The Blog for Arizona describes the inside story of the Arizona teachers’ strike and Governor Doug Ducey’s feckless efforts to stop the strike without making any concrete concessions to teachers.
“Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as the State of Arizona, is a practitioner of propaganda over policy. He rolls out a glossy media P.R. campaign and gets his corporate benefactors to pay for advertising praising him for his P.R. campaign. The substance of the actual policy gets lost.
“Ducey did this for his #ClassroomsFirst initiative in which he declared himself to be the “education governor,” he did this to sell his unconstitutional Prop. 123 to settle the education inflation adjustment lawsuit against the state so that the state would not have to pay restitution for funds stolen by our GOP-controlled legislature, and he is doing it yet again with his #20by2020 teacher pay proposal.
“Ducey’s dark money “Kochtopus” allies in the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry started a new group called the “Arizona Education Project” and fielded a $1 million soft-sell TV ad blitz to say “Arizona schools are making progress.” Arizona “Ground Zero” for Koch Attack on Public Education. As the Arizona Daily Stareditorialized, “no number of feel-good TV spots will change the fact that Arizona comes in last, or almost last, in numerous rankings of per-pupil state spending in the nation.” Education ad campaign doesn’t change the facts.
“The “Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, is now threatening school districts with lawsuits for closing during the #RedforEd teacher walkouts, no doubt on Gov. Ducey’s behalf. Goldwater Institute sends letter to schools calling Arizona teacher walkout unconstitutional. Per usual, the Goldwater Institute is full of shit and bluster. The actual point of their intimidation campaign is a reminder that “We own this state, and you will obey!
”With more than 50,000 educators and their supporters marching on the state capitol this week in a sea of red, our self-described “education governor” (sic) refused to meet with education leaders, Ducey to meet with ‘decision makers,’ not teachers to talk about salaries, and instead negotiated a “deal” with his GOP legislative leaders in a one-sided negotiation that did not include the teachers. Governor announces budget deal with teacher pay raise — but gives no details.”
Republican leaders negotiated a deal among themselves, refusing to talk to teachers. The presence of 50,000 teachers wearing #RedForEd did not earn them a seat at the table. One side talking to itself, said “Arizona Republic”columnist E.J. Montini, is not a deal. One little detail: the Republican Plan is to distribute any new funding to districts and let them decide whether to increase teachers’ salaries. Some pay raise that is!
Blog for Arizona writes:
”You have this weekend to contact your state legislators and to let them know that without new tax revenue dedicated to public education for teacher raises and to restore the billions of dollars cut by our GOP-controlled legislature over the past decade, there is no “deal.” And if they vote for this budget gimmick of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” yet again, you will be voting them out of office in November. Enough is enough.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ducey seems to think that teachers are less intelligent and less informed (or totally uninformed) about civics (i.e. how laws are made, funded, and implemented) than the average citizen, and so he thinks that he can just put a fast one over on them as this article details.
Hell-o! They’re teachers! They’ve got not just one, but two degrees — a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. They’re not going to fall for this transparent attempt to con them into abandoning the strike.
What Ducey put out to the media was and is nothing more than a tooth-less press release, with no actual effective power to implement a ding-dong thing.
You can’t announce a 20% raise for teachers without raising taxes somewhere on something on someone. That is, unless you’re going to take it from somewhere else, gutting … say the state’s social safety net… or funds for law enforcement, fire safety, infrastructure such as roads, etc.
Arizona teachers don’t want the governor to “rob Peter to pay Paul” in order to receive a raise. As with the teachers in West Virginia, they’re staying out until there is truly a done deal, with tax increases funding the raise, and all the details spelled out.
One other point is that DUCEY STILL REFUSES TO MEET WITH ACTUAL TEACHER LEADERS. He claims that he’s spoken with some individual teachers — whom he refuses to even name — and that those teachers accepted his deal, and that’s all that he needed to do.
Patently ridiculous.
It’s like the president announcing a peace treaty with a certain country without actually meeting any officials, diplomats, or the head of state of that country.
“No, I refuse to even talk to any of those guys. However, I talked with a few citizens from that country — whose names I’m not even going to share with you or with anyone — and they like the treaty a real lot. I really don’t NEED to talk to anyone else. The treaty’s been accepted, even though I’m not sharing any of the crucial details of how the treaty will actually be implemented.
“Just trust me on this folks: a deal’s been made, so let’s all stop talking out this and move on.”
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Didn’t Betsy DeVos also just make a union agreement without consulting the union? This is getting to be a thing with GOP.
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She did, and it was the federal employees in the DOE. She eliminated the time union functions and people could take while on the job, leaving them to carry out union duties before work, after work, and on weekends.
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Back in the 1960s, the developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner published a study showing that American fathers of the time (this was before the women’s movement made its greatest gains in the country) spent less than a minute a day in direct interaction with their children. They rationalized this neglect by thinking that it was not their job to interact with the children but, rather, to earn money, to “put a roof over the heads” of the family.
Repugnicans who don’t believe in public goods, who think that every problem can be addressed by the magic of the market, who are extremist ideologues, simply don’t see the provision of public goods as their job. Their job is to dismantle public services and let the magic market do its work. That’s how someone who heads a state with the lowest education investment in the country can brand himself as an “education governor,” and it’s as wrong-headed and ideologically driven as was 1960s conceptions of fatherhood.
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The Goldwater Institute lawsuit is the first evidence I’ve seen that ed reformers know Arizona public school students exist.
Why the sudden concern for students they don’t support in public schools they don’t value?
Political gimmicks and tactics put together by professional campaign people.
Fund the schools, lawmakers. Do your jobs. Go to work tomorrow and put in some worthwhile work on behalf of public school children and families. Add some value.
Enough slogans about being the “education governor”- there’s an existing system of public schools and millions of families support it and rely on it. Fund it. Figure it out.
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The blog language is tough and it needs to be. Not in Arizona, but really proud of teachers who are fed up with being bullied by state and federal legislators.
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So, they’re suing because they say the superintendents are constitutionally obligated to provide education? It is not the superintendents’ but the legislature’s responsibility to provide education, specifically to provide funding of public education by levying taxes (hopefully not regressive taxes). I like how the lawsuit acknowledges the need to provide education, though — interesting twist. Arizona educators need not fear this litigation. They have the numbers and the support of numbers.
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Almost forgot the last line: Arizona teachers are entirely right to talk tough and stand up to bullies with empty hearts and empty arguments.
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Off topic: “He wants to give teachers guns and I support that because then they can sell them for things like supplies.” Michelle Wolf
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/29/michelle-wolf-white-house-correspondents-dinner-sarah-sanders
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As an addendum to this informative piece, offers important background.
The following from the annual report of the American Legislative Exchange Council‘s ranking states on quality of education, press release dated January 24, 2017:
“Arizona was ranked number one received a B+ grade. The state scored highest an academic standards, as well as charter school in private school choice availability. According to the national assessment of educational progress, Arizona spend $7461 per pupil with only 13.3% of their funding coming from the federal government.”
“Arizona was ranked number one received a B+ grade. The state scored highest academic standards, as well as charter school private school choice availability. According to the national assessment of educational progress, Arizona spend $7461 per pupil with only 13.3% of their funding coming from the federal government.”
https://www.alec.org/press-release/annual-report-ranks-states-on-quality-of-education/
From ALEC.org press release dated August 11, 2016, “The majority of governors seem to understand that lower tax rates and limited government gives citizens and businesses a greater incentive to reside and operate in their states compared to other states with higher tax rates and more regulations. This concept is further explored in the Center for State Fiscal Reform’s: Rich States, Poor States:ALEC– Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, in which years of economic data and empirical evidence from each state are examined in order to determine what economic policies lead to prosperity. Generally, states with lower tax rates, fewer regulations and responsible spending habits outperform other states in terms of economic growth. In review of the 2016 State of the State addresses, many governors are following these policies to help their states better compete for residents, jobs and capital.”
https://www.alec.org/publication/state-of-the-states–2016/
Governor Ducey is an annual attendee of ALEC January retreat. Arizona legislators prized the largest delegation at the December 2016 American legislative exchange council retreat in Washington DC a few weeks after the presidential election. One legislator in LD 23, posted on his Facebook page (screenshot taken), Arizona had the largest delegation of over 123 members.”
ALEC operates as a 501(c)(3) a nonprofit organization for educational purposes. It instructs its members, and the delegation of legislators from Arizona, on it’s curriculum. The State earned a grade of B+ from its’ generous benefactors.
“According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, administration for children and families, children’s bureau, children in foster care by state,(2016) 18,000 children are in foster care in Arizona. More kids in foster care than ever before. The data looks at state by state break down.
How did Arizona compare to other states? Hint: terrible
Arizona showed a net increase from 2005 of 10,000 more children in foster care over the ten year period.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb
And finally, the teachers in Arizona support children who are English language learners. According to statistical atlas.com 21% of children speak Spanish at home in the state of Arizona, 17.4 thousand children speak Vietnamese at home, 16.1 thousand speak Tagalog (at home), 4,000 speak Polish, 5,637 speak Italian, and other languages include Mandarin, Arabic, and Korean.
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“Duceyplitous Ducey”
Duceyplitous deals
With no new tax
No details
And no new facts
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Same as it ever was.
Duciplitousness is a prerequisite for the job of governor of Arizona.
And Arizona has had some real winners.
Fife Symington, for example, who was convicted on seven counts of bank fraud and (coincidentally, of course) was also an early Deformer who established the first charter schools in Arizona. He is also a “UFO witness” (whatever that means). Unfortunately , he was not abducted by the aliens.
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Hilarious comment!
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Duce Bigalow ALEC gigolo
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Arizona’s DAILY MINER’s editorial nicely spells things out about the Arizona teachers strike — including the “Five Core Demands” yet to be met:
(SPOILER: it’s not teachers’ selfishness that’s holding up a deal)
https://kdminer.com/news/2018/apr/29/miner-editorial-its-important-know-theres-more-tea/
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
DAILY MINER:
“Two of the more popular arguments against the teachers and the walkout are:
“1) Teachers are just being selfish;
an
“2) Teachers are walking out on our kids.
“The DAILY MINER editorial board is labeling these arguments as false. If teachers were being selfish, not only would the walkout be over, but the walkout would have never started. …
” … ”
“Selfish people would have accepted that deal and moved on.”
” … ”
“Arizona Educators United and the teachers are walking out over Five Core Demands — (and will stay out until they’re met, JACK):
“1) The 20 percent increase in teacher salaries that will make Arizona competitive with other states and can be a tool into cutting down the 2,000 teaching vacancies currently in our state.
“2) Restoring per-pupil funding for Arizona public schools to 2008 (pre-recession levels).
Arizona’s government has withheld more than $1 billion from education funding from that time, including KUSD’s shortfall of more than $3 million this school year alone.
“3) Competitive pay for all education support professionals: those counselors, reading specialists, lunchroom aides and custodians who are instrumental to bringing about a quality educational experience for our children, but are not included in Ducey’s plan.
“4) A salary plan that provides an annual raise. They only want a system in which they can earn raises and not be beholden to lawmakers and governors who have been choosing willy-nilly not to give any of them a raise.
“5) A halt to tax cuts until Arizona’s per-pupil funding reaches the national average. Arizona is third from the bottom in student funding, but there are $13 billion annually given away in tax breaks.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
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The Republicans honest response to the Arizona teachers’ “Five Core Demands” would be:
“Why if we did all that, then the schools would improve, and if so provided with an improved, successful traditional public school, no parent would choose for their child to leave traditional public schools to either attend privately-managed charters or public schools funded with vouchers.”
“You see, our secret plan is to two-pronged:
“1) starve those traditional public schools schools, staffed by unionized teachers, into failure and low performance;
“2) use that low quality — that we initially caused by the starvation of funding — as a selling point to parents to leave those schools for privately-managed charters or private schools funded with vouchers with the new voucher system we just created,
” … or even better …
” … use that low quality that we initially caused by the starvation of funding as justification to forcibly close those schools, fire all the teachers, and bring in private charter school management.
*”If we give in to you striking teachers and fully fund and improve those schools, #2 will never happen, and we can’t have that, now. Can we?”
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“Dicey Ducey”
Dicey Ducey
Claims a “deal”
Lousy Lucy
Pulls the ball
Charlie Brown
Would take the bait
But teacher town
Is sure to wait
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Arizona is next door to Nevada. The unionized school teachers in Las Vegas, just voted to break with the NEA. see
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/clark-county-teachers-vote-forces-looming-union-decision/
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Not exactly, Chas. It seems that the local Clark County Union is breaking with the state NEA but not the national. Kind of a strange situation there. Anyone who knows more please respond.
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And not sure what AZ next to NV has to do with the price of tea in the Koreas.
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There is going to be some tough sledding in Arizona. See
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/04/arizona_teachers_legal_threats.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1&M=58467894&U=2306083
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The free market for pay is not the solution for the most efficient solution. Time and time again, it has showed itself to be a rat race for greed and self dealing.
The way to deliver public education in the most efficient manner is a fair pay scale for school employees across a state. Pay from state to state for equal conditions should vary minimally. Fair pay is based on years experience, education level, a regionalization factor for location, and higher pay for low SES schools.
That is what the legislature of Arizona needs to be focused on.
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