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Arizona: The Governor’s Race Is Crucial for the Future of Education

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2022 //
7

Two women are competing to be Governor of Arizona. Katie Hobbs, the current Secretary of State, is the Democratic candidate. Kari Lake, a former talk show host, is the Republican candidate, endorsed by Trump.

The differences between them on education are stark. Hobbs would roll back the recently passed universal voucher plan. Lake is an enthusiastic supporter of charters and vouchers.

Both pledged to raise teacher pay, but Lake would tie raises to test scores.

If Lake is elected, she would impose extremist ideas that would undermine education in the state. She promises privatization and censorship. If she is elected, she will destroy public schools.

The Arizona Republic described their views:

In the coming year, Arizona schools face key challenges.

A newly minted school voucher program will steer millions of taxpayer dollars to lightly regulated private schools. A major staff shortage has left schools across the state scrambling for teachers, bus drivers and kitchen staff. Total public school spending is nearing a limit that could force massive budget cuts if the Legislature doesn’t act.

The governor has significant sway in shaping the future of education in Arizona. They can propose priorities for legislative action, choose bills to sign, call special legislative sessions, appoint members to the State Board of Education and issue executive orders.

Arizona’s candidates for governor offer voters a stark choice on education policy.

Democrat Katie Hobbs supports repealing the new universal school voucher program and putting more public dollars into public schools. Republican Kari Lake wants all education funding tied to students, not schools, which could send even more public money to private schools.

Here’s what else we know about where they would try to lead Arizona’s education system if elected.

Funding schools, public and private

At the core of Lake’s education plan is a proposal to allow families to decide where state money allocated for their children’s education will go. The funding that would typically go to their local district public school to support their children’s education could be spent at a public district school, a public charter school, a private school, or for “alternative learning arrangements, such as neighborhood pods.”

“Parents and students can mix and match the best educational opportunities available to them,” Lake said on her campaign website. “As parents, you decide where you want your kid to go to school, send them there, and their state funding will follow them. No waitlists, no applications, no hurdles or hoops to jump through, period.”

While district schools usually are expected to welcome any student zoned to the school, some charter schools reach capacity and institute waitlists. Private schools routinely require families to apply for a spot.

That “backpack funding” approach would significantly shift how public school funding works in Arizona. Currently, public schools get a mix of funding from federal, state, and local sources. State funding depends on the number of students in a school and students’ specific needs. High-performing schools can also get additional funding, and many schools qualify for grant funding or other special financial support.

The recently expanded education voucher program shifted the funding dynamic by allowing any family with a school-age child in Arizona — regardless of whether they previously attended a public school — to apply for about $7,000 in public education funding to put toward education-related endeavors, including private schools, tutors and homeschooling.

If elected, Hobbs said she would work to roll back universal vouchers.

On school funding, Hobbs said she wants to direct more of Arizona’s budget surplus, $5 billion in fiscal year 2023, to education. Right now, Arizona ranks near the bottom nationally in per-pupil spending, which educators said accounts for crumbling classrooms, outdated books and low-paid staff.

Hobbs also wants to ensure Arizona schools receive matching federal dollars for early childhood education. “To say that increased funding of schools does not result in better student success is willful ignorance of the needs of Arizona children and families,” said Hobbs’ plan.https://www.usatodaynetworkservice.com/tangstatic/html/pphx/sf-q1a2z37a5af424.min.html

Both would increase teacher pay

Both Lake and Hobbs said they want to increase the number of new teachers and retain current teachers by boosting pay. But they have different ideas about how to go about it.

Hobbs’ promises to support educators and tackle the teacher shortage are at the forefront of her platform. Among her positions are increasing educator annual salaries by an average of $14,000, expanding a state program that subsidizes tuition for college students studying education, promoting mentorship programs and ensuring teachers can access affordable healthcare.

Much of Hobbs’ plan relies on existing systems for low-cost teacher training, including the Arizona Teacher Residency at Northern Arizona University and the Arizona Teachers Academy, a scholarship program that subsidizes tuition at public, in-state higher education institutions. Hobbs said she would also work to convince the Legislature that more base funding for schools is needed.

Lake challenged the connection between more money for schools and higher student achievement. She said Arizona teachers deserve better pay, but any raises should be performance-based. She blamed stagnating teacher salaries on administrators taking ever-larger earnings. “Government-run school leaders appear to be deliberately keeping teacher pay low so they can be used as sympathetic figureheads in a quest for additional funds,” Lake said.

An Arizona Auditor General analysis of instructional spending in the 2021 fiscal year found that the percentage of money spent on instructional spending had fallen to 55.3% from its peak of 58.6% in 2004. While administrative spending is part of what districts spend their non-classroom dollars on, those costs also include food service and transportation.

Instead, Lake said she would provide bonuses for educators whose students perform well and show improvement. She would fund that through Proposition 301, an education sales tax first approved in 2000 and renewed in 2018. “We cannot trust school districts to direct allocated funds to teachers,” she said, explaining her support for performance-related raises. “I want our best teachers to be recognized and to be the highest paid in the country.”

Differences on school spending cap

The aggregate expenditure limit is a constitutional cap put in place in the 1980s on how much all Arizona district-run schools can spend. Last year, schools hit the limit, and the Legislature temporarily lifted the cap. This year, schools are on track to hit it again, and if lawmakers don’t act, school districts will collectively have to cut billions from their budgets.

Hobbs wants to eliminate the constitutional limit. “Each year our school districts are held hostage by political gamesmanship,” she said.

A constitutional fix could take various forms. The Legislature could increase the spending ceiling or exempt from the limit the money that comes in from the Proposition 301 sales tax. An end to the limit altogether would require a public referendum.

Lake did not respond to The Republic’s questions about her education plan, including a question about her position on the spending limit. In a social media statement earlier this year, Lake was critical of efforts to lift the cap. In a February tweet, as lawmakers voted on a bill to temporarily lift the spending cap, Lake encouraged her followers to vote in favor of legislators who did not support raising the aggregate expenditure limit….

Banning ideas, how to teach U.S. history

Lake wants to prohibit several ideas from being discussed in schools.

She’d like to strengthen Arizona’s ban on a college-level theory that teaches people of different races experience aspects of U.S. society differently, restrict teaching systems that aim to improve interpersonal skills and decision-making, and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Lake said on the campaign trail that she would consider putting cameras into classrooms to keep these programs from being taught.

Lake also said she would align state standards to the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum, a history and civics program of study created by a conservative private college in Michigan that has been criticized as taking a too rosy view of the U.S. past.

In response to a question from The Republic, Hobbs’ campaign said she opposed using the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum in Arizona schools because it did not offer a comprehensive understanding of civics and history. It would “ultimately be a disservice to Arizona children,” the campaign statement said.

Hobbs’ education plan doesn’t take an explicit position on the teaching of race and history or other political questions that have riled both the Legislature and some Arizona school boards.

Lake pledged to replace the Arizona state test with the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test that is not available for use by schools or states.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Arizona: Candidate for Secretary of State Wants to Abolish Mail-in Voting. So Does Republican Senate Candidate. Both Vote by Mail.

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2022 //
10

The blog Fourth Estate 48 reports on news from Arizona. The latest news is that Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State, wants to abolish voting by mail. He peddles the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and mail-in voting was a source of fraud.

Well, Dillon Rosenblatt checked Finchem’s voting record and found that he regularly votes by mail.

The Secretary of State in every state is in charge of elections. He or she must be a person of the highest integrity and must be nonpartisan.

Rosenblatt writes:

During his Arizona PBS debate for Secretary of State, Republican nominee said he always goes to the polls to vote. He lied.

Up until this year, Mark Finchem, the conspiracy theorist, stop the steal, election denying Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State automatically received his ballot via the mail since he was a Libertarian in 2008.

Despite that, Finchem has been a strong advocate of ending no-excuse mail-in voting for all Arizonans which has been in place for decades and used by at least 80% of the electorate. Finchem during his debate against Democratic challenger Adrian Fontes, the former Maricopa County recorder, last month claimed he always votes at the polls. This is a lie.

In another post, Dillon Rosenblatt reported that Republican Candidate for the U.S. Senate, Blake Masters, always votes by mail. But he’s against it, like Finchem.

In last night’s Arizona Senate debate on Arizona PBS between Senator Mark Kelly, the Democrat, Blake Masters, the Republican, and Marc Victor, the Libertarian, Masters went after the state’s vote by mail system –– a system which he utilizes exclusively.

Masters at first said, “I believe in Election Day, not election season,” but his voter file shows he’s never actually voted on Election Day while he was registered to vote in Arizona.

Masters has not lived in Arizona for long, but he has always voted by mail.

Categories Arizona, Elections, Hypocrisy, Lies

Heather Cox Richardson: The Origins of Arizona’s Disgraceful Abortion Law

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2022 //
24

Heather Cox Richardson is a historian who blogs frequently on current events. She is brilliant.

She wrote:

In Arizona, Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson has restored a law put into effect by Arizona’s Territorial legislature in 1864 and then reworked in 1901 that has been widely interpreted as a ban on all abortions except to save a woman’s life. Oddly, I know quite a bit about the 1864 Arizona Territorial legislature, and its story matters as we think about the attempt to impose its will in modern America.

In fact, the Civil War era law seems not particularly concerned with women handling their own reproductive care—it actually seems to ignore that practice entirely. The laws for this territory, chaotic and still at war in 1864, appear to reflect the need to rein in a lawless population of men.

The criminal code talks about “miscarriage” in the context of other male misbehavior. It focuses at great length on dueling, for example— making illegal not only the act of dueling (punishable by three years in jail) but also having anything to do with a duel. And then, in the section that became the law now resurrected in Arizona, the law takes on the issue of poisoning.

In that context, the context of punishing those who secretly administer poison to kill someone, it says that anyone who uses poison or instruments “with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child” would face two to five years in jail, “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.”

The next section warns against cutting out tongues or eyes, slitting noses or lips, or “rendering…useless” someone’s arm or leg.

The law that is currently interpreted to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious.

Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control.

The Arizona Territorial legislature in 1864 had 18 men in the lower House of Representatives and 9 men in the upper house, the Council, for a total of 27 men. They met on September 26, 1864, in Prescott. The session ended about six weeks later, on November 10.

The very first thing the legislators did was to authorize the governor to appoint a commissioner to prepare a code of laws for the territory. But William T. Howell, a judge who had arrived in the territory the previous December, had already written one, which the legislature promptly accepted as a blueprint.

Although they did discuss his laws, the members later thanked Judge Howell for “preparing his excellent and able Code of Laws” and, as a mark of their appreciation, provided that the laws would officially be called “The Howell Code.” (They also paid him a handsome $2500, which was equivalent to at least 5 years’ salary for a workingman in that era.) Judge Howell wrote the territory’s criminal code essentially single-handedly.

The second thing the legislature did was to give a member of the House of Representatives a divorce from his wife.

Then they established a county road near Prescott.

Then they gave a local army surgeon a divorce from his wife.

In a total of 40 laws, the legislature incorporated a number of road companies, railway companies, ferry companies, and mining companies. They appropriated money for schools and incorporated the Arizona Historical Society.

These 27 men constructed a body of laws to bring order to the territory and to jump-start development. But their vision for the territory was a very particular one.

The legislature provided that “No black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to [testify in court] against any white person,” thus making it impossible for them to protect their property, their families, or themselves from their white neighbors. It declared that “all marriages between a white person and a [Black person], shall…be absolutely void.”

And it defined the age of consent for sexual intercourse to be just ten years old (even if a younger child had “consented”).

So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as 10 able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.

And in 2022, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona.

Categories Arizona, Health, History

Arizona SOS Files Signatures to Block Universal Vouchers

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2022 //
13

Arizona voters blocked vouchers in 2018 by a 2-1 margin. The Koch-DeVos machine came back with an even bigger voucher proposal this year. Save Our Schols Arizona, a grassroots group of volunteers once more gathered signatures to compel a state referendum to block vouchers. The billionaires hate democracy and will try to stop the referendum.

The Arizona Republic reported:

A school voucher program scheduled to become law Saturday is on hold after public-school advocates gathered enough citizen signatures to temporarily block the controversial program.

On Friday, the Save Our Schools movement submitted 141,714 signatures to the Arizona secretary of state as volunteers concluded a drive to refer the voucher program to the 2024 ballot for voters to decide.

The law, authorized by the GOP majority in the Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, would be the first universal voucher program in the nation, using taxpayer dollars for private education efforts.

It would expand the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program to every Arizona schoolchild, providing an estimated $7,000 of taxpayer money per child for a range of educational services, from private school tuition to tutors to support for parents who opt to teach their children at home…

Raquel Mamani, an educator and parent, celebrated the petition drive, saying it puts on hold “the anti-public education, anti-parent, anti-student agenda forced into our state by extremists.”

Volunteers gathered signatures from all 15 counties in 80 days, a sign of widespread support, said Nicky Indicavitch, outreach director for Save Our Schools Arizona.

“Arizonans want top quality, fully funded public schools in every neighborhood,” she said.

This is the second time in five years public-school proponents have taken to the streets to block voucher expansion. In 2017, a similar referendum drive sent an expansion of the ESA program to ballot, where voters in 2018 rejected it by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.

Friday’s filing had echoes of the 2017 effort, but both supporters and opponents of the ESA program expect a more robust, heavily funded fight this time around.

The American Federation for Children [the DeVos organization] has signaled its support for the expanded program, and a “decline to sign” movement that tried to discourage people from signing the referendum petitions said it has proof of illegal signature efforts…

After the universal expansion passed in June, the state started taking preliminary applications. Data released last month showed 6,500 families had applied in just two weeks. Of those families, about 75% indicated they did not have a child previously in public school.

Those early findings solidified opposition from public-school advocates, who argued that the numbers showed the beneficiaries were likely people already paying private tuition and looking to cash in on a hefty state subsidy.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Democracy, Education Reform, Extremism, Koch Brothers, Vouchers

Arizona: The Facts About Universal Voucher Expansion

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2022 //
11

In Arizona, Save Our Schools Arizona and other parent groups are gathering signatures to force a referendum on the legislature’s plan to unleash a universal voucher plan. Parents and teachers overwhelmingly defeated a voucher proposal in 2018, but the salaries Koch-sponsored forces are pushing an even bigger voucher plan than before. In their proposal, every student in the state would be eligible for a voucher.

The Grand Canyon Institute has assembled the facts about the proposal. The greatest beneficiaries would be families whose children already attend private schools and parents affluent enough to pay for the cost of private high school.

Max Goshert, Assistant Research Director of the Grand Canyon Institute, writes:

Phoenix, Arizona – 2022 was a blockbuster year for Arizona policy. Along with a record budget and a billion-dollar investment in water, Arizona passed the largest private school scholarship program in the country. Previously, only families who met certain conditions, such as having a student with a disability, a parent who served in the military, a student who attended a D or F school, a student who lives on a Native American reservation, or a sibling of one of these students, could participate in the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.

HB 2853 establishes universal eligibility for the ESA program, meaning that any student attending grades K-12 can receive a scholarship, which is estimated to average $6,966 in FY23 (certain circumstances, like disability status, can change the scholarship size). Unlike the 2017 expansion, which capped participation at 30,000 recipients, there is no limit on the number of students who can participate in the program.

Naturally, the polemic public debate resulting from the seismic shift in education has spawned a gamut of predictions on what the impact of this expansion will be. In an attempt to foster conversation that is grounded in fact, we address several questions about the ESA program by diving into the data.

How will the ESA expansion impact academic outcomes?

As with any policy that impacts education, the most important feature of the ESA expansion is how it impacts the quality of education that students receive. While the literature on the academic outcomes of participation in voucher programs is mixed, with some research reporting significant positive effects, several recent studies have found negative impacts on student achievement, especially in math, for statewide voucher programs in Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana (Mills and Wolf, p.8). This is likely due to the rapid expansion of these voucher programs from smaller populations to the entire state, overwhelming existing private school infrastructure (p.43).

Arizona’s expansion is the largest in the country, with the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) estimating that 36,078 public school students will begin participating in the ESA program. While some families may choose to homeschool given their new ESA eligibility, most will likely elect to attend a private school. Given that there are currently 59,171 private school students, Arizona private schools will see a 39% rise in demand, a tremendous increase in a short period of time that threatens to overwhelm existing facilities. Consequentially, Arizona will likely see a similar decline in academic outcomes due to the inadequate supply of private schools.

What are the accountability requirements for ESAs?

While ESA participants are required to use a portion of the program funding in reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science, there are no minimum standards of academic achievement, such as reading or math proficiency. Private schools are not required to be accountable for the academic outcomes of their students. This contrasts sharply with Louisiana’s voucher program, where private schools must apply to become voucher recipients and undergo site visits, financial audits, and health and safety assessments from the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (Abdulkadiroglu et al, p. 4). Private schools must maintain eligibility by administering annual state achievement tests to voucher recipients along with financial audits.

Who benefits the most from ESA expansion?

Of the 9,710 applicants to the ESA program for SY2023, approximately 77% do not have a history of attending an Arizona public school. Effectively, these ESAs serve not to enable those attending public school to attend private school, but as a public subsidy for families that already had the means to pay for private schools or homeschooling. This is in line with a 2018 study by the Grand Canyon Institute which found that, while enrollment in the private school sector has been relatively flat, private school subsidies from Arizona’s General Fund have increased 50-fold from $3 million in SY2000 to $141 million in SY2016. As with other private school subsidies, the beneficiaries are largely those who are already attending private schools, not those attending public schools who would otherwise attend privates.

What are the limitations on ESA expenses?

ESA funding can be used to pay private school tuition, curriculum, homeschooling, and other educational expenses. The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) maintains a comprehensive list of approved spending categories and ESA allowable items. However, because state statute on allowable items is broad, parents are able to use ESA dollars for expenses with questionable educational benefit. Uptown Jungle Peoria, an indoor playground, recently attracted attention when they advertised that they would accept ESA money, an expenditure that ADE confirmed was appropriate. Parents may also use ESA dollars to purchase Lego kits, lawn darts, and croquet sets. ADE staff oversee ESA expenditures to ensure that they fall under program guidelines, yet allowable purchases that are more recreational may come at the expense of academic experience.

How much will the ESA expansion cost taxpayers?

Initial estimates from the JLBC are that taxpayers will spend $33 million in FY23, $65 million in FY24, and $125 million in FY25 from empowerment scholarships. With 77% of the 9,710 enrollees this school year coming from outside of the public system, the cost of these students will likely be around $52 million, very close to the JLBC estimate. As participation in the ESA program proliferates due to public awareness in the coming years, the burden of the program on the General Fund will rise substantially.

How will the ESA expansion impact school choice?

Arizona currently has 2,391 public schools and 448 private schools. The estimated award for FY23 of $6,966 covers the entire average cost of private elementary schools ($6,710), but only about a third of the cost of private secondary schools ($18,590). Consequentially, families will have to pay around $12,000 per student out of their own pocket once they reach high school, a financial barrier that will be too burdensome for those who rely on ESAs to pay for private school tuition. The families that experience the greatest expansion of school choice are those who are wealthy enough to pay the difference in tuition at the secondary education level.

The impact of school choice by the ESA expansion is further limited by the lack of public accountability of private schools, creating a vacuum of information on academic outcomes. With little means to determine how well private schools educate their students, parents must rely more on marketing and word-of-mouth, impairing their ability to make well-informed decisions for school choice.

HB 2853 is scheduled to go into effect on September 24 however that date could be put on hold if an initiative successfully gathers sufficient signatures to refer the issue to the November 2024 ballot.

For more information, contact:
Max Goshert, Assistant Research Director
mgoshert@azgci.org, 602.595.1025, Ext. 12

The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and improving public policy in Arizona through evidence-based, independent, objective, nonpartisan research. GCI makes a good faith effort to ensure that findings are reliable, accurate, and based on reputable sources. While publications reflect the view of the institute, they may not reflect the view of individual members of the board.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Hoax, Koch Brothers, Privatization, Vouchers

Arizona: Vouchers Will Harm Our Children

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2022 //
11

Beth Lewis, the director of Save Our Schools Arizona, thought that vouchers were a dead issue after 2/3 of voters rejected them in 2018.

But the Republican legislature, egged on by the usual billionaires, came back with a voucher plan even worse than the one that was defeated. They probably figured that the volunteers couldn’t muster the energy and resources to fight another round.

Beth Lewis writes:

This June, hours before adjourning their legislative session, Republican majority lawmakers delivered a massive blow to Arizonans by passing a universal voucher program that will siphon public dollars away from public schools to private schools with zero accountability to the public. Even worse, this program is significantly larger than a similar voucher program that was rejected by voters in 2018 by a margin of more than 2-1.

Make no mistake, lawmakers did not pass this bill at the urging of their constituents — who overwhelmingly support and rely on local public schools — but at the behest of special interest groups like Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children who aim to dismantle the public education system.

Lawmakers tried to sell these expanded vouchers as “school choice,” but we all know it has nothing to do with school choice and in fact harms the choice of the 1 million students who choose AZ’s public schools.

Republican lawmakers have long argued that universal vouchers would “free children from a broken school system.” But that argument was utterly destroyed recently when the Arizona Department of Education reportedthat 75% of families seeking new Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which is what this voucher program is called, have never stepped foot in a public school.

And that’s just the start. Approximately 85,000 students already in private school and homeschool will become eligible for ESA vouchers overnight, potentially diverting another $600 million in funding away from public schools every year. This amounts to a 20% blow to local public schools across the board – a blow they cannot withstand. But of course, Governor Doug Ducey, DeVos and their cronies know that.

These deep dips into the school funding bucket drain the funding of the choice of 1 million AZ students who choose public schools. That’s not school choice— it’s highway robbery.

The only goal this disastrous bill accomplishes is fattening the bank accounts of special interests and for-profit operators at the expense of Arizona kids. Universal vouchers leave our taxpayer dollars ripe for fraud and abuse at the hands of extremist charlatans like Charlie Kirk and his radical Turning Point Academies (founded the same month as passage of Ducey’s voucher expansion). Using taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate children on bigotry and intolerance is not school choice – it’s dangerous.

Public funds belong in public schools where there is oversight and transparency, not in privately operated businesses with no accountability to taxpayers. There is nothing in this voucher expansion that would stop a bad actor from opening up a “private school” in a strip mall, lying to the parents, taking $7000 per child and closing up shop. Ducey’s expansion gives the state no mechanism to recover misspent or fraudulently used funds. There is zero oversight of academics, performance, curriculum, safety, or teacher credentials. And there is nothing to stop voucher schools from discriminating against students who don’t “fit” their ideology or mold. That’s not school choice – it’s indoctrination and segregation.

The entire program is a walking permission slip for future scandal, segregation, fraud and abuse. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Arizona kids sit in overcrowded school classrooms with outdated textbooks, leaking roofs, and under-resourced teachers.

Save Our Schools Arizona is working to stop this law by turning in 118,823 valid signatures on Sept. 23, so that AZ voters will have the final say on the 2024 ballot. Find locations to sign the petition at teamsosarizona.com.

Beth Lewis is a mom, public education advocate, and K-12 policy expert who fights for a fully and equitably funded school for every Arizona child. As Director of Save Our Schools Arizona, Beth works to bring parents, educators, elected officials, business leaders, and community members together in support of Arizona’s public schools, which strengthen our communities and our great state. Beth has taught elementary and middle school in Arizona for 12 years. She holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s in Education from ASU. Reach out to her at beth@sosarizona.org

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Corruption, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization, Resistance, School Choice, Vouchers

Arizona: Senate Candidate Blake Masters Covers Up His 100% Opposition to Abortion

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2022 //
60

Blake Masters is the Republican candidate opposing incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona. Masters is closely allied with misogynistic billionaire Peter Thiel.

On his campaign website, he declared that was completely opposed to abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions. He said he was “100% pro-life.” He called Roe v. Wade a “horrible” decision.

He called for “a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.”

But then came the election in Kansas, where Republican women joined with Democrats to block an effort to remove the right to an abortion from the state constitution.

Now, reports the Arizona Republic, Masters has softened the language on his website to pretend to be a moderate on abortion. In other words, he is trying to pull a Kavanaugh, pretending that he is not what he is.

He removed the reference to being “100% pro-life.” He claims to support reasonable limits on abortion, no longer completely opposed to it. The Roe decision is now described as “bad,” not “horrible.” He now claims to support Arizona’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Masters campaign did not immediately elaborate on the website changes. He launched a digital ad Thursday addressing abortion, in which he says, “Most people support commonsense regulation around abortion.”

Kelly has supported federal abortion rights and blasted the Supreme Court’s ruling doing away with them.

He said about the Dobbs’ decision overturning Roe v. Wade:

“Today’s decision is a giant step backward for our country. Women deserve the right to make their own decisions about abortion. It is just wrong that the next generation of women will have fewer freedoms than my grandmother did,” he said in a written statement.

“In Arizona, there are already restrictive bans on the books that will take rights away from Arizona women, without exceptions even in the case of rape or incest. I know that this decision and these laws are leaving many Arizonans frustrated and scared. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. I am resolved to defend and protect the right of Arizona women to make their own health care decisions.”

Masters has called Kelly an extremist for defending a right that existed for nearly half a century.

As Masters tries to rewrite his own history, will the women of Arizona be fooled?

Categories Arizona, Cruelty, Health

Arizona: Parents, Educators, Others Must Fight Rightwing Voucher Plan—Again!

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2022 //
5

Perhaps you thought the voucher fight was over in Arizona in 2018 when voters rejected vouchers by a decisive margin of 65-35%.

But no, the clear and overwhelming decision of the state’s voters did not deter the Christofascists who are determined to destroy public schools by transferring funding away from them to any form of non public schooling, be it religious, private, homeschooling or a business run by a fraudster.

Governor Doug Ducey signed a law creating a universal voucher plan on July 6. The new law will subtract $1 billion from the state’s public schools.

SOS Arizona is once again leading the fight against universal vouchers, led by Governor Ducey and championed by the Republican legislators. The dark money behind the voucher campaign comes from the usual suspects: the Koch machine and the Betsy DeVos combine.

If Save Our Schools Arizona and its supporters can secure 118,823 valid signatures before September 24, the voucher expansion law will be placed on hold until November 2024, when voters get a chance to express their views, as they did in 2018.

The stakes could not be higher – this is a referendum to decide the future of education in Arizona and across the nation.

You can see more about the SOS Arizona signature drive here: teamsosarizona.com.

Beth Lewis, the director of SOS Arizona, wrote to provide the context for the battle over vouchers:

Universal voucher expansion is the KEY issue driving right-wing politics in the US, and hardly anyone is talking about the well-moneyed, dangerous forces driving it. The AZ legislature’s myopic focus on pushing private school voucher expansion over any other piece of legislation for the past 6 years is enough to tell us that — not to mention the massive focus FOX News has placed on vouchers since the bill’s passage here in Arizona. Recently, Christopher Rufo admitted he created the CRT furor in order to advance universal vouchers.

We desperately need folks to plug in – people all over the state can get petitions at our hubs: teamsosarizona.com or sign up to volunteer: bit.ly/SVEvolunteer.

As you know, we are truly the tip of the spear when it comes to privatization. Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children is mobilizing (somewhat ineffectively) against our efforts, and the battle lines are drawn. It is evident that universal voucher expansion will become a pattern across the US, as Republican Governors are all declaring that every red state should adopt this policy. We have seen the dangers of private school vouchers first-hand here in Arizona, and our public school system has been starved in order to give credence to those who wish to privatize our public education system.

Charlie Kirk is partnering with an incredibly rightwing Evangelical church (Dream City Church) to open Turning Point Academies across Arizona. Here is the June article from Newsweek describing their plans to proliferate campuses across AZ and then the nation. It is no coincidence this plan was announced the same month the AZ state legislature passed universal vouchers.

Kirk recently spoke at Freedom Night hosted by Dream City Church, and this expose in the AZ Republic shows the hateful ideology against LGBTQ and trans youth Kirk and the Church spread. It’s terrifying – and infuriating to think this is where our taxpayer dollars are headed.

It is abundantly clear that special interests who favor extremist Christian Nationalism are driving the bus on these issues – and it makes sense. Private school vouchers are the perfect solution for building a long-term, endlessly replenishing base of voters who also favor Christian Nationalism.

We only have 42 more days to collect the signatures to put this bill on the 2024 ballot. We expect massive legal battles, as dark money will pour in and the usual suspects will challenge every signature. We are confident we will push back successfully and get the measure on the ballot – we must, as goes Arizona, so goes the nation.

You can help these fearless, intrepid volunteers by sending a contribution to: sosarizona.org/donate.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Reform, Parents, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Senator Sinema Agrees to Deal By Protecting Richest and Corporations

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2022 //
14

The Washington Post reports that Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema signed on to the “Inflation Reduction Act”—which provides funding for climate change/health care. Her demand? She blocked taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations that pay nothing. Why is she a Democrat?

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said she would “move forward” on a revised version of Senate Democrats’ health care, climate and deficit-reduction package, after party leaders agreed to scale back some of their original tax proposals.
The new approach — along with other changes to the proposal known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — satisfied Sinema’s chief concerns and helped set in motion a plan to approve it as soon as this weekend.

In a statement, Sinema said Democrats had “agreed to remove” a key tax targeting wealthy investors and had made changes to a second provision that aims to impose a new minimum tax on corporations that currently pay nothing to the U.S. government. From here, Sinema said she would await a final review from the chamber’s parliamentarian — a critical step in the process that allows Democrats to move their spending bill — at which point she would “move forward.”

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Billionaires, Democrats, Environment, Health

Kathryn Joyce: Arizona Eliminates Standards for Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2022 //
30

Kathryn Joyce is an investigative reporter for Salon. In this article, she shows how the Republican leaders of Arizona have decided to end the teacher shortage by reducing standards for teachers. They have decided that teaching is not a profession. Anyone, they think, can do it.

She writes:

Last week, just days after the Arizona legislature passed the most expansive school voucher law anywhere in the nation, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law another education measure decreeing that public school teachers are no longer required to have a college degree of any kind before being hired. Instead of requiring a masters degree — which has long been the norm in the profession — Arizona teachers will only have to be enrolled in college in order to begin teaching the state’s public school students.

The law, SB 1159, was pushed by conservatives on the grounds that Arizona has faced a severe teacher shortage for the last six years, which, by this winter, left 26% of teacher vacancies unfilled and nearly 2,000 classrooms without an official teacher of record. That shortage has led supporters of the bill, including business interests such as the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, to claim that loosening teacher credential requirements will help fill those staffing gaps. Opponents of the bill, however, point to the fact that Arizona has the lowest teacher salaries in the country, even while boasting a budget surplus of more than $5 billion.

“Arizona’s teacher shortage is beyond crisis levels,” tweeted Democratic state Rep. Kelli Butler this March. “Instead of offering real solutions (like increasing pay & reducing class sizes) the House Education Committee passed a bill to reduce the requirements to teach.”

“With Arizona trying to get education monies to parents directly to pay for schooling — including homeschooling — you see more evidence that the state doesn’t care who teaches its kids,” said David Berliner, an education psychologist at Arizona State University and former president of the American Educational Research Association. “Charters and private schools for years have not needed certified folks running schools or teaching kids — as long as the voucher for the kids shows up.” Combined with its new law creating a universal voucher system, Berliner added, “Arizona may now be the most radical state in terms of education policy.”

Please open the link and read the article in full.

Arizona doesn’t care about its children.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Industry, Failure, Stupid, Teacher Education, Teacher Shortage, Teachers
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