As the death pangs of layoffs and bankruptcy and closure surround the newspaper industry, the use of “news pages” to push a liberal agenda continues unabated.
Today’s Arizona Republic carries a two-pronged promotion of the anti-school choice, “throw more money at the problem” approach to education favored by liberals and teachers’ unions.
A front-page story attacks the use of Arizona tax credits for public school extra-curricular activities and credits for donations to private school scholarship organizations. Opponents of these credits — who claim they are pro-education — fail to consider two facts. First, all these credits do is take what would be general fund money and target 100 percent of it directly to education. Why would supposedly “pro-education” groups oppose credits that allow taxpayers to give money directly to education? Second, the best thing we could do to relieve the pressure on Arizona’s budget is expand the private school tax credit, because each student who moves from public to private school saves the state thousands of dollars.
On page B-1 is another story about a rally Sunday protesting proposed education cuts. The photo says it all. After spending the state into near-bankruptcy and producing a huge Napolitano deficit, Arizona is still “49th and dropping.” For six years, the education lobby had their Governor and budgets that expanded much faster than population growth and inflation – in other words, unsustainable growth. Despite all that new money, Arizona is still 49th.
Maybe we should get back to focusing on educational results instead of dollars spent.
Another way the state could save money on public education is to give tax credits or at least promote homeschooling. As a homeschool mom, I would gladly pay a fee for my chid to attend band, drama, etc… I am already paying for my daughter to take these classes privately. We were blessed that the high school we pulled my son from to homeschool, allowed him to continue with band. We even saved that school a lot of money when they did not have the funds for an indoor drumline, by forming our own independent one so those kids could still have the opportunity to march and compete.
I am tired of the state whining about not having enough money for education. As a homeschool family we are saving them money and I know what my children are being taught.