Four buses of unionists left Tucson this morning. (Image credit: Pamela Powers Hannley)

When I originally reported on the AFL-CIO Day of Action, I said four bus-loads of unionists were going to the Capitol to lobby Legislators and demonstrate against the anti-labor bills. Correction: that’s four buses just from Tucson. Additional bus-loads will be arriving from other Arizona cities.

As they loaded the buses, one participant told me that two years ago, 30 unionists went to the Arizona Legislature on the Day of Action. Last year, there were two buses of unionists. This year with six anti-worker bills in the Arizona Legislature, there are four bus-loads just from Tucson going to the capitol.

Maybe today will be Arizona’s “Wisconsin moment.”

Six anti-labor bills are winding their way through the Arizona Legislature– four target unions, making collective bargaining illegal and outlawing union dues deductions from paychecks; one would strip civil service protections from 29,000 state employees, allowing the governor to fire civil servants and hire her pals; and the last is a ballot initiative which would lower the minimum wage for tip workers (because $4.65/hour is such an extravagant salary) and lower the minimum wage for people 20 years old and under.

The union bills were dubbed “worse than Wisconsin”, but then the governor and legislature add the other two bills on top. When those guys decide to decimate the middle class, they don’t mess around.

What’s a person to do? Call and/or e-mail your legislators… NOW. Here’s the Senate membership list. Here’s the House membership list.  In addition to calling your own legislators, I also urge anyone who lives in the new CD2 (Gabby Giffords’ reformulated district) to call Senator Frank Antenori, since he wants to be our new Congressman. (Shudder.)

In addition to calling, union leaders are organizing a day of action on March 1 at the capitol and have an online petition, but the anti-labor laws will affect all of us. We– the 99%– are in this together. Pick up that phone.

For background on the anti-union and anti-civil service bills, check out this story:
Arizona’s New Labor Bills Called ‘Worse Than Wisconsin’

For more coverage of the union forum (video above) and the anti-minimum wage bill, check out this story:
Arizona Workers Mobilize As Legislators Debate Anti-Labor Laws

Image Credit: Pamela Powers Hannley

Labor union members and Jobs with Justice labor supporters will be demonstrating downtown today against the anti-union legislation currently sailing through the Arizona Legislature.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, a corporatist group that writes business friendly legislation for Republican legislatures like ours) and the right-wing Goldwater Institute schooled Governor Jan Brewer and her minions in the Arizona Legislature in union-busting last fall in Phoenix. The fruits of their “labor” are a series of anti-worker bills currently being fast-tracked in the Arizona Legislature. These proposed laws mirror those in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana. They were passed in Wisconsin and Indiana by their Legislatures, but Ohio voters weighed in and squashed the legislation there. (Remember Wisconsin? The backlash caused weeks of nationwide protest and a recall election for several state lawmakers and Governor Scott Walker.)

The result of coaching by ALEC, the Goldwater Institute, and Walker is a suite of anti-worker bills which would harm teachers, police, firefighters, and other unionized workers in Arizona. All Democratic Party legislators are opposed to this legislation.  (Watch State Senator Dave Schapira on the Ed Schultz Show, here.) Locally, Congressman Raul Grijalva and Councilwoman Regina Romero have made public statements against the anti-worker bills. In addition, local MoveOn.org activists have created an online petition, which you can sign here.

Below is information about today’s demonstration. Also, don’t forget you can call or e-mail your legislators and tell them to OPPOSE anti-worker legislation. Ohioans stopped these bad bills; Arizonans can too.

Jobs with Justice urges you to come out in solidarity with unions under attack by the
Arizona Ultra-right legislature.

Rally in Support of AZ Working Families!

STOP THE ATTACKS ON PUBLIC WORKERS!

Friday, Feb. 3rd
4:00 pm (or when you get off work)

State Building,
400 W Congress
Downtown Tucson

Join union members and their families from the Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF), AFSCME 449, CWA Local 7000 and many community supporters to stand up to the attacks on union members and their families. The following harmful bills will directly harm our community:

SB1484, Paycheck deductions employee authorization

SB1485, Unions; public employees; prohibitions

SB1486, Public Employees; activities, unions; compensation

SB1487, Government employees; union dues; withholding

These terrible bills are moving fast. They have already passed out of committee and will be most likely debated in the full AZ Senate next week. We need to pull together and find solutions that work for the real issues Arizonans are facing. Join our rally to let the Arizona Legislature that attacking public workers is wrong!

To Take Action NOW by following the Arizona AFL-CIO link here.

Given: System-wide, US healthcare costs have been on an upward trajectory for decades.

Given: The #1 reason Americans go bankrupt is that they cannot pay their medical bills.

Given: As we grow older, our healthcare (and health insurance) costs increase.

Given: Baby Boomers are entering their Golden Years, and between 2010 and 2040, the US population over 65 years of age will double.

Given: Fiscal hawks at the state and federal level want to reduce, dramatically change, or eliminate government-backed health insurance (Medicare and Medicaid), as well as social safety net programs (ie, Social Security, food stamps, and unemployement).

Given these facts: It is not difficult to see how the colliding forces of an aging population, increasing healthcare costs, and decreasing government support could create a perfect storm in US in the not-so-distant future.

New research published in the September 2011 issue of The American Journal of Medicine gives us a glimpse of what that perfect storm may look like.

Using statistical modeling, scientists from the University of California, San Francisco and Columbia University reported that without significant changes in risk factors or treatments, “…the aging of the US population will result in a sizeable increase in coronary heart disease incidence, prevalence, mortality, and costs.”

More specifically:

• “…incident coronary heart disease [new cases] is projected to increase by approximately 26%, from 981,000 in 2010 to 1,234,000 in 2040…
• “Prevalent coronary heart disease [is projected to increase] by 47%, from 11.7 million to 17.3 million.
• “Mortality will be affected strongly by the aging population; annual coronary heart disease deaths are projected to increase by 56% over the next 30 years, from 392,000 to 610,000.
• “Coronary heart disease-related health care costs are projected to rise by 41% from $126.2 billion in 2010 to $177.5 billion in 2040 in the United States.”

The public health and economic consequences of these projections are staggering– particularly if extremist Teapublicans like Congressman Paul Ryan and sheep-like followers (including Arizona’s own Jeff Flake) have their way.

Let’s assess the current situation…

• 52 million Americans don’t have health insurance.
• 61% of bankruptcies in the US due to medical costs.
• 9.1% of Americans are unemployed.
• Teapublicans– with the help of President Obama– want to fix the “deficit problem” by cutting entitlement programs WITHOUT cutting military spending or raising revenues or creating jobs (which would boost the economy).

If you think income disparity and greed are destroying our country now, just wait. If Teapublicans like Michelle “down with entitlements” Bachmann, Rick “minimum wage” Perry, Mitt “the oligarch’s baby” Romney, Sarah “cut NPR to balance the budget” Palin, Jeff “I was against austerity before I was for it” Flake*, and, of course, FOX “the poor need to pay their fair share” News have their way, there will be literally millions of sick, elderly Americans living at the subsistence level without healthcare services or medicine.

Is this the future we want?

The balanced budget deal passed earlier this month is the only one in history that includes cuts in spending and no increases in revenue. We need sanity in government, and I’m not sure we’ll get it from the Gang of 12.

We need to put people back to work– at good-paying jobs (not the kind Perry created in Texas)– so they can contribute to the economy and contribute to Medicare and Social Security through their paychecks. To control healthcare costs, we need universal healthcare– instead of this hybrid system that allows insurance companies to continue their rape of the American people. We need to eliminate the Bush era tax cuts for the rich and cut tax loopholes for individuals and corporations. We need to end the wars and cut military spending.

Yes, we need sanity in government.

* In all fairness, this is also the position of Senators Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell and Congressmen John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

The US-Mexico border fence between has been ballyhoo’d by the right as necessary to border security, denegrated human rights advocates as a contributing factor in border deaths, and repeated breached by Mexicans with ladders, hack saws, torches, catapults, tunnels, and memorials.

The most recent news is that right-wing Republican Legislators have started a fundraising to build more sections of the fence, since the federal government and the state government are strapped for cash. (Yeah, that’s the ticket ask us workers to pay for it, since we have so much extra cash on our hands.)

The latest assault against the border fence has been at the hands of Mother Nature, who knocked down a 40-foot section of the border fence using flood waters. Apparently, the multi-million-dollar border fence has a design flaw. [doh] Environmentalists and officials with the Organ Pipe National Monument officials warned the Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security of the potential for flood damage before the fence was built, but these warning were ignored.

From the Arizona Daily Star…

The design does not allow for the free flow of water in natural washes intersecting the border, he said. In washes, the fence has grate openings at the bottom that are 6 inches high and 24 inches wide with 1-by-3-inch bars.

“The fence acts as a dam and forms a gradual waterfall,” [Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Superintendent Lee] Baiza said. “It starts to pile up on the bottom as the grass, the leaves, the limbs start plugging up. The water starts backing up and going higher. The higher it gets, the more force it has behind it.”

Sunday’s storm dumped 1.5 to 2.5 inches of rain in the area upslope from the area where the fence failed, according to the National Weather Service.

Bursts of strong rain are common at the park, meaning that other parts of the fence that are in the natural washes could be at risk of being knocked over, too, Baiza said.

The problems were anticipated by Organ Pipe officials.

In October 2007, before the fence was built by Kiewit Western Co. for $21.3 million, Organ Pipe officials told the U.S. Department of Homeland Security they were worried that the design would impede the movement of floodwater across the border; that debris would get trapped in the fence; that water would pool; and that the lateral flow of water would cause damage to the environment and patrol roads, according to a report issued by Organ Pipe in August 2008 about flooding that summer.

In response, the Border Patrol issued a final environmental assessment with a finding of no significant impact. It also said the fence would not impede the natural flow of water or cause flooding.
The agency said it would remove debris from the fence within the washes immediately after rains to ensure that no flooding occurred.

At a December 2007 meeting, Kiewit officials stated in a handout that the fence design “would permit water and debris to flow freely and not allow ponding of water on either side of the border” because the drainage crossing grates “met hydraulic modeling requirements.”

“Now we know who’s right,” said Matt Clark, Southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “Period. End of story.”
The situation is an example of how Homeland Security ignored expert advice from people within the federal government to ram through border-fencing projects, Clark said.

The first sign of problems occurred on July 12, 2008, when the 15-foot-high wire-mesh fence halted the natural flow of floodwater during a storm that dumped 1 to 2 inches of rain in 90 minutes around the border towns of Lukeville, and Sonoyta, Sonora.

Water pooled behind the fence and flooded into the Lukeville Port of Entry and private businesses, causing damage.
At the Gringo Pass convenience store, merchandise was damaged and the store was closed for cleanup, according to a lawsuit filed by the company against the U.S. government in 2009. The lawsuit says the flooding diminished property value by $6 million.

On Sunday, the storm also caused flooding in several buildings in Lukeville owned by Gringo Pass, Inc. after water pooled against the border fence and seeped into the structures. Those buildings now include a restaurant, post office, shuttle company and a duty-free store that had just received a new shipment of goods, said a store spokesperson. The convenience store is now out of business.

After the July 2008 flooding, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument officials issued a 17-page report detailing how it happened. Baiza said then he wanted government officials to revisit the design to prevent future problems.
To remedy the problem, the Army Corps of Engineers installed 50 to 60 liftable gates in 11 drainage systems as part of a 2010 drainage-improvement project. The system calls for the gates to be raised by a hoisting apparatus during storms so water can freely flow.

On Sunday, though, the gates were down, Baiza said.

Questions about the fence, the design and gates were not answered Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security or the Army Corps of Engineers.

The recent events show that there should be no border barriers in water crossings, Clark said. Officials should use alternative security measures such as ground sensors in those areas, which would not only allow floodwater to move freely but also create breaks for wildlife.

“Flooding is a very visual and physical reminder that walls block ecosystem processes,” Clark said. “There are major costs both fiscally and environmentally to building walls across watersheds.”

This graphic, based upon Department of Labor statistics, shows that overall middle class income has decreased with union membership.

According to Michael Moore, the beginning of the end was 30 years ago yesterday. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers who had defied his back-to-work order. They had been on strike only two days. From Michael Moore’s The Day the Middle Class Died.

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they’ve succeeded.

Thirty years of trickle down economics later…

Productivity is up, wages are in decline, union membership continues to decline, corporate profits are breaking records, unemployment and housing forclosures are ravishing the middle class, Americans are going bankrupt due to sky-rocketing medical costs, and income disparities between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us are ever-widening.

Meanwhile, Congress– owned by big business and paralyzed by ideology– fiddles while Rome burns.

Americans are weary from grinding recession and disenchanted [putting it mildly] with our out-of-touch government. After the recent debt ceiling fiasco and the shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to an ideological, anti-union battle, a full 14 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent CNN poll. (A commentator on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show quipped that the 14 percent who said they approved of Congress’ performance must not have understood the question.)

And why shouldn’t we feel disenfranchised by this corporate-controlled government? In poll after poll taken during the protracted debt/deficit battle, Americans said they favored a balanced approach to deficit reduction– one that decreased spending + increased revenues– but that’s not what we got in the end. What we got was a Tea Party dream, a deficit reduction deal based solely on cuts which will likely cost the US 1.8 million jobs. Congressional Teapublicans– including five from Arizona (Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Phil Gossar– even scared Wall Street and financial markets worldwide with their intransigence and extremism.

From Noam Chomsky’s America in Decline…

For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending – though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.

For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed how the public would eliminate the deficit. PIPA director Steven Kull writes, “Clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House (of Representatives) are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget.”

The survey illustrates the deep divide: “The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. The public also favored more spending on job training, education and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”

The final “compromise” – more accurately, capitulation to the far right – is the opposite throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and the corporations, which are enjoying record profits.

Is Tucson the new ‘Hooverville’?

Homeless shanty towns-- Hoovervilles-- sprang up during the Great Depression. (Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.)

What has all of this got to do with life here in Tucson? Plenty. Two recent studies show that: 1) Tucson has the highest rate of poverty of any major city in the sunbelt and 2) Tucson has the “sickest” housing market in the US.

These statistics– coupled with Arizona’s Starve-the-Beast-Feed-the-Capitalists state government and Teapublican Congressional representatives–Gosar (CD1), Franks (CD2), Quayle (CD3, Schweikert (CD5), and Flake (CD6)– paint a pretty bleak future for the Old Pueblo.

What can we do about it? A few weeks ago at a City Council meeting, political activist Jim Hannley suggested that the Tucson Mayor and Council set up a citizens’ commission to study local poverty (Check out the video at about 3:16 minutes in part 2.) In 2007, then Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal’s office compiled a “Poverty and Urban Stress” report. With dozens of statistical graphics, the 90+ page document details poverty, educational attainment, crime, and other urban stress indicators citywide and by Council ward. At the time, the Arizona Daily Star lauded the report and the City Council agreed to revisit the report annually… but didn’t. That was 2007– before the market crash of 2008 and the ensuing recession. Obviously Tucson’s economy– as well as the state’s and the nation’s– has slid since the report was created.

Repeatedly, the Tucson City Council has bowed to local business interests, at the expense of citizens and workers. The City’s budget– like the state’s and the nation’s– has been cut by cutting jobs, thus worsening our economy by increasing unemployment.

It’s time for Tucson’s Mayor and Council to take the long view on our economy. Leal’s report should be updated and expanded to include multi-year trend data. After the update, a citizens’ commission focusing on poverty, the local economy, and jobs should be created to study the data and make recommendations based upon economic research and best practices from other cities.

As Tucson celebrates its 236th birthday this month, it’s time for Tucsonans to stop grumbling, to start fighting for economic and social justice, and to take a lesson from The Little Engine that Could: I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

Last week, Governor Jan Brewer called the Arizona Legislature into special session to make a one-word change in state law which would allow extension of unemployment benefits to the chronically unemployed in Arizona– at no cost to the state.

Legislators argued and grandstanded for two days and, in the end, changed nothing. As the Arizona Daily Star said, Legislators showed “indifference to struggling Arizonans.”

State lawmakers wrapped up their special session Monday and went home without making the one-word change needed to continue funding unemployment for people out of work for at least 79 weeks.

Extending long-term unemployment insurance for another 20 weeks is a no-brainer. It would have extended a safety net to thousands of Arizonans on the brink. It would have continued to inject $3.2 million of federal money into the economy each week. And it should have been easy to do. All lawmakers had to do was change the number “two” to “three” in a formula used to grant the 20-week extension.

Most importantly, it would have been the right and moral thing to do.

These are extraordinary times. The unemployment rate has dropped to 9.3 percent, which is roughly double what it was 10 years ago. While extending unemployment benefits by another 20 weeks would have helped 15,000 people stay afloat, cutting them off will affect an additional 30,000 people who will hit the 79-week mark later this year. So in essence, state lawmakers have ripped away the safety net for 45,000 jobless Arizonans. That’s roughly the size of the crowd at a UA football game. [Emphasis added.]

It’s sad but not surprising that Republicans did this. After all, Arizona right-wing ideologues are just following the lead of right-wing Congressional ideologues like our own Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, who have voted against extending unemployment many times. And, all of them are more interested in handing out corporate welfare and tax breaks for the rich than helping citizens in need.

Lest we forget the names of the people who passed corporate welfare in the wink of an eye but denied a no-cost extension of unemployment benefits, the Arizona Democratic Party has provided the following list of names and the unemployment rates in their districts.

“Rather than help jobless Arizonans, they punished them. Rather than strengthening our economy, they sapped it of another $3 million a week,” said Andrei Cherny, Arizona Democratic Party chairman. “Weakening our economy and middle-class families is not what we deserve from our state legislators. Even Governor Brewer’s top political advisor agrees that voters in 2012 will remember this outrageous action from the out-of-touch Russell Pearce Republicans.”

These lawmakers should be held accountable for their actions. Here is a list of Republican lawmakers who voted not to extend unemployment benefits. We should fire them all.

AZGOP lawmakers and unemployment rates in their regions:

Legislative District 1
Sen. Steve Pierce
Rep. Andy Tobin
Rep. Karen Fann
Unemployment rate in
Prescott MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area): 9.5%

Legislative District 3
Sen. Ron Gould
Rep. Doris Goodale
Unemployment rate in
Lake Havasu-Kingman Mohave County MSA: 10.1%

Legislative District 4
Sen. Scott Bundgaard
Rep. Jack Harper
Rep. Judy Burges
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA 8.1%
Yavapai County: 9.5%
Glendale: 8.3%
Peoria: 5.7%
Yavapai County: 9.5%

Legislative District 5
Sen. Sylvia Allen
Rep. Chester Crandall
Rep. Brenda Barton
Unemployment rate in
Gila County: 10.2%
Graham County: 10.5%
Greenlee County: 9.1%
Holbrook: 8.0%
Pinetop-Lakeside: 8.2%
Show Low: 7.5%
Snowflake: 8.5%
Winslow: 7.1%

Legislative District 6
Sen. Lori Klein
Rep. Amanda Reeve
Rep. Carl Seel
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Phoenix: 9.4%

Legislative District 7
Sen. Nancy Barto
Rep. Heather Carter
Rep. David Burnell Smith
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Phoenix: 9.4%
Scottsdale: 6.0%

Legislative District 8
Sen. Michele Reagan
Rep. Michelle Ugenti
Rep. John Kavanagh
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Scottsdale: 6.0%
Carefree: 2.8%
Cave Creek: 3.7%
Fountain Hills: 4.0%

Legislative District 9
Sen. Rick Murphy
Rep. Rick Gray
Rep. Debbie Lesko
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Glendale: 8.3%
Peoria: 5.7%
Sun City: 9.4%

Legislative District 10
Sen. Linda Gray
Rep. Jim Weiers
Rep. Kimberly Yee
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Phoenix: 9.4%
Glendale: 8.3%

Legislative District 11
Sen. Adam Driggs
Rep. Kate Brophy McGee
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Phoenix: 9.4%
Paradise Valley: 3.7%

Legislative District 12
Sen. John Nelson
Rep. Steve Montenegro
Rep. Jerry Weiers
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
El Mirage: 12.1%
Goodyear: 5.8%
Buckeye: 10.1%
Surprise: 10.0%
Litchfield Park: 7.4%
Glendale: 8.3%

Legislative District 18
Sen. Russell Pearce
Rep. Cecil Ash
Rep. Steve Court
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Mesa: 7.4%
Gilbert: 4.6%

Legislative District 19
Sen. Rich Crandall
Rep. Justin Pierce
Rep. Justin Olson
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Mesa: 7.4%
Gilbert: 4.6%

Legislative District 20
Sen. John McComish
Rep. Bob Robson
Rep. Jeff Dial
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Phoenix: 9.4%
Chandler: 6.2%
Tempe: 7.0%

Legislative District 21
Sen. Steve Yarbrough
Rep. Tom Forese
Rep. J.D. Mesnard
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Mesa: 7.4%
Gilbert: 4.6%
Chandler: 6.2%

Legislative District 22
Sen. Andy Biggs
Rep. Eddie Farnsworth
Rep. Steve Urie
Unemployment rate in
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA: 8.1%
Mesa: 7.4%
Gilbert: 4.6%

Legislative District 23
Sen. Steve Smith
Rep. John Fillmore
Rep. Frank Pratt
Unemployment rate in
Pinal County: 10.6%

Legislative District 24
Sen. Don Shooter
Rep. Russ Jones
Unemployment rate in
Yuma County: 25.3%

Legislative District 25
Sen. Gail Griffin
Rep. David Stevens
Rep. Peggy Judd
Unemployment rate in
Cochise County: 8.2%
Santa Cruz County: 14.7%
Pima County: 7.9%

Legislative District 26
Sen. Al Melvin
Rep. Terri Proud
Rep. Vic Williams
Unemployment rate in
Tucson MSA: 7.9%
Pima County: 7.9%
Oro Valley: 5.6%

Legislative District 30
Sen. Frank Antenori
Rep. Ted Vogt
Rep. David Gowan
Unemployment rate in
Tucson MSA: 7.9%
Cochise County: 8.2%
Pima County: 7.9%
Santa Cruz County: 14.7%

Source: AzDOA Office of Employment and Population Statistics – Special Unemployment Report 2010-2011

I must admit that two of the big reasons I moved to Tucson in 1981 were the blizzards of 1978 and 1979– that and the fact that my significant other said, “I can’t stand this. Let’s move!”

Since I heard that the Vermont Legislature has passed single payer health insurance, I find myself pondering snow again.

Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin has scheduled a bill-signing ceremony for later this week. From the Daily Kos…

While the silence from most of US mainstream media remains deafening, the print and online news publication for physicians published by the American Medical Association – American Medical News – reported yesterday May 16 that Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has scheduled a bill-signing ceremony for May 26 during which he will sign a bill approved by the Vermont Democratic-controlled legislature, with the state Senate voting 21-9 to pass it on May 3, and the House adopting it on May 5 with a 94-49 vote “that paves the way for the state to launch a health system approaching a single-payer model later in the decade and to create a state health insurance exchange”…

All Vermonters would be eligible for the plan, which would cover hospital services and prescription drugs.

Shumlin had pledged to enact a single-payer health system during his January 6 inaugural address, saying “Let Vermont be the first state in the nation to treat health care as a right and not a privilege.”

Check out the whole story here. It gives many details.

Republican presidential hopefuls like Mitt Romney are pushing the state-by-state patchwork “solution” to rising healthcare costs, as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). I think that’s a really dumb idea that is obviously driven by ideology and not common sense or fiscal responsibility. If you live in the United States, you live in the United States. Vermonters shouldn’t have universal healthcare while Arizonans have death panels.

This week thousands of Arizona high school seniors will don caps and gowns and receive their high school diplomas, while others who successfully completed 12 years of schooling but failed the state’s infamous AIMS test will be left feeling dejected and betrayed by our failing public education system. How can students pass all 12 grades and not pass the high-stakes test? What happens to these students now? These are but a few symptoms of Arizona’s broken educational system.

Perhaps also reflecting on graduation day and the state’s failing school system, the Arizona Republic recently published an editorial on education reform: 5 vital ways to reform K-12 education.

The five suggestions read like a right-wing wish list: 1) competition; 2) high expectations; 3) quality teachers; 4) intelligent use of technology; and 5) private sector involvement. Not surprisingly, the editorial was written by Craig R. Barrett, former CEO of Intel and current president and chairman of BASIS, a system of charter high schools.

So, Barrett’s solution to education? Treat it like a business– build in market competition, push for excellence, use technology wisely, and hire quality employees (ie, teachers). In my opinion, there are multiple problems with applying a business model to education– unless of course you are in the business of education, like Barrett and the hundreds of other businessmen who are financially and ideologically invested charter schools.

What has been left off of Barrett’s list is just as interesting as what is on his list: parental involvement, the importance of early childhood education, teacher salaries, class sizes, teaching methods, tutoring for struggling students, English language assistance for students who grew up speaking other languages, poverty and unemployment, and– the big kicker– the crushing influence of Arizona’s right wing Legislature, who offers devastating, bold-faced cuts to public education while incentivizing privatization and profiteering in education. Heavy sigh.

Barrett’s first three paragraphs solicited a loud “duh” from me.

To carry out any discussion of K-12 education reform, you have to focus on both the numbers and the history. The numbers are pretty simple – and pretty devastating. About 30 percent of Arizona kids do not graduate from high school, and of the 70 percent who do graduate, about half do not have an education of sufficient quality to succeed in college.

Of the 35 percent of the total who are so-called college-ready, about a third require some remediation to be able to take college-level math, science and English; and, eventually, only about 25 percent of all kids earn a college degree.

This places Arizona in the bottom half of the United States, which has fallen from No. 1 among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), insofar as college completion rates, to its current position of No. 13…

The common-sense solutions outlined in all these documents parallel what we find in today’s high-performing education systems around the world. The simplified interpretation is that you need high expectations, great teachers who know their subject material, and some tension or feedback loops in the system to help struggling students, teachers and administrators.

The last paragraph above is capitalist’s spin on education. The biggest problem with education in the US is that we are allowing weak-willed politicians and hard-nosed businessmen to devalue the public education system, while glorifying the for-profit charter school system.

From Democracy Now… interview with two educators…

Karen Lewis [president of the Chicago Teachers' Union]: The problem is the system is obviously broken. I don’t think anybody will argue with that, that the system is broken. It is—it has not basically changed since the 1900s—1800s, for that matter. And as a result, it has never been able to absorb real innovation. And the problem is it’s just a lot easier to test, test, test children. Our curriculum has narrowed in Chicago. If you look at the average day for an elementary school kid, it’s reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, math, math, math, reading, reading, reading, reading, math. I mean, kids are bored to tears. They’re hating school at an early age. There’s no joy. There’s no passion. And the results show that. They’re very indicative of that.

Well, the problem is that the whole idea of the business model doesn’t work in education. In the business model, you can select how you want to do something. You have an opportunity to innovate in a way that discriminates. It’s very easy to do. Whereas in a public school system, where we do not select our children—we take whoever comes to the door—what we need is actually more resources and more support for the people that are there and the work that’s being done. However, again, Arne Duncan [US Secretary of Education], Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein—I don’t know about Joel Klein—none of these people are superintendents. You have to have, again, credentials for that. These are business folks. Look, the business model took this country to the brink of Armageddon in 2008. And yet, we want to follow a failed business model and imprint that on top of public education? No. And these things are not innovative. What they are is they’re terrorism. They’re “my way or the highway.” And they’re still not producing, quote-unquote, “results.”

Nobody disagrees with accountability. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what do you use? We still know that high-stakes testing basically tell us more about a student’s socioeconomic status than it does anything else. And until we’re honest about that and want to deal with the fact that we have neighborhoods in our cities and across the nation that have been under-resourced, have been devalued for decades, and for some reason or other, the schools are supposed to fix all that and change that. [Emphasis added.]

In their efforts to reform education, people like Barrett and Duncan ignore a little country called Finland. For years, Finland’s students and its public education system has been ranked #1 worldwide.

Somehow, Finland succeeded in having the world’s best education system– without the help of CEOs, business models, charter schools, privatization, or meddling politicians. How is Finland’s educational system different from Arizona’s? (How much time do you have?)

From the Toronto Globe and Mail…

Finnish children do not begin primary school until they are seven years old. But from the age of eight months, all children have access to free, full-day daycare and kindergarten. Finland has had universal access to daycare in place since 1990, and of all preschool since 1996.

Primary-school teachers all have master’s degrees, and the profession is one of the most revered in Finnish society.

“We see it as the right of the child to have daycare and preschool,” explained Eeva Penttila, head of international relations for Helsinki’s education department. “It’s not a place where you dump your child when you’re working. It’s a place for your child to play and learn and make friends. Good parents put their children in daycare. It’s not related to socio-economic class.”

Yesterday, former Ontario deputy education minister Charles Pascal released a long-awaited report that called for an overhaul of the province’s early-childhood education, which he described as a “fragmented patchwork of supports,” and the introduction of full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds. Elementary schools would be converted into learning hubs with after-school programs and include classes for parents on nutrition and health. The goal is to provide students with a mixed program that would increase literacy, graduate rates and postsecondary participation. [Emphasis added.]

From the BBC World News…

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.

A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject.

This video from the BBC offers a great overview of the Finnish system. According to the reporter, Finnish students spend the least number of hours in the classroom of any students in the developed world but receive the highest scores? How does that happen? Besides the fact that the Fins have “a culture that values education”, their classrooms have multiple well-trained teachers. While one teacher is working with most of the students, one or two other teachers are working one-on-one with struggling students.

The BBC reporter ends his story by saying that Finland has “relaxed schools– free from politicians– in which no one is left behind.”

This last sentence is particularly biting– not only because it takes a jab at the United States’ wrong-headed No Child Left Behind program initiated by President George W. Bush, but because our system does leave children behind and then punishes them by not granting diplomas when they don’t pass a test at the end of 12 years.

I was talking with a Tucson second grade teacher at a party on Saturday night. She said that she had a little girl who– at the end of second grade– was having trouble recognizing letters. She said her heart breaks for that little girl because she needs individual attention, but with 30+ seven-year-olds in her class, she can’t give it to her. Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a benchmark for success in the US. Sadly, without intense individualized help, this little girl will be written off by Arizona’s schools at age 8. We Arizonans have failed this little girl and thousands more like her.

This is a travesty. How can one of the world’s richest countries treat its children with such disregard? How can our country– and particularly our state– continue to devalue education and work to de-professionalize the teaching profession and hope to succeed? Our politicians are slaves to the capitalist ideology that values market forces– even when highly inappropriate– and are too weak-willed to fight for increased funding for public education. How can we compete in a global economy when our heads are stuck firmly in the sand?

On Monday of this week, Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Superintendent John Pedicone sent conciliatory letters to two groups integrally involved in the fight to save TUSD’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) program from being reorganized– the MAS Community Advisory Board and UNIDOS (the young adult activists group who chained themselves to the school board dias and shut down the April 26 board meeting).

In nearly identical letters which were meant to smooth tensions, Pedicone said he urged the school board to table the controversial reorganization plan and asked to meet with the two groups.

Buried in the middle of today’s Arizona Daily Star is a follow-up story which states that neither group has responded Pedicone’s letters.

TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone has reached out to supporters of the Mexican American Studies program in an effort to improve relations.

Pedicone sent letters Monday to the youth-formed coalition Unidos and to the Mexican American Studies Community Advisory Board asking for an opportunity to speak and listen to one another.
He said he has yet to hear back from them.

Relations between the groups and the district have been strained since former Arizona schools chief Tom Horne declared the Mexican American Studies program in violation of state law.

In my article about the letters, I stated that I supported Pedicone’s suggestion to table the reorganization plan, and I hoped that UNIDOS and the MAS Board would accept his peace offering. Sadly, five days later, they haven’t.

UNIDOS and the Latino activists, educators, and politicians (Councilwoman Regina Romero and Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias) on the MAS Board should put down their sabres and step up to the table for an open discussion with Pedicone, representatives from the Center for Civility and Understanding, and others. They also should be willing to participate in a community forum– where everyone is allowed to speak– not just those who shout the loudest.

The time for fighting and divisive language by MAS supporters– including their attack dog blogger– is over. This behavior is tearing our community apart.

It has been reported that soon– maybe even later today– State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal will announce his finding regarding MAS compliance or non-compliance with HB2281 (the legislation that started all of this last summer when governor Brewer signed it). If MAS and TUSD are found to be out of compliance, the district will be fined 10%– in the neighborhood of $15 million. On facebook, MAS supporters are calling for TUSD to ignore the fine and fight the state in court. There are too many questions about exactly what is being taught in the MAS classes; there has been anything but transparency.

I think it would be fiscally irresponsible for TUSD to lose $15 million– enough to fund 500 new teachers– over this battle. TUSD has to think about all of the 50,000 students it serves; they should not bow to the tyranny of the minority.

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