"It's Only 3.2%"

Our Arizona Legislative leaders during their most recent $179 million cut to K12 public education stated: “It is only 3.2%.” This is a fact, but this is the 4th straight year of cuts costing the state K12 system over $850 million—adding up to 14.7%. In doing this “it is only a 3.2% cut,” they completely dishonor the Proposition 100 one cent sales tax with a 63% statewide majority vote, more than double the cuts proposed by Governor Brewer’s state education budget and ignore pleas from state business leaders that includes the Arizona Business and Education Coalition (ABEC) and the former Intel CEO that jobs won’t follow to a state with underfunded schools. However, the Legislature has continued to protect and increase the state prison budget failing to see the connection between putting money into early childhood success and educational systems. As one Arizona paper recently printed. “Prisons and jails have been a growth industry in a state that has few other growth industries.” Instead, they have added only a high stakes 3rd grade reading test. This reading test will take place without the support systems and millions of dollars infused into the Florida K12 system by Governor Jeb Bush’s model the Arizona Legislature copied. Instead, our Legislature choses to pay a much higher cost to society by enabling a growing prison population and budget filled with increasingly uneducated, school dropouts that research shows costs over $20,000 a year to house. The research also shows these inmates are produced from social economic factors including drug use, poverty, unemployment and single parent homes. Horace Mann stated, “Education is the great equalizer” but does an Arizona educational system equally exist for “all” students to turn around from society’s dysfunctions? I served on a Washington State Prison Community Board for a new prison (Stafford Creek, built 2000) costing $450 million dollars to build with state-of-art medical, dental, kitchen and library facilities that most schools would view with envy. For the almost 2000 inmates – over 80% school dropouts - it took almost 1000 employees to meet their daily needs 24/7. Now add to this a shrinking list of Arizona K12 school support systems – nurses, librarians, Fine Arts specialists, unfunded preschool, half day funded kindergarten, increased class sizes and loss of programs throughout the entire K12 system. Maybe, the Texas prison reform legislation that saved that state almost $1 billion, that ABEC has shared with our Legislative leaders, should be studied rather than the unfunded Florida education plan. This may not be at the level described as the “Fog of War” but it has certainly created another fog -- a “Fog of Despair” that will produce students during this Great Recession that will lose hope with no school safety supports available. Instead, they will attend stress factories with endless standardized testing to include 8 year-old held back with their self-efficacy battered. But then again, “it’s only a 3.2%.” FHUSD is truly blessed to be in Fountain Hills with a community that values and honors the right for all students to learn. This is regularly demonstrated through their ongoing support of override votes and community service for a dedicated teaching and support staff. We are now in the midst of our latest rounds of budget cuts involving $600,000. But then, we shouldn’t worry. After all, “it is only 3.2%.”