Kochs, these accounts allow families taking their child out of public school to put 90 percent of the child’s share of state education funding toward private education—tuition, tutoring, or other expenses. Eligibility for the program was initially limited to a small group of students, including those with disabilities, but Lesko’s law opened it up to all 1.1 million of Arizona’s public-school kids.”
Parents have blocked implementation by putting a refendum on the ballot. Vouchers have never won a public vote. The vote frightens voucher advocates.
The state’s voucher program operates with little or no oversight or accountability. Parents have used their debit cards to buy legitimate school supplies, then returned them for credit and spent state money on personal expenses. At least one report says the ESA was used to pay for an abortion.
The special election for the Congressional seat will be held on April 24. If you live in her district, be sure to vote.
I read this on her website: Q Education
I believe education is about empowering parents to make the right choices for their children and their families. That’s why I believe the federal government needs to get out of the way of decisions made at the local level. I will support federal block grants back to states so that we in Arizona can continue to decide how best to spend our money – not bureaucrats in Washington.
END Q
There is nothing on her official website, stating that she “hates” public schools. Do you have any specifics to support your claim that Ms. Lesko “hates” public schools?
She hates public schools. She votes only for nonpublic schools.
Debbie Lesko has pushed nonstop for vouchers to private and parochial schools at the expense of public schools for years in AZ. If you care about public schools, you don’t do that. She started small & now wants her program statewide. She is an ALEC member. She wants even less oversight over charter schools than the little that already exists in AZ. She regularly lies about vouchers – though the AZ Republic is more polite and calls them alternative facts. She also has ethical issues, like moving money from her state campaign fund to a federal PAC that supports her. She is not “obscure”; rather she is and has been the driving force behind most of the nastiest GOP legislation in the AZ legislature – like her lovely, intrusive HB 2625 back in 2012.
“House Bill 2625, which passed the state House of Representatives and will now go before the Senate, would allow Arizona employers to refuse to cover the cost of contraception for women who plan to use it for non-medical reasons. In order to have their birth control prescriptions covered, those women would have to “submit a claim to the corporation along with evidence that the prescription is not in whole or in part for a purpose” the employer objects to — which means she would have to prove to her boss that she has endometriosis, ovarian cysts, or some other medical concern that necessitates birth control pills. The bill also allows a woman’s employer to charge her an administrative fee to process her claim.”
She is a huge Betsy DeVos fan.
https://newrepublic.com/article/147474/washington-ready-another-betsy-devos
There’s a reason I no longer live in AZ – and she epitomizes it.
She’ll fit right in.
Half of Congress are actively opposed to public schools and the other half are lousy advocates for public school families who haven’t been near a public school in decades, if ever.
She’s perfect for DC ed reform. She’ll go far in “the movement”.
Do you have any specifics that half of congress is opposed to public schools? No congressperson sends their own children to WashDC public schools, that is for certain.
Since ~90% of public school financing comes from state/federal sources, why would anyone be concerned with an obscure freshman congresswoman from Arizona, impacting public education?
Charles, why do you call her obscure? She is not. Just because you don’t know who she is doesn’t make her obscure. I have long been aware of her destructive tactics and I don’t live in Arizona.
This woman has not even been elected to congress yet. I submit that she is not very well-known outside of Arizona. Traditionally, freshman congresspersons do not have very much “weight”, politically. They generally keep a low profile, and defer to the leadership.
It is no time to be running around like “chicken little”.
I live in NYC and I am aware of her nefarious activities.
I didn’t tell the New Republic to write about her.
They have heard of her too.
Get over it, Charles. You don’t control the media.
Well it sounds like she has a “rep” outside of the Grand Canyon State. Just because I never heard of her, does not mean that she has not had some press.
Still in all, I just find it hard to believe that even if she is elected to congress, that she will have much impact on education policy in the USA. She may get assigned to some obscure committee like fish and wildlife, or some such.
Freshman congresspersons rarely cause much of a “ripple”. Trust me on that.
“At least one report says the ESA was used to pay for an abortion.” — someone put this money for good use.
Arizona is an interesting place. It is illegal to have a donkey sleep in your bathtub after 7pm see
http://allthatsinteresting.com/craziest-laws-united-states
I have been writing Postcards to Voters for Dr.Hiral Tipirneni. For those who don’t know about this opportunity, here’s a link: https://postcardstovoters.org/
I live in AZ. Lesko has been in the legislature since 2011. Don’t you think we know how destructive she is? Look at her track record.
I am certain that people in her district, and people elsewhere in AZ have a solid grasp of her record. I am just stating that outside of AZ, her reputation is not as well-known. If she is successful in her bid for congress, she will get even more press.
Really struggled to find anything substantial on what Dr. Tiperneni is all about, even on her website. Also, what are the reasons that vouchers so negative for education?
Jonathan,
Have you ever heard about separation of church and state?
Yes. How does that apply?
Jon, I don’t have time to educate you. Read “Reign of Error” and come back with questions.
I will be happy to discuss the separation of church and state (with respect to funding education), off the blog.
Thanks, Charles. I don’t have discussions off the blog. But I appreciate the offer.
I apologize for the confusion. I should have proceeded that entry with “@jonmech”.
Here is correction:
@jonmech: I would be happy to discuss the constitutional question with you off-line. Just send me a tweet.
@jonmech. You must be new here. School choice/vouchers drain money from the publicly-operated school systems. They also drain students, when the students obtain education from alternate sources.
Thank you, Charles.
Charles, your twitter feed is pretty nasty, I won’t follow you on there.
With less students to teach, getting less money kind of makes sense.
Jonathan,
Teachers salaries don’t fluctuate with the numbers of children in their classroom.
If they did, teachers currently teaching in crowded classes should be paid more than $100,000 a year.
“With less students to teach, getting less money kind of makes sense.”
Unfortunately, school districts find it hard to reduce their fixed costs. Buildings still need to be maintained, heated, lighted, air conditioned, cleaned,… Fewer dollars usually means fewer “extras”: Fewer art, music, foreign language classes,… Librarians seem to be a favorite target for budget cutting, as well as social workers and counselors. The list goes on and I’m sure others can chime in with what their schools have lost.
When a public school loses a student, their funding, which is based on the number of students in their school, drops. Funding is calculated on the student population. This is called per-pupil expenditure (PPE). When a student moves across the country, or moves to another district, or drops dead, the money that the public school was receiving is reduced. Of course it makes sense to not pay a public school, when the student departs, for any reason.
School choice opponents have no issue with this reduction.
But when a student departs a public school, and the parents get a voucher equivalent to the PPE, school choice opponents go all ballistic. The loss in funding is equivalent, but they object, nevertheless.
The losing school, must continue to maintain their physical plant, and administrative staff, and other “fixed costs”. When any school faces a reduction in student population, for any reason, down-sizing is inevitable. Teachers may face layoffs, physical plant may have to be sold off, programs may be reduced or eliminated. It costs the same to heat a classroom with 30 students as it does to heat a classroom with 29 students.
Opponents of school choice have no problem, when a school faces an increase in student population, and the resultant infusion of extra cash in the form of additional per-pupil expenditures.
True, teachers salaries do not vary with the number of students in their classes. But teacher contracts and school policies and state laws, usually mandate the maximum number of students per class, in order to maintain a proper student/teacher ratio.
Needs to be shared nationally🤙