by David Safier

Another big hat tip to Debbie Reese who writes on the American Indians in Children's Literature blog out of New Mexico for linking me to this AP article connecting Lori Klein's bill to use FCC broadcast standards as the touchstone for speech standards in the classroom to Floyd Brown, founding chairman of Citizens United and the producer of the "Willie Horton" ad used against Michael Dukakis during his 1998 presidential race.

According to the article, it was Floyd Brown's complaint to Klein that led to her writing SB1467, which says teachers can lose their teaching certificates if they "engage in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the Federal Communications Commission concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity if that speech or conduct were broadcast on television or radio." Administrators can lose their certificates if they know teachers are violating the law and don't act accordingly.

Apparently, Brown pulled his daughter out of an Anthem school because she said her teacher used the F-word in class. She's currently being home schooled. (I certainly hope he's got parental controls on her television, radio and internet or his daughter may not be safe from more verbal pollution.)

According to the AP article,

Brown is a longtime Republican strategist who produced the infamous "Willie Horton" ad during the 1998 presidential campaign, which tied Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis to the release of a convicted murderer serving a life sentence.

Brown is also the founding chairman of Citizens United, the group whose lawsuit led to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that barred the government from limiting corporation and labor union spending for political purposes.

If you want to know more about Brown, there's an excellent article in last week's New Yorker by Jane Mayer -- Attack Dog -- which talks about him in relation to Larry McCarthy, probably the top negative political TV ad man in the business. McCarthy was hired by Brown to create the "Willie Horton" ad. The godfather of today's negative campaigning, Lee Atwater, apologized for the ad as well as other campaigning tactics when he was on his death bed.

Before Atwater died, of brain cancer, in 1991, he expressed regret over the “naked cruelty” he had shown to Dukakis in making “Willie Horton his running mate.”

Neither Brown nor McCarthy have any regrets about the blatantly race baiting ad which implied a prison furlough program in Dukakis' Massachusetts was unique, even though Reagan instituted a similar program when he was governor, resulting in a few murders in California.

Dukakis told me that the Horton ad took his record wildly out of context. A Republican predecessor had created the Massachusetts furlough program, he said, and forty-four states had similar programs at the time, including California; Ronald Reagan had instituted it there when he was governor. Two California parolees committed murders while furloughed.

To me, that ad and many other blatantly false and misleading ads perpetrated by Brown and his cohorts are far more obscene than the occasional F-word in the classroom.

A WHERE-THE-HELL-IS-THE-ARIZONA-MEDIA UPDATE: When I read the AP article today, I assumed it was new. Nope. Came out Feb. 15, a week ago. So why haven't I seen it? Because so far as I can tell, it was only picked up by one Arizona media outlet, KTAR Phoenix. But, according to Google, you can read the article uncovering the origin of Klein's bill in Chicago, Texas, Detroit, Seattle, Missouri and Pekin [not China, Illinois]. Why isn't this information in the Star, the Republic or other papers around the state?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You were warned this would happen. Shooter considering banning public testimony on budget bills - Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday he is considering banning all public testimony when lawmakers take up the state budget later this year.

And Insider: Budget hearing won't have comments:

Public comment? "I heard it last year," Shooter said.

Our tyrannical Tea-Publican legislature's budget, which was crafted in secret behind closed doors (so much for the Open Meetings law), was introduced on Monday afternoon and approved by votes of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees before Noon on Tuesday. Ramming it through and jamming it through committee without the public having any opportunity to receive adequate notice and to comment on the budget before a vote. No-growth budget OK'd by 2 panels; changes possible:

Less than 24 hours after making the plan public, Republican-controlled appropriation committees in the House and Senate voted Tuesday to approve a no-growth budget for the state.

But there already are cracks developing in what is supposed to be a unified GOP front. Several legislators say they want changes before the package of bills gets to the full House and Senate, possibly this coming week.

Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, said the final budget has to include some additional funds for public schools. He said the state cannot implement last year's law requiring third-graders to prove they can read before they can be promoted without providing the necessary resources.

Several legislators have questions about why the plan crafted by their leaders makes no effort to equalize per-student funding among the state's three universities. And the lack of new funding comes even as the number of students increases.

Rep. Vic Williams, R-Tucson, vowed to vote against any plan that does not require the state to start accounting for the money being shifted from the highway fund to instead keep government operating.

At hearings Tuesday, representatives of various groups that provide or advocate for public services made their pitches to lawmakers to ease their squeeze on spending.

Dana Naimark, president of the Children's Action Alliance, said the no-growth plan advanced by Republican lawmakers will cause harm, particularly the refusal of lawmakers to support a request by Gov. Jan Brewer to provide $25.8 million to replace lost federal aid that now is being used for the Department of Economic Security.

Naimark struck somewhat more fertile ground when she pointed out that Brewer proposed $50 million in additional aid to schools for that third-grade reading requirement; the legislative budget has no such allocation.

Crandall said that makes no sense. He pointed out lawmakers gave schools more money when they imposed a requirement that students pass all three sections of Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards in order to graduate. Crandall said the same thing needs to happen if the state is threatening to hold back third-graders because of lack of reading skills.

"The states I've looked at, of all those that have passed a third-grade retention requirement, we're the only ones that have so far not put any resources toward that," he said.

* * *

Also missing from the legislative budget is Brewer's plan to start equalizing funding among the three universities.

Joseph Grossman, president of the downtown campus of Arizona State University, said a study performed by the Board of Regents found that the University of Arizona received $6,598 for each student, compared with $5,702 at Arizona State and $5,840 at Northern Arizona University. Brewer, in her budget proposal, moves to start equalizing that with $15 million in "performance funding."

Crandall said the problem of higher education funding goes beyond that because, while no funds were cut, teaching the 4,400 new students at the universities without an increase is the same as a cut.

The real battle over the budget is not between Tea-Publicans and the Democrats; with a super-majority in both chambers the Tea-Publicans will simply disregard the Democrats, and the 40% or so of Arizona residents whom they represent. Their battle is with our Red Queen, Gov. Jan Brewer. It's like a contest among Tea-Publicans to see who can be the most authoritarian, democracy be damned.

The Arizona Republic has an  editorial opinion today taking our Tea-Publican legislature to task for its lack of democratic process. Lawmakers' proposal will weaken Arizona:

The budget racing through the Legislature is great -- for Arizona's competitors. This is a plan that would shortchange education, chip away at basic services like law enforcement and ignore building blocks for the future.

It would leave our state diminished and weakened, just as other states are investing to recover from the severe downturn. Even though revenue is picking up, the budget bills crafted by GOP legislative leaders would reduce next year's spending by $106 million, for a total of $8.66 billion.

* * *

The process was as deeply flawed as the product. The budget bills were written behind closed doors and filed Monday afternoon, on the Presidents Day holiday. Hearings started at 8 a.m. Tuesday, just 18 hours later. Some legislators complained that they didn't even have time to read the package of 10 bills.

Yet by noon, the whole kit and caboodle passed the Appropriations committees in both the House and the Senate. This tiny window of time, with virtually no notice, was probably the public's only chance to comment on the budget plan. Shutting out public input is not the sign of a healthy democracy.

by David Safier

Literally hundreds of articles around the country have criticized Imagine Schools, the nation's largest chain of charters, for delivering poor education and charging its schools oversized rent on their buildings.

But this is the first time I've seen the for profit EMO referred to as

". . . the troubled Arlington-Va. based Imagine Schools"

The reference isn't from some hotbed of anti-charter liberalism, by the way. It's from the Marietta Daily Journal in Cobb County, Georgia.

There must be no Imagine School trouble right here in River City Arizona, though. Even though we have nearly a quarter of the for profit EMO's schools -- 18 out of 75 -- I have seen no serious investigation into their finances or their student achievement.

For any journalist interested in looking into the schools, I have collected nearly every article about Imagine Schools for the last few years, including a large number of doozies out of respected dailies (This 3000 word article from NY Times in 2010 may whet your apetite), and have gathered a reasonable amount of information about the Arizona charters. Anyone interested in the subject can leave a comment or send me an email at safier@schooltales.net.

I did an article back in November of 2011, “Reckless parents endanger children by not vaccinating,” when this whole fiasco started about parents who adamantly decline to have their children inoculated properly.  It all started over a study done by a doctor in Great Britain that was proved to be wrong.  But families persisted in their refusal to vaccinate and now some pediatricians who have lost patience with this attitude are “firing” them from their practice.  Good riddance!
 Child with measles As a result of this denial, whooping cough is back, mumps are back, measles are back.  As of November 2011, there were 152 cases of measles, double a typical year; the biggest outbreak in 15 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  In the pre-vaccine days, this disease killed between 3,000 and 5,000 Americans a year.  Doctors are only attempting to protect their other patients when they tell the stubborn ones to take a hike.
But, where do they go? 
In a Wall Street Journal piece, it was reported that “Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.”  And the docs aren’t giving in; a study done in Connecticut showed that around 30 percent of 133 doctors had asked this group to leave their practice.  In the Midwest, the figure was 21 percent.  Who wants to sit their child down next to another who could have God knows whatever?

Another concern of these misled parents was that mercury was used as a vaccine preservative, also disproved like the autism scare by numerous studies.  The WSJ found another interesting fact, that more medically educated parents these days are willing to challenge their doctors, thus, these physicians do not want to deal with patients that outwardly confront them.  This alone I cannot condone since a well-informed patient is the best kind of patient.
Some doctors said that they have not had much luck in persuading these misinformed parents to change their minds so the only alternative is to fire them.  Pediatricians do not agree on their obligations to these families but do know they want them to get the best medical care possible.  Unfortunately, those let go from these practices are “…probably going to gravitate toward another practice with unhealthy practices."  
And that is one answer to where will they go.  But there is yet another possibility; they won’t go anywhere and that is worse.
With the economy in the shape it is and affecting so many financially, along with a number of families without health care coverage, the ingredients are there for a real health care emergency.  40% of parents say they have deliberately skipped or delayed a shot for their children.  In another study, 1 in 10 parents vaccinated their children outside of the recommended schedule developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
 The doctor's pledge A lot of younger parents today have not seen the havoc diseases like measles, mumps or whooping cough can cause.  They are willing to opt for the other side based primarily on emotionalism, reading material on the Internet without really checking its source for authenticity.  One Atlanta mom made the statement that any doctor should feel “obligated” to discuss vaccine risks. 
True, but if that doc tells you that you are endangering your child in what you are doing, and if you trust his or her judgment, then you should also take their advice.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Time once again for The Farley Report from Rep. Steve Farley (D-LD 28):

To start off tonight I want to let you know that next Wednesday, February 29, I will be making a pretty exciting announcement about my political future. I would love to have you there with me to share that moment. 

The first stop on the announcement tour will be at the Tucson Botanical Gardens at 10:30am -- on Alvernon just south of Grant. Next I will appear on the Bill Buckmaster Show at noon on KVOI 1030-AM, then early afternoon in Green Valley (I'll let you know when and where next week), on the John C. Scott Show at the 4:00 hour, and in Sierra Vista at former Representative Pat Fleming's home, 3321 E. Ojibwa Street, at 5pm. Hope to see you at one of these stops!

You will remember that my bipartisan Senior Caucus bill to make long-term care more affordable for middle-class seniors and the families that love them (HB2713) was scheduled for a hearing in the House Health Committee last Wednesday morning.

Thanks to my partnership with Chairman Cecil Ash (R-Mesa), the bill passed committee unanimously. It was next assigned to the House Appropriations Committee, but luckily Approps Chairman John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) allowed the bill to be withdrawn from his committee, so now HB2713 will head to the Rules Committee before it goes to debate and vote on the House floor. 

This path looks very promising in large part because several Republican members of the Health Committee (including Heather Carter (R-Cave Creek) and Justin Pierce (R-Mesa)) love the bill and are helping to move it along. We could really make this happen here in Arizona, and lead the way for the nation! 

I also mentioned HB2757 last week that would allow big bright electronic billboards all over Arizona, endangering our dark skies and the thousands of jobs in the astronomy, optics, and tourism sectors that depend on keeping those skies dark. 

I have been working with Mark Mayer of Scenic Arizona and members of the astronomy community to develop an amendment to the bill that could gain support from the sponsor Bob Robson (R-Chandler). It would regulate light emissions from electronic billboards and exclude them completely from a 90-mile radius of any major observatory. I will keep you posted on its progress. 

The big news this week was the sudden appearance of a legislative budget proposal yesterday afternoon, shaking up the week's schedule and shaking up the Governor's Office at the same time. 

Legislative Republicans had been meeting with the Governor since she submitted her budget, but they couldn't come to agreement on anything, from revenue projections to spending priorities. So instead of compromising, legislative leaders dumped ten budget bills of their own making onto the Appropriations Committee this morning. 

Back in mid-January, the Governor's budget didn't look too good with its reductions in new school construction and corresponding increase in new private prison construction, its efforts to bribe state workers into giving up the merit system in favor of cronyism (in exchange for a 5% raise), and her dead-end effort to buy back the State Capitol for $106 million, benefiting only Wall Street investment bankers. It did, however, restore some services for the seriously mentally ill, Child Protective Services, community college scholarships for veterans, and more funding for K-12 education. 

The plan presented by the Legislative Majority however, seems to do only one thing: Endanger the state in almost every way. Even the Governor's spokesman called it "reckless and short-sighted."

It endangers public safety by firing DPS officers and taking away their guns, bullets, bulletproof vests, and Tasers. It reduces staffing at the Arizona State Hospital, particularly in units for sexually violent predators. It does not hire any new correctional officers to keep pace with expanding prisoner counts. It eliminates any requirement that private prisons prove their safety and cost-effectiveness compared to state prisons.

It endangers public education by not providing any funding for emergency building repairs,  books, or computers. It provides no funding to keep up with growth at our universities, or to restore any of the 75% cuts that community colleges have absorbed in the last two years.

It endangers community health by cutting $25 million to Child Protective Services, foster care, and seniors. It does not provide any additional funding for the seriously mentally ill, developmentally disabled, or ALTCS, after years of cuts.

It endangers the operation of government by putting our drastically aging computer and accounting systems at risk of total failure. It eliminates the Arizona Office of Tourism entirely, as well as the last sliver of funding (Arts Trust) for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. It allows the continued decay of the state tax collection system, reducing revenues. 

And all this comes despite a projected $1 billion surplus over the next two years. So what do they propose to spend the money on?  

Nothing. Despite all those needs from kids, people in poverty, jobseekers, drivers on potholed roads, hospitals, schools, public safety officers, and so many more people who have been hurt by the cuts of recent years, the legislative majority budget proposal stashes away $250 million in the rainy day fund, and gives $200 million to the Wall Street investment bankers who hold all that debt from the sale of our state buildings.

It would appear that the legislative majority's ideological attachment to a tiny government at any cost means that they want to keep that government shrunken even if it hurts our citizens, our economy, and our future, even if we now have the money to pay for creating jobs, improving our schools, and restoring our health care system.

The budget bills were purportedly designed to force negotiations from the Governor, but it seems only to have hardened the positions on both sides. Will Leadership force the bills through the body and onto the Governor's desk only to be vetoed, and then start over again from scratch? Will they finally get back to the table and talk compromise? 

You'll have to tune in again next week.

Thanks for your continuing faith in me as your Representative. 

Steve Farley

GOPer and State House Speaker Andy Tobin's turning into a regular Russell Pearce clone these days.Earlier in the year, there was his support of new restrictions on freedom of speech at the Arizona Cap

Pearce telling his "scrotum" jokeDuring a Lincoln Day Luncheon today in Phoenix televised live by C-Span and featuring a keynote address by GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, recalled state Senat

by David Safier

Based on TUSD proposed funding formulas Board President Mark Stegeman included in his recent constituent newsletter, schools with lower income students will receive less money to spend on teachers than schools with higher income students. (Download School budget formulas 2012-13)

This is a serious equity issue which is not exclusive to TUSD. It happens in school district funding formulas across the country and has been the subject of a great deal of serious examination. It will take some explaining, so if you're interested, bear with me.

There are two basic ways to fund teachers at individual schools.

1. Make sure all schools have a more-or-less equal number of staff members per student. That would mean, for example, every elementary school has one teacher for every 26 students.
2. Make sure each school has the same funding per student for teachers. That would mean allocating, for example, $2000 per student to hire teachers. [I imagine the actual figure is higher than $2,000, but the idea is the same.]

The first funding formula creates equality in the teacher/student ratio. The second creates a dollar-for-dollar equality.

It looks like TUSD goes for the former: making sure each school has more-or-less the same ratio of teachers to students. That usually means, schools with higher income students receive more funding than schools with lower income students, because the former tend to have more experienced teachers -- and therefore teachers with higher salaries -- than the latter. Here's why.

In general, teachers tend to stay longer at the schools with the "better" -- meaning higher income -- students, because, let's face it, they're easier to teach than lower income students. There tend to be fewer family problems, fewer discipline problems, lower absentee rates, higher motivation, etc. Teachers tend to leave schools with the more difficult -- meaning lower income -- students because of the problems which make it so much harder and more frustrating to teach there. Some teachers at schools with lower income students make yearly transfer requests until they finally move to the schools with "better" students. Others simply give up and leave the profession. In each case, new teachers are brought in to replace them.

Consequently, schools with low income students have, on average, less experienced teachers than schools with higher income students. And, since less experienced teachers are also lower on the pay scale, that means schools with lower income students spend less money to reach that 26-to-1 ratio than schools with higher income students.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

Less experienced teachers are often less effective, especially in their first few years, and especially, according to some studies, with the most difficult-to-reach students. That means students at schools with lots of low-experience teachers tend to receive less effective instruction. When you add in the fact that schools with higher income students get the pick of the best teachers (because schools with "better students" are more desirable, they usually get the most applicants to choose from), lower experience is often compounded with teachers who may be less skilled. The result can be lower quality education for those students who need it most.

[Note: This should not be read as a blanket criticism of teachers at lower income schools, many of whom are among the most talented and dedicated anywhere. I'm just being honest about the way the world actually works.]

What if TUSD did not discriminate financially against schools with lower income students and gave every school the same amount of teacher money per student? Schools with less experienced teachers would be able to stretch their money farther, possibly hiring a few extra teachers to lower the teacher/student ratio, possibly hiring more aides, possibly spending more on supplementary materials and technology. In other words, the equitable distribution of funds would create a balancing effect, a compensating effect which could turn having a less experienced staff into an opportunity instead of a liability.

If I have misread the funding proposal linked to at the top, please set me straight. Otherwise, I believe this is a serious issue TUSD needs to address if it honestly has a commitment to educational equity.

I’m intrigued by WaPo blogger Greg Sargent’s coverage of the GOP contraception kerfluffle because he’s been following a key demographic polling trend on it – unmarried women.

Among this group, Obama now leads Romney 65 percent to 30 percent, and there has been a net 18-point swing toward the president since November.

After unmarried women dropped off for Democrats in 2010 and were slow to return to the party in 2011, Obama is now approaching the level he won in 2008, 70 percent.

Keep in mind that’s Obama vs Romney, who has been the least offensive (though still egregious) on women’s issues. If Santorum is the nominee, Katy bar the door. We’re talking Obama numbers in the +80% range in that case. Either nominee could be a giant anchor dragging down-ticket Republicans in competitive districts precisely because of the “put an aspirin between your knees” rhetoric if the Democrats choose to run on it (hint: they should). And of course many Republican legislators across the country, including in AZ, have not slouched on getting up in our ladybusiness.

We have 3 competitive Congressional districts and a handful of competitive Legislative ones, post-redistricting. There happen to be a lot of single ladies in those districts. Proximity, a website that compiles demographic data, breaks down that data by district. The latest is from 2008/9 but you can extrapolate it reasonably well to the new district lines. Current Congressional districts 1, 3, 5, and 8 average around 45% single ladies. (It’s actually higher if you include widows but I’m assuming they tend to be older, hence more conservative.) Factor that in with all the married ladies in those districts, many of whom also have a stubborn insistence on being the bosses of their own ladybusiness.

Obama didn’t win Arizona in 2008, largely because John McCain was at the top of the ticket. But three of the four aforementioned Congressional districts went Democratic. And Republicans weren’t even screeching about taking away birth control then.

With no notice, the Rs running the Arizona lege have scheduled the state's budget for committee hearings Tuesday morning at 8 a.m.

Senate Appropriations agenda is here.  House Appropriations agenda is here.

Between this and last week's ejection of a 12 News reporter from the House floor by a Republican functionary who cited an unannounced security policy, it's obvious that the Rs haven't learned the lesson from the recall election loss of former senate president Russell Pearce -

High-handed and arrogant behavior by elected officials is the surest way to tick off the voters...

Updates as I read the bills...

Update:

I'm going to link to the Senate bills, but there are matching House bills that will go before House Appropriations.

SB1523 - General Appropriations

SB1524 - Capital Outlay

SB1525 - State Budget Procedures

SB1526 - Revenue; Budget Reconciliation

SB1527 - Government; Budget Reconciliation

SB1528 - Health; Welfare; Budget Reconciliation

SB1529 - K-12 Education; Budget Reconciliation

SB1530 - Higher Education; Budget Reconciliation

SB1531 - Criminal Justice; Budget Reconciliation (this whole budget is ugly, but never let it be said that the Rs can't be petty and vindictive at the same time - this one elminates the State Capital Postconviction Public Defender Office.  Guess we'll need to change the state motto from "The Grand Canyon State" to "We Kill 'Em Quick")

SB1532 - Environment; Budget Reconciliation

THE BORDER REPORT The following story was produced for the Fronteras Desk, public radio, Arizona. Click here for the audio version. Long known as Arizona’s beach town, tourists and business owners in Rocky Point, Mexico, say a recent State Department’s travel warning about this place is unfair. Victims say otherwise. They say cartel violence in [...]