AZ’s flush public schools closed due to deceit, not COVID

It appears that all it takes to reopen Arizona schools is more money. According to the Arizona Education Association, the educrat union, everything is hinged on more money. The union, which partners with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers,  blandly refers to itself is the largest professional association for public school employees in Arizona, dodging the word “union.”

This is its message to its members under the banner, ‘Advocating for Change‘: “All across Arizona, we are with you. We are right there next to you fighting for our students. Fighting for our future.

We need to dismantle unjust systems. We need to fully fund public schools. We need to hold our elected leaders accountable to our communities. And we need your help to make it happen.” The “fighting” message would not be complete without tossing in the trendy leftist word, “equity,” which reliably shows up.  Equity is meant to induce shame for ‘white privilege,’ another favorite term.

“Fully fund” definitely falls under the heading of subjective. A recent news report was headlined, “Ariz. schools to receive $1 billion in federal funds.”  Arizona Superintendent of Education, Kathy Hoffman released this ludicrous statement in response:

“While this significant infusion of federal recovery dollars is good news for Arizona’s schools, it’s not a substitute for sustainable funding from the state as they move through and beyond the crisis of this pandemic.”

Hoffman’s memory is too short for the position she holds. Either that or she’s become a comedian. In 2018 as teachers abandoned over 840,000 students and shut down over 1,000 Arizona schools as they followed an avowed 23-year-old socialist and uncredentialed hip-hop music teacher as they protested for 20% raises, SRAZ posted, #REDS for ED: Union thugs demand more $ for less. It contained these two paragraphs:

Teachers unions* have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990 when Center for Responsive Politics initially began collecting data.

Passage of ballot propositions — 301 in 2000 increasing the state sales tax and 123 in 2016 a grab from the state land trust — guaranteed more money for education, which apparently is never enough. School districts routinely hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket sales would fund schools.

In 2020 an irrevocable $5 Billion tax increase for education was passed on the fallacious premise of “taxing the rich,” aka those who create jobs.

This was in addition to these State & Federal Grants displayed by the Arizona Department of Education.

Teachers who aren’t teaching are still getting paid as students are falling further behind, suffering academically, emotionally and socially after missing a year of actual instruction, ultimately rendering them less able to compete in the global economy.

Despite the fact that far-left teachers’ unions wield tremendous influence in terms of donations and votes, Center for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky. M.D. has repeatedly confirmed that schools can open without teachers being vaccinated since children are less prone to contracting or transmitting the virus. Her assertion is substantiated by the official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“I also want to be clear that there is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely,” Dr. Walensky confirmed.

* Center for Responsive Politics