CHANGING DIRECTIONS: AZ POLITICS, POST-SHOOTING TRAGEDY

posted by Michael Chihak

Media accounts in recent days about the pace and potential outcome of recovery for Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords have engendered and added to much speculation -- read gossip -- swirling around Arizona politics this week.

Arizona Week will focus on the political story on Friday's program, looking at how the Jan. 8 shooting of Giffords and her subsequent lengthy hospital and rehabilitation stints, are driving the political dynamic in the state.

The biggest burst of political speculaton came on Monday from Newsweek magazine, which published a lengthy story headlined “What’s Really Going On With Gabby Giffords?”. The story claimed to include previously untold information about Giffords' recovery from a gunshot wound that passed through the left side of her brain.

Indeed, the story lent more insight to what the situation is with Giffords, including the statement that “a measured assessment of her progress is warranted.” Meaning that we the public may well be going too far with our own hopeful interpretations of the optimistic statements from the doctors and the visitors to her rehab room in Houston.

Most prominent among those optimists is Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, who has, as Newsweek pointed out, said from the beginning that he believed she would make a full recovery. But in the story, Kelly was quoted as saying that his wife’s first public appearance is “months – and not weeks – away.”

In her personal life, it would mean as Kelly and her staff have said that if Giffords does attend his shuttle launch scheduled for later this month, she won’t be seen publicly. It also means that recovery is a process that dictates the time line rather than the recoverer.

Or, for that matter, the political observers, challengers and would-be opponents to her waiting in the wings.

This and other information in the Newsweek story, speculative comments in the Arizona media and the silent but obvious impatience of those who would challenge Giffords politically next year have fueled discussion around a series of fitful -- and mostly unanswerable at the moment -- questions.

• Will she recover quickly and completely enough to run for the seat Republican Sen. Jon Kyl is leaving?

• Will she recover and then stay put in Congressional District 8, where she could face a rematch with Republican Jesse Kelly, the tea party agenda carrier whom Giffords defeated in 2010?

• Will she recover enough so that she can live some definition of a normal existence, never mind the lights-are-always-on life of a member of Congress?

People of all sorts – in her camp, in her would-be opponents’ camps and in the general public – are running in all directions with speculation.

Human nature being what it is, there’s a desire for that. But really, we must ask ourselves, is there a need for it?

CAN AZ CUT EDUCATION AND DRAW QUALITY JOBS?

posted by Michael Chihak

Employers want well-trained employees. Their employees, in turn, want good schools for their children.

And Arizona wants a strong economy, one that can sustain the growing population and bring a new kind of prosperity to its residents.

There's a tried and true formula for that. Build an educational system that can train people for high-paying jobs and that employers can count on. Employers will hire those employees, and the economy will grow and prosper.

Arizona political leaders have the vision for a prosperous state, based on an economy that eschews dependence on population growth and housing and instead looks to the growth of knowledge and technology and the relevant complementary businesses.

Just one problem in the state: The educational component has been slowly whittled away over the last decade by an ever-changing standardized testing scenario and a series of political decisions meant to challenge public schools to get better but that instead created a competing school system that's not as good.

Oh, and budget cuts. Budget cuts. Budget cuts.

Three straight years of significant cuts to educational budgets, more than $450 million for the coming fiscal year alone. That will bring the three year total of cuts to more than $1 billion.

We plan to explore the complex scenario on Friday's Arizona Week, including asking economic development leaders if they think it is a formula for success.

ADDING TO *ARIZONA WEEK*'S JOURNALISTIC RICHNESS

posted by Michael Chihak

Two experienced Arizona journalists made their Arizona Week debuts Friday, discussing the state's K-12 educational system and the big budget cuts signed into law by the governor this week.

Jim Nintzel, senior writer for the Tucson Weekly and a regular contributor to Arizona Public Media's Arizona Illustrated for many years, is one of three panelists to discuss education cuts on Arizona Week.

Kim Covington, Schools Solutions reporter for KPNX-TV 12 in Phoenix, also made her debut on the program.

Nintzel and Covington joined with Arizona Republic state capitol reporter Ginger Rough in discussing how the cuts are being received politically and what they could do not only to the educational system but to the reputations of Gov. Jan Brewer and state legislators who pushed through cuts to K-12, community colleges and the universities totaling more than $450 million for the coming fiscal year.

In its first 13 weeks, Arizona Week has brought viewers the perspectives of nearly 30 Arizona journalists. Stay tuned; there are more to come.

BUSINESSES SHOULD STAND UP FOR SCHOOLS, OFFICIAL SAYS

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona businesses got the Legislature to slow down on its continuing anti-immigration push by saying that it was hurting the business climate.

They should do the same for education, Chuck Essigs said. Essigs is governmental relations director for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials.

"Until the business community makes a stand for education, it has no chance of making a change," Essigs said in an interview for Friday's Arizona Week.

Essigs said he has been in touch with school officials from around the state and described them as "disappointed" over a third straight year of significant budget cuts. This year's reductions, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday, total $183 million and bring the 3-year-total for all education to more than $1 billion.

Arizonans have shown a willingness to tax themselves for educational improvement, having done so last year in passing Proposition 100, which increased the sales tax for three years to bolster education funding, Essigs said.

Calvin Baker, superintendent of Vail School District in suburban Tucson, said in a separate interview for Arizona Week that the cuts represented a "bait and switch" pulled on voters who expected more funding for education.

Watch their interviews and commentary from a panel of journalists on Arizona Week Friday at 8:30 p.m. MST on KUAT-TV 6 in Tucson and at 10:30 p.m. MST on KAET-TV 8 in Phoenix. Or watch the program online at www.azweek.com

AZ HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN CUT FROM VOC ED

posted by Michael Chihak

Pima County's Joint Technological Education District will eliminate high school freshmen enrollment in the next school year because of state budget cuts, JTED officials announced Wednesday.

JTED is the 21st century version of vocational education, intended to provide academic and job skills to high school students. JTED enrollees can take curriculums in culinary arts, agrisciences, automotive technologies, nursing, construction trades, firefighting, early childhood education and a host of other programs.

Knocking freshmen out of the program next school year will mean at least 7,100 fewer students enrolled in Pima County, JTED officials said in a press release. It said the program's budget will be $3 million less than what it was in 2008, when it had half the enrollment it does today.

The JTED program was approved by Pima County voters in 2006 and has been expanding ever since.

JTED Superintendent Alan Storm said in the press release that the cuts will hurt not just the students but local businesses that depend on being able to hire skilled workers.

The cuts are expected to result in layoffs of JTED employees, but the number has not been determined.

MOST MONEY SPENT IN CLASSROOM; NOW WHAT?

posted by Michael Chihak

Vail School District Superintendent Calvin Baker will be on Arizona Week Friday to discuss school funding in the wake of the state Legislature's passage of next fiscal year's budget.

Baker's district runs with great efficiency and effectiveness. The state Auditor General's report says Vail spends a greater percentage of its money in the classroom than other school districts. Nine of its 15 schools are rated "excellent" under the federal No Child Left Behind system; the other six are rated at "performing" or "highly performing."

Certainly Vail's performance, both fiscally and educationally, can be attributed to superior administration, management and teaching. At the same time, the dollars make a difference. So what is Vail to do in light of the state Legislature's budget action last week?

Legislators cut state funding for public schools by $183 million. While legislative leaders called it a relatively small amount -- 3.6 percent of total K-12 funding, House Speaker Kirk Adams said -- it is 5 percent of state general fund money.

In addition, it comes on top of an 11.6 percent reduction in state general fund money in fiscal 2009-10. And that came on top of an 8.3 percent decrease in state general fund money in fiscal 2008-09.

In short, state general fund allocations for K-12 public schools have gone down 19 percent in three years. That's expected to be reflected in per-student state funding, which this school year is down 19 percent from its historic high two years ago and will be down more next fiscal year.

We will ask Baker what changes he must make in how Vail schools operate and whether the district's record of excellence will be jeopardized as a result of the state funding cuts.