by David Safier About a week ago, I put together a post,  Majority leadership wants to move away from public education. In the post, Javan Mesnard, the Senate Majority (read, Republican) Staff Policy Advisor, said that a goal of the Republican leadership was to move toward charter and private schoo...

by Michael Bryan Terry Goddard's measure of political courage just went up slightly in my estimation: he went on national TV and suggested that this country should look seriously at the merits of legalizing marijuana to cut off the flow of money to drug cartels fueling violence along the Mexican bor...

by David Safier Lest we forget, Cutman's alter ego, Rep. Russell Pearce, has been around for awhile. The Southern Poverty Law Center just came out with an Intelligence Report -- Hate in the Mainstream: Arizona Reelects Hard-Core Nativist Politician. I'm copying it here in full. I take no responsibil...

by David Safier Dave Perry, publisher and editor of The Explorer, wrote a very good article on CARE -- Concerned Area Residents for Education -- a group recently formed by northwest Tucson parents and retirees as a response to the K-12 budget cuts. The group is scrupulously nonpartisan and independe...

THAT UTAH IDIOT LOSES ALL POWER: Christ, you have to be a pretty avant-garde wingnut to say something so terrible about the gays that the Utah Republican party delivers a punishment! Earlier this week, notable mouth-breathing Utah state Senator Chris Buttars said that The Gays, “mean little bu...

Utah state Senator Chris Buttars discusses THE GAYS: “They’re mean. They want to talk about being nice. They’re the meanest buggers I have ever seen… It’s just like the Muslims.” And the Muslims, they’re just like the mick papists, and everyone is black. Huh...

by David Safier Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute put together "10 Myths about Arizona Education" to, in his words, "separate the reality of education funding in Arizona from several often publicized myths." As usual, he mixes truth with fiction and apple-facts with orange-statistics to crea...

by David Safier I don't know the details of Maryland's "Bridge to Excellence" act David Sadker writes about in a Star op ed today. But he says Education Week puts Maryland's schools at the top of their list, which is pretty strong praise. Arizona is, um, let's see if I can remember this . . . 49th,...

by David Safier During a teacher's meeting at an Arizona school this week, the teachers were told about some ideas being bounced around concerning the 2010 round of budget cuts for K-12 schools: Cuts of about $1,000 in spending per pupil. Salary cuts ranging from $4,00-6,000. Getting rid of the expe...

by Michael Bryan I suspect that the Arizona GOP will pull a Jonestown now that Janet has handed them the keys to the campsite. With no effective institutional opposition from Democrats to be had, there is a danger that their most ideologically intoxicated members will convince the rest to drink the ...