Press Releases and Articles
Education: the backbone of our society
by Pat Fleming
Sierra Vista Herald, April 1, 2007
Education is the backbone of our society. Without a skilled, educated workforce, Arizona will fall behind other states as jobs, industry, and eventually the economy is moved elsewhere. As our population steadily grows, we face challenges to provide what we would consider an excellent education for Arizona’s children.
Here in Cochise County, we face many obstacles to obtaining that educational excellence, including inadequate funding, low teacher pay, and a system that strives to teach to a nationally standardized test. Most of these problems are caused by inadequate funding from a legislature that fails to put education at the top of their priority list. Our region is particularly affected because of a budget deficit in many school districts.
One of the programs that will be affected by this shortfall is All-Day Kindergarten, the highly popular program pushed by Governor Napolitano last year. Even though the plan for free kindergarten for all children was passed last session, the program will have to be shelved in many of our local districts for lack of funding.
Another crucial aspect of our children’s education is our teachers. Teachers spend almost as much time with our children as we do, and as any parent can attest, a good teacher is worth a million dollars. Of course, we can’t make them all millionaires, but it is vitally important that we offer competitive salaries for competitive teachers. We must retain highly qualified teachers, especially those that specialize in specific areas such as advanced students and special needs children.
Our children deserve to be taught by the best teachers that our state can offer and they shouldn’t be taught by distracted teachers who have to take a second or third job just to make financial ends meet. Arizona ranks 27th in the nation for teachers’ salaries. Being in the middle of the pack might not seem so bad but keep in mind that Cochise County has many rural districts, where teacher salaries are much lower than the state average. So our teachers’ salaries are likely well below the national and even state average.
Governor Napolitano has fought hard for teachers pay raises and secured a $100 million teacher pay raise package last year, the largest in state history. She has also proposed a baseline $33K beginning teacher salary this year, plus desperately needed incentives for math and science teachers. These measures have to get through a legislature dominated by Republicans who are often hostile to public education, who have failed to fully fund our public education system, and ultimately fail to provide for our children’s futures.
We are also losing teachers because of educational standards that actually restrict what can be taught rather than gauging what has been learned. Most will agree upon the need for educational standards nationwide. Most realize that there is a point when teachers are teaching so exclusively to math and science standards that they are neglecting the subjects like art and music, subjects critical to a fully educated society.
It’s not just the teachers that keep the schools running. Working tirelessly in the background of any of our public institutions is a network of administrators, bus drivers, food service workers, janitors, security personnel, the list goes on and on, that make our schools clean, safe, structured environments and keep our children’s focus on learning. We must be able to retain these hard workers as well by offering a competitive salary and institutional support.
Children aren’t the only beneficiaries of our public education system. Our educational system should strive to prepare everyone for meaningful employment. This investment in our citizens will ensure that they have less dependence on government subsidies in the future and produce a robust economy in Arizona.
There are dire needs yet to be met in the public school system. It is unwise to spend taxpayer money on private institutions. Governments should not control private institutions. Our public institutions, which do not have the benefit of private tuition money, need more public funding.
The Arizona legislature will put education at the top of their priority list as soon as Arizona voters make it their priority at the ballot box. A healthy educational system leads to skilled workers, home-grown innovators and a robust economy. We must demand from our government the kind of fully funded public programs and competitively paid teachers and support staff that the future of our state deserves.
