America’s broadest School Choice Expansion bill was signed into Arizona law July 7th. Tucson’s horde of Hard-Leftist educrats & RedGuard-4-Ed muppets had a cow. You can read the well-written [short] executive summary from the Goldwater Institute at this link: https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/az-legislatures-esa-bill-empowers-students-protects-families/
THE central tenet of pub-ed teacher unions’ claim is they (as govt-paid, organized labor) produce a quality product; and they do this because of their training, professionalism, adherence to truth & reality, nonpolitical lack of bias, etc, etc, etc.
It’s all bogus bull-roar.
Especially the last 20 years in America, as “public education” has become synonymous with disgusted tax-paying parents and the public in general, as just another local ‘gubbmint’ jobs scheme. “Public education” [direct & some aspect of] being the single largest budget item in nearly every state & local jurisdiction.
But it’s never enough, huh?
Of course, the teachers’ unions know all their claims are bogus, as the public finally, albeit slowly, concludes the truth. So the unions have stepped-up their hostile & deliberate, noneducational political involvement, like Arizona’s RedGuard-4-Ed. (Mao is smiling from his sulfur pit).
A perfect example of what a state becomes under the control of these mendacious, public parasites is New Mexico. Solidly Dimshevik since the 1930’s, NM decided long ago to sequester its state owned oil and gas royalties into a giant fund, exclusively earmarked to “supplement” public education. Today those monies are America’s 3rd largest sovereign wealth fund at some ~$30 billion. They ‘supplement’ in addition to the regular [tax-paid] state education budget.
It has done them absolutely no good whatsoever. Teacher unions control the legislature, having numerous district employees elected, and with their own brazen caucus in the NM Statehouse. New Mexico remains poor, and unattractive to any outside investment. The entire state barely squeeked-out any population gain from 2010-2020.
They have some 31 separate, publicly-funded universities, colleges, and community colleges for a broadly stagnant population (30 yrs!), right at 2.1 million. A nasty little factoid that costs former NMSU Prez (and 1-term GOP governor), Garrey Carruthers, his C-suite perks at NMSU in 2017, for revealing this publicly in previous legislative committee testimony.
It’s one giant ‘gubbmint’ jobs scheme for New Mexico’s monstrous education bureaucracy. Absolutely no vouchers or switching from crap schools. Those are union rules and NM is not a right-to-work law state. And the ‘product’, i.e. the students, if they do get through this fraudulent system, flee the state for greener job fields in neighboring states. It’s like Tucson on steroids; in fact, Santa Fe, NM’s isolated state capital, is one of the Tucson elites’ municipal muses. (“Oh, to be like Santa Fe”)
Here’s the dirty little secret the teacher unions & professional educrats are terrified will escape: school choice & vouchers turn-out a quality product.
This is the number one reason my title becomes self-fulfilling. It’s all about workforce qualifications. School choice increases performance; the emerging “Eurasian Century” will demand it of America to stay competitive. It’s a great wave for Arizona business to ride.
Not the Pub-Ed “workforce”; they destroyed their credibility long, long ago. Let ‘em teach in New Mexico.
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization
