Opportunities to shift Arizona’s trajectory are rare.
But voters are offered a very clear choice in the governor’s race between candidates Doug Ducey and Fred DuVal.
We will determine whether Arizona’s post-recession downward economic spiral continues or whether we harness the horsepower to transition to a high-skilled, high-tech economy that attracts good employers.
We must choose a governor with true leadership skills and the ability to collaborate. Simplistic solutions have led us to where we are now. Only thoughtful, nonideological approaches to complex issues will revitalize our state economically.
Improving the state’s education system is key to that economic success as well as quality of life for our children.
Arizona faces a severe teacher shortage. Yearly job insecurity due to drastic state budget cuts led large numbers of teachers to permanently leave Arizona, exit the profession or retire early. Long-term substitutes or nonspecialists are now teaching critical classes.
Although deep budget cuts have directly led to this workforce shortfall, one candidate does not think Arizona needs to reinvest the $3 billion it cut from K-12 education over the past six years — one of the deepest cuts to public education in the nation. Nor does he believe the state should have to comply with Prop. 301, the voter directive that requires Arizona to pay school inflationary costs.
The other understands reinvestment is a business principle that works when done wisely. Rather than embracing an ideological political strategy, this candidate knows the public supports revenue choices that focus on a clear vision to improve schools.
One candidate continues to promote a simplistic solution: No new money — just reallocate the little funding that remains.
Sounds good, as all simplistic solutions do. But the severe flaws in that thinking are clear.
In the past six years, inflation-adjusted state funding shrunk 24 percent from $4,654 per student in 2008 to $3,512 per student in 2014, exacerbating Arizona’s ranking as one of the worst-funded states in the nation. On the school building side, the state Legislature provides funding for emergency repairs and not new school construction.
While slashing funding, the state Legislature at the same time added unfunded mandates, which require administrative resources to implement.
As a result, the percentage of money spent in Arizona classrooms has diminished. Currently, 53.8 percent of all state funding is spent on classroom instruction. Because the state has not funded inflation, nor rising costs for such things as gasoline or electricity, classroom spending has taken a hit.
Nevertheless, the simplistic solution is to reallocate more money to classrooms and away from “administrative bureaucrats.”
If only it were so simple.
One candidate is counting on voters thinking that the 46.2 percent of funding spent on administrative costs means employees at district headquarters. But it actually includes counselors, nurses, speech pathologists, safety monitors, bus drivers and food-service workers. It includes individuals who administer all the mandates unfunded by the Legislature that require more oversight, such as standardized-test-based teacher and principal evaluation systems and requirements for all third-graders to read at grade level or be held back.
If more money must be reallocated to classrooms without an increase in revenues to school districts, we will be asked to choose between such priorities as having a trained nurse at a school or a reading specialist who works with students so they don’t fall behind a grade. Either choice reduces a child’s chance to succeed.
Not so simple, is it?
This fall, voters have a true choice for governor. One candidate, Doug Ducey, will continue to rely on ideologically driven, simplistic ideas that directly harm our children, their families and ultimately our state’s key economic driver. The other, Fred DuVal, is a true public education supporter who will stick up for schoolchildren, teachers and the state’s economy.
For the sake of Arizona schoolchildren, our economy and our future, we ask that you make the right choice and provide the leadership that Arizona deserves.
