DeVos and the Mercers helped Bannon put Trump into the presidency. They share this with the Kochs, the need to privatize, to choke "government" or as Grover Norquist said, "drown it in the bathtub." I hear all of this great charter school chatter, know that Ducey loves it because the Kochs love it and he loves their donations, but surely those who argue that poor kids have a right to a good education too should know by now that there is really only one successful charter school with several branches in Arizona, and also that the chances of a poor kid with not exemplary grades has the chance of a snowball in hell of getting into one of them. There are no checks and balances on the charters, no followup. Even the few reports they are required to provide don't get done. DeVos wants religious schools. Trump wants his Evangelical following to run both education and politics from the religious classroom because they like him. Let's assume a minority child from a neighborhood on the south or west side that is classified as low income wants to attend a posh school in the foothills. First they have to get in and having been through the process where my grandkids only got into great schools because they had great grades, that is an obstacle, but perhaps not as high as the fact that the family of that child may work for minimum wages, maybe even two jobs and is the only means for the child to get to school. Do you think that is going to happen? Charter schools are just a code for segregation, rich from poor, white from black or brown, neighborhood environment, and how very badly the Kochs want their "Freedom" classes fed into the brains of impressionable children. Ducey has handed out millions to the Kochs who have also put in millions to get their message into ASU and UofA, in philosophy, in economics and business models. I don't know how Chris Bannon, Steve's brother, feels about his involvement with those programs at the University of Arizona, or what he shares of his brothers vision of what the world should be, but I do know that Ducey is robbing public schools blind. I do agree that TUSD should be broken down into smaller districts to stop the bleed upwards towards their administration, but private and religious schools for profit and stealing money from public education is a very bad thing.
The welfare meme has gotten old and stale and only works on the racists and bigots. It never ceases to amaze me that the poor republicans cling to the idea that the rich deserve more than the 99 percent and should pay less. Perhaps John Steinbeck was right when he said "socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." As for socialism itself, it touches every day of your life, even as you flush the toilet, and turning the "have a little" against the "have nots" is an old fascist trick that seems to be working. Eisenhower pretty much called it when he warned that militarism will rob us of community, planet and country as it sucks our pockets dry. WWI created 21,000 new millionaires. Can only imagine what continual wars since then have wrought for the rich and cost the poor.
God knows I want educated kids but I agree on the props, too much to saddle the poor and middle class families with when they are struggling with minimum wage and poor pension or low social security checks. All told, with the Pima County tax, they are asking for 2 percent more on the dollar and this appears to be a private operation which is a horror, and only effective inside the city limits. As far as I'm concerned this is another Ducey selling state trust lands to bring wealth to the schools fairy tale. Those living in Pima County will pay all of the increase plus an increase in property taxes AGAIN, while Ducey gives our money to the Kochs for their program at the UofA. If the state doesn't step up and stop starving the counties, another way will have to be found to force them to cough up the fair share for the rest of the state.
I think it's probably time to stop calling us the leader of the free world. It's ostentatious and untrue at any level even before we elected a president who lacks the diplomacy to elicit support from former allies, most of whom have been offended by him. There is no free world without our friends around the globe who are willing to work with us to make it so. Not trying to pick an argument, just the way I feel from years of living overseas and interacting. We're not special, we are all one. The sheriff sounds reasonable and we need reasonable. We also need a worker visa program, maybe something high tech that actually works, not a wall. We also need to begin to look forward. China is putting a high speed train out there that will travel 300 miles per hour (and acres of solar panels to bypass drilling and fracking and pollution, and even making them in the shape of a panda). We need solar, not punishment for having it. We need high speed rail between here and Phoenix, between here and CA, and eastward. It would have us in Phoenix in the time it takes me to drive to TIA, and us to another employment center. We need roads and bridges and a safe power grid, a huge change in the way we teach, interacting via Skype or other methods with public schools across the world where our kids can learn more languages, more about other countries, where they are, who they are, and to engage in healthy competition. We need so much and we are mired in petty politics with big money buying whomever they think will make the laws they want. Off topic I know, but it's time for us all to grow up. Miller lost her temper and said something that sounded condescending. It was, don't vote for her, I won't, but we shouldn't have to read about it every single day when there is so much that needs to be done and said. Horse and buggy pettiness will continue to grip us until attitudes are adjusted.
Not sure where "there is no difference" has been living, but the democrats I know pretty much stand for "what Bernie stands for," with a determination to push the party to progressive beliefs that will appeal across the spectrum from older to younger. As for Kirkpatrick, I'm still smarting from her falling into line with Flake and McCain about Oak Creek. Heinz didn't seem to have his heart in it. Bruce Wheeler has served my district well.
What Jeff Flake wants most is some Koch money. Every organization he has listed on his web page leads back to Koch and then there is DeVos who "had him at charter schools." She has one mission, to privatize education and more specifically to turn it over to religious schools, while a company she owns hounds college students to pay the outrageous interest rates on their student loans that have disaster in the fine print. Two TUSD schools nearby have been turned into subdivisions with houses so close together you can hear your neighbor cough as charter and private schools continue to drain education funds out of the state budget for education. California has outlawed it. Something we can learn from them along with encouraging people to use solar power instead of punishing them for it.
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DeVos and the Mercers helped Bannon put Trump into the presidency. They share this with the Kochs, the need to privatize, to choke "government" or as Grover Norquist said, "drown it in the bathtub." I hear all of this great charter school chatter, know that Ducey loves it because the Kochs love it and he loves their donations, but surely those who argue that poor kids have a right to a good education too should know by now that there is really only one successful charter school with several branches in Arizona, and also that the chances of a poor kid with not exemplary grades has the chance of a snowball in hell of getting into one of them. There are no checks and balances on the charters, no followup. Even the few reports they are required to provide don't get done. DeVos wants religious schools. Trump wants his Evangelical following to run both education and politics from the religious classroom because they like him. Let's assume a minority child from a neighborhood on the south or west side that is classified as low income wants to attend a posh school in the foothills. First they have to get in and having been through the process where my grandkids only got into great schools because they had great grades, that is an obstacle, but perhaps not as high as the fact that the family of that child may work for minimum wages, maybe even two jobs and is the only means for the child to get to school. Do you think that is going to happen? Charter schools are just a code for segregation, rich from poor, white from black or brown, neighborhood environment, and how very badly the Kochs want their "Freedom" classes fed into the brains of impressionable children. Ducey has handed out millions to the Kochs who have also put in millions to get their message into ASU and UofA, in philosophy, in economics and business models. I don't know how Chris Bannon, Steve's brother, feels about his involvement with those programs at the University of Arizona, or what he shares of his brothers vision of what the world should be, but I do know that Ducey is robbing public schools blind. I do agree that TUSD should be broken down into smaller districts to stop the bleed upwards towards their administration, but private and religious schools for profit and stealing money from public education is a very bad thing.