Arizona voters took to the polls on Tuesday and not only said “No” but a resounding “Hell No” to bonds on any given range of topic.  Alex Bloom from AZCentral, in this article postulates that the resounding NO on school funding had to do with the state  of the economy.

The economy apparently was on voters’ minds Tuesday when they walked into Valley voting booths to address school-district spending through bonds and budget overrides.

Valley voters supported only 20 of the 36 school-district bonds and budget overrides on the ballot in Maricopa County, according to unofficial results. That was down considerably from last year, when voters supported 28 of 31 budget measures. Voters’ action comes amid a period of deep cuts to state education spending because of the state budget crisis.

Experts say the economic downturn probably made voters think twice about approving many budget overrides, which allow school districts to maintain or increase property-tax levels.

Alex Bloom’s commentary totally ignores the fact that the Arizona school system has failed and continues to fail to educate our children.

Matthew Ladner from the Goldwater Institute:

The news is not good. Arizona has stalled out with bad scores.

With a score nine points below the national average, Arizona 4th graders know almost a grade level less math than the average American student. Florida and Texas–states with similar levels of spending and student demographics–both scored above the national average.

With marked predictability, the state-run media lays the blame at the feet of the people who are most affected by ill-run policy, rather than hold accountable those who are actually responsible for this dismal performance.

Mr Ladner continues:

Public school apologists can recite their litany on spending and learned helplessness, but don’t expect any results, they imply, until Arizona has the combination of old money, hedge fund billionaires and high income tax rates of Connecticut.

Despite a reform push during the 1990s, the fact is that on the whole Arizona is a K-12 backwater and will remain so until it decides to get serious about reform. Since the 1990s, Arizona’s AIMS has been dummied down, and the positive impact of choice programs have been drowned by enrollment growth. Rome continues to burn, we continue to fiddle.

In a recent post, I pointed out that “industry experts” [like Justin Olson, senior research analyst at the Arizona Tax Research Association and the Peoria Unified, Phoenix Union High and Dysart Unified district officials] are always “shocked, stunned and surprised” when things don’t turn out as they see them through their rose-colored glasses.

The voters here in the great state of Arizona are no longer buying the same tired message of “We are not spending enough on education”.  What we are seeing is that the monies we are spending on educating our children is not delivering anything close to acceptable results. See for yourself here how Arizona ranks at the very bottom in national educational ranking.

Mr Bloom’s theory that we are more concerned with the economy than our children’s education affronts all concerned parents sensibilities.  I can easily do without my Starbucks Venti, but you had better be educating my children well enough to be able to compete in the 21st century global economy.

The Arizona school systems, like Alex Bloom, both get an “F