Tucson Citizen.com

ReTired Tucson Teacher

After hanging up my classroom teaching spurs, so to speak, I want to spend some time discussing important educational issues and I want to know what you think.

Headless bodies in education.

by on Jan. 07, 2012, under Education

Among the titles in the local newspaper this morning two caught my eyes. (Usually I simply avert my eyes when opening the paper so that I can better prepare myself for the shock.) The first was “Brewer seeks to revamp school funding”1 and “Decapitated body found near Tucson Mountains”. My keen sense of synchronicity instantly recognized the inherent connection.

The gist of the first article was that Gov-Ignore Education Brewer was seeking to funnel more funds into private and parochial schools. The announcement coming fast upon the heels of the ruling in favor of Super-Intend-To-Dismantle Public Education Hup-Hup-Huppenthal (he marches to the sound of a distant Horne) did not surprise me. The rapidity of the renewal of their blatant attack on public education did sort of cause me to catch my breath.

These people are without shame or any sense embarrassment. They openly pursue their campaign to privatize education and make it more lucrative for those who indulge in the industry. In Aridzona can you become a teacher of children with no other credentials than that someone, somewhere in the building possesses them. Since we are also a Right-To-Work (and thereby Right-To-Remain-Poor) state, new schools, coming to a mall near you will be able to pay whatever they want to to potential ‘teachers’ and no one will care.

It is not an example of supreme irony that the number one contributor to many of the campaigns of Democratic candidates for elections are the local, state or national teacher associations. Weakening public education strengthens the Republicans in the legislature.

The other article is about a headless corpse found near the Tucson Mountains. My guess is that the body is the epitome of public education because actions by our less-gislature and Govignore have long sought to decapitate that institution.

I am tired. I have fought for public education and educators for over thirty years now. I would like to devote my time to playing with my grandchildren. I would like to leave the fighting to someone younger, someone with more energy but I can no more ignore this kind of despicable assault on the profession I love than I could ignore an attack on my family. Brewer, Huppenthal and Horne are enemies of public education, they have made that intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers and I cannot stand idly by and let them destroy the system that educated me, my children and the one I hope will be around to educate my grandchildren.

I can suggest where Govignore Brewer can find some more headless bodies though. I know it was a key issue supporting her border policies; those headless corpses in the desert. Well, I think I have found three more in Phoenix.

1 Az Daily Star, StarNet Newsletter 01/07/12

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2012 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Education. Tags for this post: , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • Bobby

    you have to have a brain to have shame.that is something in short supply with in the republican party greed and hate is there specialty.

  • Riego

    It would be nice to reform the public school system so that it produces a higher caliber of student–which boils down to getting rid of the seniority system and instead reward teachers on merit. So much public funding goes to “administration,” where more should go to the teachers. These are just a few of the problems with public education. Then there is the issue of public employee unions, where taxpayer dollars are used to pay the public employees who in turn pay a portion of those dollars to a union that in turn supports the Democratic Party. If you happen to be a Republican and reject the union’s and the Democratic Party’s socialist agenda, you are forced through taxation to support it anyway. No wonder there is a movement to allow folks to chose what kind of education their children will receive. I find it interesting that Mr. Severson’s remarks seem to focus on primary and secondary education, but he omits speaking about post-high school education where we’ve had for many decades, public-funded colleges and universities coexisting with privately funded business colleges and trade schools. We are free to chose whether we will go to a trade school or a university. Why can we not be free to chose where we go to an elementary, middle or high school?  The answer lies in the fact that as private schools gain students, public schools lose and the unions get fewer taxpayer dollars to support their radical socialist agenda. 

  • Steve

    Wow!  Dont like private schools much do ya.  Want the schools to be more about the teachers instead of the students because your lamenting the fact we are after all a”right to work state”.  Got news for you,  Thank God we are a right to work state and thank God we are trying, (in a very pitifully small way) reform the so called school system we have here in Tucson.  I know as I am a product of this sham we call a school system.  Good thing I had parents back in the 60′s and 70′s who insisted I learn something and taught me as well.  I did spend my first 4 yrs of school going to private (Christian) schools.  That at least gave me a base when I went into the maw of the public school system.  The public school system would pass a doorknob.  You seem to be the problem we have here in Tucson, not Huenthat or the Governor.  Steve McKim

  • Fraser007

    Doesnt look like the charter and relgious schools are having problems getting good students. The Three Sonorans in his blogsite talks about the racism in our school. He states that 61% of TUSD is hispanic and there will be more in future years. Thats a pert of the problem. How can you educate people who dont want to be educated. This is just part of the problem that we will face by the year 2050. Take this problem and multiply it by a few million % points. We are doomed.

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