Arizona is doing a great disservice to the many families who rely on public education.
Education voucher program wait times
Stacey Brown has been waiting for the Arizona Department of Education to reimburse her family through Arizona’s education voucher program.
Kathy Hoffman was right. Arizona is intentionally defunding public school education while shifting funds to private schools. (“Sound the alarm: Arizona is intentionally neglecting public schools,” Opinion, June 18).
Arizona consistently is near or at the bottom of surveys that rank public-education systems on such things as test scores, teacher salaries and even student-to-teacher ratios.
Taking funds from public schools for private schools or homeschools is the problem. Republicans again favor wealthier families with these voucher programs.
Some of those schools are religious-based, like Christian or Catholic, while some are college prep-focused. So, what if a child is not Christian, Catholic or college-bound? What then?
Will that child then attend one of those public schools that have insufficient funds to keep the buildings in good repair, hire good teachers or provide needed supplies?
Arizona is doing a great disservice to many families who count on public education.
Sandra Givens, Sun Lakes
Wealthy parents should pay for school choice
Laurie Roberts’ column on Arizona’s universal ESA (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) program was spot on (“Poor rich kids. They (still) need our help to pay for their piano lessons,” Opinion, June 18).
Arizonans need to look closely at the original intent of the program — to aid special needs children.
It was never intended to provide financial assistance to families who wanted to have their children take piano lessons or karate classes.
These activities are outside the realm of a standard K-12 curriculum and should be paid by the individual families. There is no money given to public school students to take piano or karate. This entire program is one big scam on the Arizona taxpayer.
Through the poor leadership of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, the public schools are failing because they are not getting the dollars they were supposed to get.
Instead, those dollars are diverted to wealthy parents who “choose” to send their children to expensive private and parochial schools but want the Arizona taxpayer to foot the bill. It’s called “school choice” for a reason.
Families do not have to choose to send their children to public school. However, when they make that “choice,” it is their responsibility to pay for their children’s education.
Catherine Freericks, Scottsdale
Shouldn’t that new piano belong to the state?
Under Arizona’s school voucher program, parents are purchasing pianos for music lessons, kitchen appliances for home economics, various sports equipment for physical education, etc.
Shouldn’t all those materials be returned to the state when the child is finished with them? I wasn’t allowed to keep any of the sports or science lab equipment after I used them when I was in school.
David Smith, Flagstaff
Thank California. It helps pay your way
Arizona Chamber of Commerce President Danny Seiden claimed that states like California, New York and Illinois are “rejecting growth” with “high taxes, burdensome regulations, and anti-business politics.” Then how are these states so darn productive?
What Seiden doesn’t tell you is that some states are takers (taking more money from the federal government than they contribute) and other states are givers (contributing more to the feds than they get back).
New York, New Jersey and California are the three biggest givers.
Nine out of the top 10 taker states are Republican run, while seven out of the top 10 giver states are Democratic run. California has the fourth-highest GDP in the world. All but three countries produce less than the state of California.
Give us a break, Danny!
Dan Peel, Scottsdale
Billionaire DBacks owner bought himself a gift
We are watching billionaires almost daily purchase government at all levels. It’s obviously cheaper to buy politicians than to deal with messy elections that may not turn out well for billionaires.
It is happening locally.
Most recently, billionaire Ken Kendrick bought himself and his Arizona Diamondbacks a $500 million gift from the Arizona Legislature. House Bill 2704 — sponsored by Chandler Rep. Jeff Weninger, who wants to be mayor of Chandler — will require school districts, cities and towns to raise taxes to make up for the gift the Legislature gave the billionaire.
How do you think fiscal conservative Mayor Weninger will react when his city and local school districts have to raise taxes to make up for the gift to a billionaire?
Lawmakers knew that asking taxpayers for that gift would result in an overwhelming no vote. The citizens of Tempe proved that two years ago when another billionaire wanted a gift from the taxpayers for his alleged hockey arena and adjacent land, keeping revenue from it.
Not everyone in the Legislature approved this process. Sens. Mitzi Epstein and Lauren Kuby and most Democrats fought it hard. But, in the end, the billionaire won.
The question is, how long will you let this happen?
Ronald Pies, Chandler
The writer was formerly chair of the Governor’s Baseball Commission, the Maricopa County Stadium District Advisory Committee and past president of the Cactus League Association and Hall of Fame.
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