Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The Senate leadership is pushing to officially introduce and pass a budget proposal this week, multiple sources told the Arizona Capitol Times on Monday.

Gov. Jan Brewer says she's going to resist cuts to education funding that would be deeper than those she herself included in her proposed budget.

Sen. Andy Biggs wants Arizona’s universities to have the freedom to choose their own paths, but critics of his plan worry that such freedom will incite more infighting than innovating.

Nine days after he unveiled an ambitious plan to improve the state’s public schools, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal had a vision of elephants and Alps and Roman legions.

At a time when one-in-eight students in Arizona qualify for English language services, the state has made controversial and — according to the federal government – possibly unlawful changes to its language education program.

School enrollment numbers have been dropping consistently since 2007 in many Phoenix districts with large Hispanic populations. Superintendents partially blame the economy for this decrease, but they say Arizona’s employer sanctions law in 2007 and SB 1070 in 2010 cracking down on illegal immigrants are also key factors.

An Arizona legislator is proposing that the state board that oversees the entire public university system be eliminated and replaced with separate boards of trustees for each state university.

The state Department of Education in May 2010 released an audit, charging that 105 students, some of whom are U.S. citizens, are attending schools in Ajo but are actually living across the border in Mexico and not entitled to a free education in Arizona schools. The state fined the Ajo Unified $1.2 million, the amount the state claims was spent to educate those students.

If Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal has his way, Arizona will look a lot like Florida – at least in the classroom.

A state lawmaker is pushing for a law requiring school employees to report and document bullying.