Archive for the 'Schools' Category
September 28th, 2009, 1:27 pm by Le Templar
 Matthew Ladner A while back, I mentioned a survey of high school students by the Goldwater Institute that used civics questions from the standard U.S. citizenship test. The survey found 96.5 percent of the students couldn’t get a passing score (although students at private schools fared substantially better than those at public schools). Now, the Goldwater Institute’s Matthew Ladner offers a sliver of hope about those results.
Another conservative think tank in Oklahoma was intrigued by the Goldwater Institute experiment and wanted to try it on students in Sooner country. So that think tank used the same set of questions for its own telephone survey and had Ladner write up the results: 97.2 of all Oklahoma students couldn’t pass the test to become U.S. citizens (if they were foreign immigrants).
Keep in mind, the questions are about basic U.S. history and government organization — topics that, in theory, should be known to every literate American. And the answers should be fresh on the minds of high school students since they should have studied those topics recently.
The natural inclination is to blame the U.S. education system. But I suspect the problem really lies in a culture that values instant gratification and knowledge by Wikipedia and Google instead of institutional memory and personal exploration with the bedrock principles of U.S. civics.
Posted in: Libertarian values • Schools • Goldwater Institute • Matthew Ladner • Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs • U.S. citizenship | Post a Comment »
July 16th, 2009, 4:33 pm by Le Templar
Wow, this seems messy. I wrote yesterday that Arizona State Treasurer Dean Martin had to borrow $130.9 million to complete the monthly state payment to local school districts. Martin blamed the lack of cash in the state bank on the Obama administration, claiming the feds were dragging their feet on the transfer of $250 million in stimulus dollars that Arizona is eligible for.
But Capitol Media Services is reporting today that Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration might be to blame, because it failed to correctly apply for the education stimulus money in the first place.
Brewer and the Legislature were counting on that $250 million this month to shore up the state’s daily cash-on-hand as they struggle to keep the budget balanced. But Capitol Media Services quotes Sandra Abrevaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, as saying the federal stimulus law requires individual schools to apply for the funds and the money has go straight to schoolhouse — it can’t pass through the state’s hands.
The result of this is local school districts will get another $250 million, once they send in the correct applications to the federal education department with help from the state.
Meanwhile, Brewer and lawmakers will have to figure out how to get back $250 million already sent to school districts, or the state budget deficit will grow even bigger. Most likely, the state will reduce a future monthly payment by the same amount as part of a budget special session. But the state has to be sure such cuts wouldn’t violate another section of the federal stimulus law.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Schools • Dean Martin • federal stimulus • Jan Brewer • state budget • U.S. Education Department | 2 Comments »
June 27th, 2009, 1:14 pm by Le Templar
The budget approved June 4 includes an policy item that would switch the property tax assessment ratio for businesses from 20 percent to 10 percent on new bonds and school funding overrides. This would equate business property with existing homeowner property tax rates. It would require homeowners to pay more in taxes, if local governments seek to raise the same amount of money.
The new deal would slow that change down, by gradually reducing the business property tax assessment to 15 percent over 5 years, starting in 2012
But Michael Rossi, lobbyist for Marana and Pima County Community College, just testified that change would now apply to existing bonds and school overrides, not just those that come along in the future.
“That’s a massive property tax shift and a massive property tax increase on homeowners,” Rossi said.
Posted in: Schools • Uncategorized • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 26th, 2009, 2:25 pm by Le Templar
Anti-tax groups are trying to rally their members and supporters to slam state lawmakers with phone calls and emails that object to a “handshake deal” on the state budget between Gov. Jan Brewer and legislative leaders. Apparently, a possible flat rate on personal income taxes isn’t enough to outweigh their fears of a 1-cent sales tax increase.
The Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity is sending out email alerts and the Goldwater Institute has thrown together a pretty funny opposition video that has the feel of a campaign TV ad. Take a look at it below.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Schools • Americans For Prosperity • Goldwater Institute • Jan Brewer • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
May 29th, 2009, 3:20 pm by Le Templar
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 Hugh Hallman One of the things I enjoy about Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman is his deftly frequent use of humor. He knows how to poke fun at himself (maybe just little too often) and he also can use laughter to blunt the pain of some stinging criticism.
Hallman recently launched a promotional web site that’s common for most politicians these days who want to keep their public image polished for their next run for (higher?) office.
Hallman does have his critics, and one has created a video targeting the mayor’s longstanding opposition to city tax incentives for development that has changed the way public business is handled in Tempe. Check out the video for yourself, and I think you’ll agree it’s quite well done.
Instead of getting defensive, Hallman put together his own response by video that he shared with supporters and media outlets (before they had a chance to discover “Mr. Meth” on their own, I would guess). While technically not quite as slick as the original smackdown, the theme music is perfect for Hallman’s side point that the critic is hiding his or her identity (and I just happened to see Colin Hay in concert in Cave Creek Friday night).
I laughed during most of the video, but it was pretty tasteless to include the photo of Osama bid Laden (implying the critic could be a real evil character, who knows?). Sure, “Hewie” calls Hallman a liar and a hypocrite in the first video. But shouldn’t the mayor be able to rise above such petty cheap shots?
Posted in: Schools • Tempe • Uncategorized • Hugh Hallman | Post a Comment »
May 4th, 2009, 4:30 pm by Le Templar
So, are you expecting more from your Arizona schools?
You might have seen a recent television ad, or heard one on the radio, asking you to “join the movement to strengthen education in Arizona.” These ads are part of the first wave of what’s to be an extensive campaign from a new advocacy coalition that wants to put all children into formal classrooms from the age of toddlers well into young adulthood. That group, called Expect More Arizona, says it has commitments from nine sponsors of $100,000 each (that’s nearly $1 million!) to wage a public relations blitz with the goal of a better education system becoming the state’s top policy priority.
Several leaders of Expect More Arizona said squeezing more money out of taxpayers isn’t the coalition’s underlying mission when they met last week with Tribune writer Michelle Reese and me. At least initially, the coalition wants to convince the public that Arizona must lower high drop-out rates and everyone into the workforce with more education in their background.
“This is about raising the bar, about raising expectations for what our children should be learning and doing,” said Thomas Franz, president and CEO of Greater Phoenix Leadership.
Others at the meeting keep repeating this theme, including Paul Luna of the Helios Foundation and Sally Downey, superintendent of the East Valley Institute of Technology. They all said once Arizonans agree on the compelling needs to improve education, then various public bodies can launch into more concrete debates on how that should happen.
There’s one problem with this explanation — Arizonans already place a high value on education. As just one example of this, the latest Cronkite-Eight political poll indicates the only thing that Arizona residents seem to agree on when it comes to solving the state’s budget problems is don’t cut education funding anymore. Some 69 percent of those polled said this, while the next closest area was public safety spending, which only 10 percent wanted to protect at any cost.
What Arizonans don’t agree on is the best way to spend education funds to get the maximum results. A recent movement generally called school choice emphasizes giving parents and families the greatest possible flexibility in selecting a school for their children, with the idea that the best schools will attract students (and their funding sources such as state tax dollars) and schools of poorer quality will have to improve or go out of business. Most school choice advocates believe such strategies would lead to better allocation of education dollars and would ease the pressure for every-increasing budgets to try and spend our way to smarter students.
There are a number of groups who oppose this approach, in part because public schools aren’t shielded from private competition. And guess what? Several of those groups are leading sponsors of Expect More Arizona.
I don’t doubt the group’s motivations. The people involved sincerely believe they are working to improve education and make life better for all of us. But I’m going to be skeptical of their campaign until I hear some specific ideas about what they believe the state should be doing.
Here’s one of the TV ads that Expect More Arizona has created:
Posted in: Arizona government • Presidential campaign • School choice • Schools • Expect More Arizona | Post a Comment »
April 30th, 2009, 1:14 pm by Le Templar
 Gov. Janet Brewer Gov. Jan Brewer has fired a shot across the bow of Arizona State University and its president, Michael Crow, by suggesting the state can’t afford two top-tier research universities.
Arizona’s governor is a nonvoting member of the Arizona Board of Regents, and Brewer attended her first regents’ meeting today in Tucson. She clearly isn’t happy about the three public universities again adopting huge hikes in student tuitions, this time in response to recent cuts in state funding. At ASU, tuition for the typical in-state student has risen by nearly 63 percent since 2002, and will be at $6,700 for the fall semester (including a “temporary” recession surcharge).
In her prepared remarks, Brewer said she will use federal stimulus money to back fill some of the cash that universities have lost, with the intent of limiting the cost increases for students. But the governor warned that the federal money runs out in two years, and she challenged the regents to come up with better business model that will keep university costs as affordable as possible. This sentence was particularly intriguing:
“Having almost all of our undergraduates in research level universities is too expensive.”
While not mentioning Crow or ASU by name, she clearly had both in mind. Elevating ASU’s research status to among the best in the country has been Crow’s driving priority for the past six years, although it still lags behind the University of Arizona. ASU also has the state’s largest student enrollment (and one of the largest in the country).
I expect lots of political clashes between Crow’s ASU and the Brewer administration over the next year.
Posted in: Arizona State University • Arizona government • Congress • Governor • Presidential campaign • Schools • Uncategorized • Arizona Board of Regents • Jan Brewer • Michael Crow | 5 Comments »
April 8th, 2009, 11:16 am by Le Templar
A couple of people have asked me how the Arizona Legislature can consider significant cuts to K-12 education, as much as $341 million according to versions of Republican leadership proposals leaked to the media and education advocates in late March. The question isn’t about the potential impact on local school districts, but in light of the protections of Proposition 301 that were part of the legislation authorizing a higher statewide sales tax and approved by voters in 2000.
As understood at the time, the Legislature is supposed to not only reject any cuts to basic state aid to K-12 school districts but raise state funding by 2 percent each year. However, the specific language of the law seems to allow lawmakers to modify or ignore the 2 percent increase.
But actually reducing the total amount of state funding, wasn’t that illegal? The answer is “no,” as the state provides money beyond basic state aid in a number of ways, none of which apparently are covered by Proposition 301.
The Arizona Tax Research Association has provided the Legislature with a detailed explanation of what kind of cuts can be made. Many of ATRA’s proposals (which now has been formally endorsed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry) show up in the Republican list. But ATRA has identified a total of $529 million in potential K-12 cuts, or about $200 million more than offered so far in the most conservative budget proposal.
This means lawmakers continue to use a lighter hand when it comes to education cuts. And most people believe the Legislature won’t adopt the entire $341 million in reductions either, because the political opposition is just too strong.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Schools • Arizona Tax Research Association • Proposition 301 | 1 Comment »
January 16th, 2009, 10:31 am by Le Templar
(File photo by Capitol Media Services)
We seem to have two choices to solve the state’s budget crisis — slash more than a $1 trillion from education (that’s billion with a “t”), or borrow up to our eyeballs and hope the Santa Claus in Washington delivers Christmas in February.
Outgoing Gov. Janet Napolitano released her final budget proposal this morning. On paper, it eliminates a $1.2 billion deficit this year (although legislative budget experts now predict a $1.6 billion gap) and a nearly $3 billion deficit for the next fiscal year. Her numbers claim she would reduce state spending by $975 million over the two years. But Napolitano couldn’t find a single program or state worker that Arizonans can live without during this deep recession.
Instead, she managed to find new accounting gimmicks such as postponing, but not eliminating, payments to the public universities and state Medicaid insurance program. She also would borrow more by pledging future tobacco settlement money and lottery revenues.
As uncomfortable as many of these proposals are to fiscal conversatives, the alternative that Republican budget-writers have come up with includes slashing $900 million from K-12 education or 20 percent of total state spending. Rufus Glasper, chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College District, has started to prepare for the possibility of losing all state aid for the largest system of its type in the country.
Dire days for Arizona, indeed.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Schools • Gerry Rafferty • Janet Napolitano • Joe Egan | 2 Comments »
December 22nd, 2008, 5:21 pm by Le Templar
I haven’t found a lot of time (or material) to blog about lately. But I haven’t seen any coverage of a new policy report from the Goldwater Institute on resolving the state’s predicted $1.2 billion budget deficit from a libertarian perspective. That means no tax or government fee increases and no additional debt; just whacking away at state government funding, which has grown by an estimated 67 percent since 2004.
Goldwater takes a “no sacred cows” approach, relying heavily on various budget reduction proposals in the past six years offered by legislative budget staff but never approved by the full Legislature. The report also takes into account that the state’s fiscal year is about six months over, so nearly half of the $10 billion General Fund budget already has been spent. Some highlights include:
- $210 million, or a 15 percent cut, for the Arizona Health Cost Containment System (the state Medicaid insurance program). Goldwater suggests that lawmakers let the agency figure out where to find the savings, but does offer some ideas including raising insurance premiums, double-checking the eligibility of applicants and shrinking overhead. Goldwater also urges elimination of any benefit not required for federal matching funds, which could save more money.
- $100 million by eliminating full-day kindergarten and going back to state-funded half-day kindergarten. This would become a yearly savings of $200 million.
- $100 million, or a 10 percent cut, to the state’s three public universities.
- $95 million, or a 10 percent cut, to the state prison system. Goldwater wants lawmakers to make addition nonviolent offenders eligible for early parole and home monitoring. Maricopa County Andrew Thomas might have a particular objection to this, as he has argued the state should be sending more criminals to prison, not less.
- Another $69.5 million in state aid to school districts and other K-12 education programs.
- $61 million, or a 10 percent cut, to the Department of Health Services. Goldwater acknowledges this would force the state to reduce vaccinations and immunization information, disease surveillance and research, and poison control assistance.
- Save about $36 million by eliminating the arts commission, the Department of Commerce and the state tourism office. Goldwater has previously urged the Legislature to abolish these agencies and transfer any critically needed programs elsewhere.
In its conclusion, the Goldwater Institute admits its comprehensive list still would leave a $140 million deficit this year. It also doesn’t address what happens with the next budget that starts July 1. Across-the-board cuts of 10 percent are practically inevitable, and I think full-day kindergarten seriously faces elimination with the make-up of the next Legislature and Janet Napolitano no longer in the governor’s office. But the real value of Goldwater’s report is to illustrate the true depth of the fiscal crisis and how difficult it will be for the Legislature to fix.
You can read the full report if you click on the picture of the front page at the top of this post.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Schools • $1.2 billion deficit • Arizona state budget • Goldwater Institute | 1 Comment »
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