Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Best sign of the day...

...and there were some good ones at the rally (what did you expect when you tick off a bunch of smart people? They sharpen their needles and start jabbing those that ticked them off :) )...






Just in case you forgot - 100% of Democrats in the lege voted to protect education; over 96% of Republicans in the lege voted to gut education.
During the day, I spoke to a number of people at the Capitol, some there for the rally and some not (including some tourists from Alberta..brrrr. :) ).
Most said that education shouldn't be a partisan issue, and I and most Democrats agree. There are many Republicans who agree with that sentiment, too.
Unfortunately for us, those Republicans aren't in the Arizona Legislature, with a couple of notable exceptions - thank you Senators Carolyn Allen and Jay Tibshraeny.
I may not agree with them on much else, but they were right when they voted against the budget "fix" that decimated education and human services in Arizona.
Education *shouldn't* be a partisan issue, but it is in Arizona.
I hope that the teachers, parents, and education supporters who were at today's rally remember that fact, and the "best sign of the day" in September and November of 2010 and vote in their children's and the state's long-term interests.

3 comments:

Thane Eichenauer said...

I'm going to point out that while most Republican legislators voted to reduce government education spending in Arizona there is still education going on, just less government education going on.

Donna said...

Yeah, government education has been a real disaster. If only we could return to the days when the children of the wealthy were schooled and the rest were put to work. What do you need a fancy degree for when your life is going to be nasty, brutish, and short anyway?

Long live feudalism!

Thane Eichenauer said...

I would think that 90% of the people of Arizona would and could provide for educating their children as 90% already do when it comes to feeding their children. There is no more valid a reason to have government educate children than there is to have government feed all children. If the problem is that poor people can't afford school I would recommend that the solution is a welfare school system not one that covers all children and all families. We don't have government grocery stores providing food to all. Education is no different a product/service in the end and hasn't proved to provide superior quality especially in Arizona which is supposedly providing the 49th worst education in all the US (if I am to believe the newspaper).