Arizona’s first school accountability bill is working its way through the state legislature. SB1444 would base a portion of schools’ state funding on performance, starting at 1 percent the first year and incrementally increasing to a total of 5 percent after five years. The ‘performance funding’ as it’s called, is based on two factors: overall
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Republican legislators do not like it when Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts calls them kooks. They want us to believe they are serious lawmakers. But who, in her right mind, would call these bills anything other than kookery? We have a bill that tells the federal government to “go fly a kite.” Another one that
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Last week I wrote about an email blast sent to the parents of students at Veritas’ Archway Classical Academy by Headmaster Erik Twist, encouraging them to vote No on Prop 204. Arizona law prohibits public schools, which includes charter schools, from using public resources to try and influence an election. The email was a last
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Erik Twist, Headmaster of Veritas Archway Classical Academy in Phoenix, recently sent an email blast to the school’s parents explaining his opposition to Proposition 204. Prop 204 seeks to permanently extend the one-cent sales tax to fund public education, which includes charter schools like Veritas. In the email Mr. Twist rattled off a number of
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Most of this year’s ballot propositions are easy NO votes, mainly because all but two of them were referred to the ballot by the state legislature. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m no fan of our current state legislature. I intend to vote NO on all of the legislature’s propositions, with the
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I join Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic and former candidate for Phoenix mayor, Jennifer Wright, on 12 News Sunday Square Off. This week’s topics include Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s moderate immigration plan, the lack of state funding for education, and the end of the criminal investigation of Sheriff Arpaio.
We all know it’s better to invest in prisons than in education, right? I mean, why not throw millions at a declining prison population instead of spending it in the classroom? Last week, buried among the headlines of the Republican National Convention, sandwiched between Clint Eastwood’s conversation with a chair and Governor Brewer’s accidental endorsement
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College athletes have earned their way into college, but veterans have not. Those aren’t my words but rather the sentiment of House Republicans such as John Kavanagh who refused to give military vets an exemption to the minimum tuition bill that recently made its way out of committee. Mr. Kavanagh said, “I’m a veteran and
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Arizona’s legislators have certainly made education reform a top priority at the Capitol. Unfortunately, their “fixes” do more harm than good. Let’s start with Senator Ron Gould’s guns on campus bill. Here’s a classic example of a legislator determined to fix something that isn’t broken. I speak about this bill in detail in an earlier
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Fundamental to American life is the idea that if one works hard, studies hard, he/she can overcome a life of poverty and realize the American Dream. But these days, the American Dream is virtually impossible without a college degree, and while President Obama works to make college tuition more affordable, Arizona’s Republican legislators take the
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