Sorry state of Public Education in Arizona

Do you really need to think twice about the rank of Education in Arizona?

Read this copyrighted story.  Search really deep, which candidate for Governor do you really think has some answers and determination to improve public education in Arizona.  One who has been working along those lines for years, Fred Duval or ethically challenged businessman Doug Ducey.  <Google:  Doug Ducey and COLD STONE CREAMERY: Failed Franchisees Attack.>

Arizona’s teacher salaries rank among the lowest

By: Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services October 6, 2014 , 8:32 am

Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/10/06/arizonas-teacher-salaries-rank-among-the-lowest/#ixzz3FwHvty9T

If the ongoing political debates about education funding have not convinced you, a new study might: Arizona is the sixth worst place in the nation to be a teacher.

The report by WalletHub says the average starting salary for teachers, listed as $31,874 for 2012-13 school year by the National Education Association, is the 44th lowest of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. And that ranking comes even after accounting for the lower cost of living here than many other places.

It’s also not great for those who stay in the profession, the study says, with median salaries for all Arizona teachers at No. 48, also measured against the cost of living.

The pupil-to-teacher ratio, listed at 21.3 according to the National Center for Education Statistics, is worse than anywhere but Utah and California. And it compared with a national average of 16.7.

And WalletHub cites NEA figures showing that Arizona spends only about $1,250 per state resident on education. Only Idaho comes in lower.

About the only thing in the WalletHub rankings that kept Arizona from being lower than 46th overall is that there’s probably good job security here.

The personal finance website figures that Arizona will have among the higher percentages of school-age population of all the states by 2030. More children equals more demand for teachers.

Jill Gonzalez, a WalletHub staffer, said there’s a reason these statistics matter.

Consider class size.

“If I have a child I know struggles with learning, then that’s definitely something I want to take into consideration,” she said. But Gonzalez said for some parents, class size won’t matter.

Teacher salaries present a different issue, particularly in Arizona’s ability to recruit.

“If this is a teacher right out of school looking for somewhere to teach, it might matter more to them than someone with a family and who can support themselves in other ways,” Gonzalez said.

One place Arizona is not in the bottom 10 is in what WalletHub calls teacher wage disparity. Gonzalez said this is the difference between salaries at the 90th percentile level — near the top — and those at the 10th percentile level. That measures whether there’s room for wage improvement.

Arizona is No. 38 nationwide.

The report comes as questions of school funding have taken center stage in courtrooms and the gubernatorial race.

Key is the ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court that during the recession state lawmakers ignored a 2000 voter-approved mandate to adjust aid to schools each year for inflation.

The exact amount missed is still being litigated. But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper said just resetting basic state aid to what it should have been had legislators complied with the law all along totals $317 million.

If and when the state comes up with that cash, that will make another $279 per pupil available, on top of the approximately $7,550 a year per student from all sources.

That does not count an additional $1.3 billion that schools claim they are owed for the years the state ignored the inflation funding formula. While that would be a one-time infusion, it translates out to close to an additional $1,150 per student.

Both Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Fred DuVal and Republican Doug Ducey say they want to put more money in the classroom though they differ on how to do that.

Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/10/06/arizonas-teacher-salaries-rank-among-the-lowest/#ixzz3FwHOIgOB

Just wish they would oppose hate

GOP tax cutters are like snake oil salesmen at a medicine show.

Just cut taxes and we'll defeat the terrorists and cure ebola, at least that is what the followers of Congressman Paul Ryan, R-WI and Governor Sam Brownback, R-KS would like us to believe.

Governor Brownback has taken Kansas for a very bumpy fiscal ride downhill, it just hasn't worked. Period, No question!  The very Republican state of Kansas has so many statewide GOP elected and former officials coming out for Democrats on the ballot this year.  Right now it looks like a "local wave" for the ouster of Republicans and the election of Democrats unheard of since the great depression of the 1930's.  Read the Brownback "crazy experiments"

Respected fiscal analysts are proving one myth after another of the "cut taxes" gang wrong.  The story has been small business is the creators of jobs.  No, job creators are the new startups businesses.  Another myth cutting taxes moves down and helps the middle class and low income workers. "Trickle down" economics, just makes the top income earners keep more money to hide in overseas bank accounts.

What Congressman Ryan needs to do js get through this one more election with the Republicans in control of the House allowing Speaker Boehner and his Tea Party wing of the party another two years fighting President Obama at every turn and holding back the improving economy.

Want some really enlightening discussion on tax cuts?
Read this now:  Click here

It's the Republican Record

You can throw anything you like. Dirt, facts, wishes, it all boils down to the record. What have the Republican done to this state, what do they have in store for us next? Time for a comparison in real time, the GOP record shows what is in store for our future.

It's not Koch brothers or special interests.   

They have dug their hole.

It a Vision, stupid.    
CHECK THE RECORD


Paint a picture of the Republican record with a vision of the future based on their Congressional actions.

Multiple attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act throwing millions off of health care back to the mercy of profiteers of the insurance monopolies.
More government shut-downs, medicare vouchers, ending Social Security as has been in place 75 years.  We have seen their actions!  It's a threat hanging over our heads.  We have had a taste of Republican plans looking at the Paul Ryan Budget.  We have seen and suffered the Tea Party control of the Republicans in Congress.
  
Just compare the record of where the Obama Administration has taken us. 
Constant growth in jobs, forward steps in education, rebuilding industry and infrastructure, enforcing environmental and occupational safeguards. 
Stock Market at record levels, retirement accounts regaining value, property values coming back, working our way out of the great recession.

Obama and the Democrats have proud records of accomplishment or the GOP record of doing nothing and stonewalling progress. Fighting for equality or dividing the spoils among the very rich, that's the Republican record. Keeping people working with pay below the poverty line or the Democrats attempts to move folks to decent wages with an increase in the Minimum Wage.  

Moving forward with President Obama and the Democrats or more doing nothing and following Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and make war.
  
The Republicans have a record, is that what any of us want for our future?  Time to ask ourselves, what's in it for us?

The GOP Loves to Scream about the National Debt

Answer the Question, is the country better off today than six years ago when President Obama became President?

By Jerry Webman, Ph.D., CFA

Chief Economist

Oppenheimer Funds BLOG

https://www.oppenheimerfunds.com/advisors/article/us-deficit-shrinking-and-debt-stabilizing

Public opinion polls consistently name the federal deficit and resulting debt among the top problems facing the nation. 1 And just a couple of months ago, a nationwide poll showed that 94% of Americans believe the deficit is growing or unchanged. 2 In the aftermath of the Great Recession, these views were understandable as revenue dried up, automatic stabilizers kicked in and the Obama administration pushed a large fiscal stimulus package through Congress. When President Obama was sworn in for his first term, the federal deficit as a percent of GDP had already grown from an average of 2% during the Bush administration, to a monthly run rate of 5.5% by January of 2009, based on monthly U.S. Treasury numbers; it would swell to a peak of 10.4% by the end of December 2009. 3 And higher deficits translated into a growing debt burden. Around the time of the debt ceiling debate in the summer of 2011, the U.S. was on track to accumulate, by the end of 2022, debt in the public hands equal to nearly 90% of total output – a level where, the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff had (in)famously told us, growth dies. 4

But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming the next developed country with a debt crisis- the deficit started shrinking rapidly. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts that, under current law, the deficit will shrink to 2008 levels – $642 billion or 4% of GDP – by year end and continue to fall until 2016. 5 How did that happen?

For one, while the press bemoaned Washington’s failure to achieve a “Grand Bargain” for the $4 trillion deficit reduction ratings agencies requested – Simpson-Bowles, Super Committee, Gang of ‘insert number here’—believe it or not, Congress – with its mere 15% approval rating 6 – acted.

As my political science professor taught me years ago, American politics doesn’t produce grand bargains, we do things incrementally. And this incrementalism, however unlovely the process, has worked. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (which put caps on discretionary spending), the American Taxpayer Relief Act (which, though poorly named, resulted in $600 billion in new tax revenue), and the sequester (the full effects of which we have yet to see) have had a real impact on the nation’s fiscal situation.

Improving economic conditions have also been helping the deficit equation. Consider revenues. On average, revenues account for 18% of GDP, but at the end of 2012 revenues were only 15.8% of GDP. 3 As the economy improves the government will collect more revenue and, according to congressional budget office projections, revenues will likely return to 18.3% of GDP in 2014. 7 In fact, April tax revenues were $100 billion higher than they were for the same month a year ago. 8The near-term fiscal problem is on the mend.

We and our elected officials, however, had better not grow complacent. As I noted in a previous post, the aging U.S. population is poised to add an ever-growing burden to the government and its taxpayers. Today the average Baby Boomer is 55 years old. 9 And, in 10 years, when she turns 65, the nation’s debt-to-GDP will likely resemble a hockey stick if current on entitlement policy is unchanged. As a country, to prevent an ever greater share of the nation’s yearly output from funding Social Security and Medicare benefits, to the neglect of defense, education, and infrastructure investment, we will have to make very difficult decisions in determining who receives what benefits, when they receive them, and at what cost to the recipient.

For now, however, policymakers’ actions and the improving economy have bought us time. We have gotten close to the target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction. And, per the CBO, we have stabilized debt-to-GDP around a level of 70% for the foreseeable future. 5 Not bad for a country once considered doomed by its debt.

Digging out from under the pile of unfinished business Speaker Boehner and his cronies left behind when the House went on vacation again!