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It’s well past time for AZ voters to connect the dots and vote their values by supporting pro-public-education candidates up and down the ballot.

 

Dems want to foster a public education system that provides smaller class sizes, qualified teachers, extracurricular arts & sports, equitable access for every AZ child, a public-school curriculum that covers important historical facts, the positive and negative,  and insists on respect for all, not marginalizing those not straight, White, and nationalist Christian.

 

“Public Schools are the great equalizer in our society. “ Janet Napolitano .  The strongest democracy is an educated public.  Education is an investment. The strongest democracy is an educated public.  Education is an investment.

 

"It’s well past time for AZ voters to connect the dots and vote their values by supporting pro-public-education candidates up and down the ballot."

 

-- A patriotic public-school curriculum teaches respect, clear thinking,  positive and disturbing historical truths, and does not erase history, burn books,  marginalize those not straight, White, and Christian.

 

-- Dems support school choice.  The issues are equivalency standards including for admission and not destroying public education.

-- A majority of voters do not want censorship or book banning, do not like bullies and do not want prohibitions on classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity - Jim Small, AZ Mirror.   92% of Arizonans believe all children should have highly qualified teachers (Gallup Poll)

 

 +EDUCATION  - REPUBLICANS

 

Republicans have long refused to pay for good quality public education and instead have turned schools into a battleground for their extreme social vision.  

 

Biden helped reopen over 95% of America’s public schools for in-person learning full-time, up from 46% at the end of the Trump Administration.   Democrats passed legislation to fund schools to deal with everything from improving ventilation to making masks available before vaccinations were available for kids.  99+% of schools are operating in-person thanks to those programs, which Republicans consistently opposed.

 

The 2021 AZ Republican controlled legislative session said NO to raising teacher pay from 50th to 25th in the US, to restoring full-day kindergarten, fully funding special ed, to restoring the financial trust fund to help low-income students afford a higher education.  Julie Erfle, AZ Mirror.  The 2022 legislature followed suit.

 

-- Despite a record $5.6 billion surplus on hand. 

 

-- Despite AZ's bottom ranking in US school systems:  Least educated 47th, educational attainment 38th, school quality and number of colleges/universities per 100,000 and spending per pupil 48th, teacher salary and graduation rate 49th, highest in students per teacher 50th, and student to-counselor ratio 50th, which is of 716:1 vs. the recommended standard of 250:1.  Scholaroo.com.

 

Unless stopped by a petition veto referendum, on 9/30 the new Republican voucher expansion program makes 85,000 current private school and homeschool families eligible to take nearly $7,000 per child into their own pockets, potentially stripping $600 million or more from public schools every year.  Monies going to private academies that cherry-pick students, including Turning Point USA Academy that teaches a hateful ideology. 

Christian activists are turning to a parental veto, over sex education they find disturbing, books they find controversial, teaching of unsettling historical facts about racism. And most reckless, against mental health resources for teens with clinical anxiety, depression, causing or suffering from bullying, with sexual identity issues, or with parental issues of abandonment, anger, cruelty.  Despite not getting useful help from parents, despite suicide being the second-leading cause of death, ages 10-34, [and despite gun deaths, including suicide, being the leading cause of death, ages 1-19].  Michael Gerson, Wash. Post

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