Today’s Arizona Republic offers a laundry list of issues Arizonans need to address before it’s too late. In We’ve got problems, the Republic summarizes the Arizona Directions 2012 report. The state budget is about to go over a one billion dollar cliff as the one-cent sales tax expires in 2013.* Just 25% of Arizona fourth-graders were Continue Reading >
In their 2011 Student Financial Aid Report, the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) highlights the affect of state budget cuts on university students in Arizona. The report tells us: The number of students demonstrating financial need for higher education has increased by 88% in the last five years. Less than 1% of the roughly one Continue Reading >
Sunday’s Arizona Daily Star printed excerpts from a wide-ranging conversation with UA’s President, Eugene G. Sander. Sander talks about: UA’s national and international reputation and its benefit to the community; The $182 million cut in funding at the university level and its effect on the school; Providing an enrichment experience and engaging students; The challenge of Continue Reading >
A diverse group of education supporters has been meeting this summer to hash out a people’s initiative to fund public education in Arizona. Moderated by Susan Carlson of ABEC (Arizona Business and Education Coalition), the groups include AEN, the Arizona Education Association, Teach for America, Stand for Children and charter school advocates. The aim of Continue Reading >
On September 3, 2011, the Arizona Daily Star reported that Arizona school districts cut more than 10,000 employees–including 6,640 instructors–from March 2009 to March 2010, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Arizona Department of Education spokesman Andrew LeFevre said a decrease in student population is partly responsible for the drop in funding Continue Reading >
Parents are being asked to provide an increasing amount of basic supplies to their children’s schools as Arizona students return to class. As Alexis Huicochea reports in her article, Teachers Leaning on Parents for Supplies, (Sunday, August 14, 2011) some schools are starting the academic year with no budget for supplies. These schools have asked Continue Reading >
Education Next, a journal reporting on school reform efforts, published its 5th Annual PEPG Survey—a snapshot of stakeholder opinion on issues related to public education. The survey indicates the current controversies over public education have not yet altered public opinion, but teachers’ views differ sharply from that of non-teacher respondents. Click here to read Continue Reading >
On Sunday, April 10, the East Valley Tribune ran an editorial praising Governor Brewer and the legislature for making the hard choices necessary to produce a balanced budget. The editorial singled out the Arizona Education Network because of our criticism regarding Governor Brewer’s failure to protect education. . The following is a guest commentary written Continue Reading >
Today’s U.S. Supreme Court private school tax credit ruling is bad news for poor children in the state of Arizona and a big boon for the wealthy.
April 1, 2011 – Governor Brewer yesterday showed complete disregard for our state’s faltering economy when she failed to defend public education funding as she had promised she would. . On Tuesday, former Intel CEO Craig Barrett, warned legislators that Arizona will not be able to attract good -paying jobs without investing in education. Continue Reading >
On Tuesday, March 29 the Arizona Commerce Authority held a board meeting open to the public where members expressed concerns that the state of public education in Arizona is compromising Arizona’s ability to attract new businesses that bring high-paying jobs to the state.
. . On Wednesday, March 23, university students will rally at campuses across the state to protest the proposed $235 million cut to higher education in the proposed Senate budget now moving through the Arizona House. For more details or to learn how to get involved, visit the Arizona Students’ Association website. . Campus schedule for rallies: . Continue Reading >
ASU President Michael M. Crow released a statement today detailing how the extensive cuts passed by the Senate would weaken Arizona State University. The information in the statement shows exactly how dire these cuts will be to higher education in Arizona. There is little doubt that cuts of this magnitude will have an adverse impact on the economic recovery Continue Reading >
It is time to take education funding out of the hands of ideologues in the Arizona Legislature. . These ideologues wrap themselves in the flag of anti-government rhetoric while systemically shredding the values symbolized by our great flag of the United States of America: A democracy dedicated to educating its people and thereby promising equal Continue Reading >
. The Arizona Constitution mandates that our legislators “…shall make such appropriations, to be met by taxation, as shall insure the proper maintenance of all state educational institutions, and shall make such special appropriations as shall provide for their development and improvement.” (Article 11, Section 10). The O’Connor House and Expect More Arizona have joined Continue Reading >
Author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education and member of Ronald Reagan’s education team, Diane Ravitch writes a thorough review of Waiting for “Superman”. Ravitch’s review provides and expands upon facts necessary to have a knowledgeable discussion of the issues surrounding education.
A recent poll conducted by Expect More Arizona found that most parents believe education at their local school should be of a higher quality and that they have not lost sight of education as a major priority.
The Arizona Education Network Executive team was recently highlighted on a local Tucson, AZ station.
Raytheon Missile Systems would like to see local and state governments be pro-business, support education and help create an environment that makes people and businesses want to come to Tucson. “…we need to put as much effort into science, technology, engineering and math education as possible for our youth,” Lawrence said.
We’ll be posting updates on the May 18, 2010 special election as they come in. Specific data by polls may not be available for a few weeks.
Before we move on to the statistics, however, we want to send a big THANK YOU out to everyone who helped support the Yes to Proposition 100 campaign. The strong coalition of parents, educators, business people, retirees and students was remarkable. Many people put in a tremendous amount of volunteer hours to get the word out, and many more people took the time to look past the soundbites and thoughtfully analyze our state, school and public service budgets.
Proposition 100 Results PROPOSITION 100 PASSES IN A LANDSLIDE THANK YOU ARIZONA! Voter turnout was high and Proposition 100 passed, with 64% of Arizonans voting for the measure. Select news coverage of the election results: KVOA: Prop 100 supporters celebrate win Amphitheater parent Lisa Ferko: “Parents have come out and said public education is important Continue Reading >
Kim Covington with Channel 12 KPNX in Phoenix sat down for an exclusive interview with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in Washington, D.C. to discuss the state of Arizona’s investment in public education and the second round Race to the Top application.
On Thursday, April 22, the Arizona Education Network sponsored a community-wide forum on Proposition 100 where seven distinguished panelists from vital sectors in Pima County spoke of the fiscal, human and educational impact of Proposition 100 at the community level in Southern Arizona.
A rebuttal to a recent “Vote No” Op Ed in the Tucson Citizen.
“Education is the make or break for Raytheon’s future growth here. More than half of Raytheon’s employees are engineers, and the University of Arizona is the largest source of those engineers, supplying nearly 750 of them in the past 10 years, said Jeff Goldberg, dean of the UA College of Engineering. Meanwhile the Arizona Legislature keeps slashing university budgets.”
A new study by researchers at the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona finds that a yes vote on Proposition 100 would save more than 13,000 jobs and preserve more than $442 million in federal matching funds for Arizona.
On March 24, 2010 the Arizona Education Network held two press conferences in Phoenix and Tucson to release the 2009 Legislators’ voting record in regards to public education funding. You can visit the post with the table of records here. Please see below for the press conference transcript as well as resulting publications.
In our February 19, 2010 newsletter and here on our website, we solicited your stories on how cuts to public education funding are affecting you. Here you’ll find some of the responses we’ve received.
The Pentagon has received anecdotal evidence suggesting military troops are avoiding deployment to Hawaii because of poor funding of its public education system.
Arizona Excels at School Choice; Fails in School Investment . Arizona enters the new decade as the national leader in school choice. Arizona parents can choose to open-enroll their children in the public school that best meets their needs, choose among almost 500 charter schools or even receive a tax credit funded scholarship to offset Continue Reading >
An Op Ed letter was recently sent to the Arizona Capital Times, in which a high school student from Lake Havasu High School discussed the disparities in public funding in her area.
The Arizona Education Association is suing to block new rules regarding how teacher contracts are offered and how layoffs are accomplished in Arizona.
With the recent k-12 budget cuts the AZ legislature has enacted, many students are coming back to the new school year with larger than ever class sizes.
Investment in State Universities is Investment in Future
Robert N. Shelton is president of the University of Arizona. Taylor W. Lawrence is president of Raytheon Missile Systems
Excerpt by Robert Shelton and Taylor Lawrence – Jun. 18, 2009
My Turn
Guest Editorial: How do we look taxpayers in the eye and explain this tax shift? Arizona Association of Assessing Officers
Excerpt: Camp Verde/Cottonwood: CVBugle.com June 20, 2009
As elected officials on the front line of the property tax issue, we need to bring to the public’s attention one of most important tax policy changes in recent history.
In Senate Bill 1036, a companion bill to the state’s budget, the Arizona Legislature is proposing to redistribute a substantial portion of the current tax burden from commercial and vacant land property owners and place it on residential property owners for voter approved bonds and overrides.
Glen Kerslake of DM-50, Lawrence Portouw of Ft. Huachuca-50 and Steve Yamamori of Fighter County Partnership write a letter to Governor Jan Brewer highlighting the possible ramifications to the military installations in Arizona if the education cuts the legislature is proposing pass.
Connect With Us