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

I must admit, I was very excited when I read the headline that Maricopa County is the fastest-growing county in the nation. It’s not because more is always better; it’s because people from across the country are learning what I’ve known since I was a little boy wandering around my family’s car dealership in Mesa. Maricopa County is a uniquely special place to raise a family, run a business and live a quality life.

I am convinced that Governor Ducey’s proposed plan for higher education provides our best option for creating the future we all want to share.

Charter and private schools are here for the foreseeable future. The right answer is for leaders of the public school system to adopt what the “parallel schools” are doing right to help raise the performance of the traditional public-schools.

We all know about reading, writing and arithmetic, but have you ever thought about the importance of our children learning civics? Arizona is leading a push to make sure civics is a part of our curricula. In 2015, Governor Ducey and legislators made sure students had to pass a civics test to graduate from high school. That begins with this year’s senior class. Arizona was the first state in the nation to make this requirement.

It is time for Arizonans to take a hard look at who really benefits from school choice. While some families may want tax-payer funded options, the dizzying array of choices, combined with lax oversight and weak laws, make Arizona’s taxpayers easy marks for profiteering on the taxpayers’ dime.

On a blog maintained by the Network for Public Education, a blogger recently attacked BASIS.ed and BASIS Charter Schools with a series of falsehoods and innuendo. Ordinarily, we would not dignify such errors with a response, but as the Arizona Capitol Times was going to publish it, and offered us a response, we felt compelled to do so, with facts.

The number of third graders who don’t pass the reading exam in Arizona would fill every seat of Chase Field, with 5,000 kids still waiting in line outside!

It is not appropriate to target fellow government entities that rely on tax dollars to fund core government functions.

What the governor neither allows nor admits is the likelihood of economic chaos and material suffering such a move will cause – for Arizonans and for Americans from coast to coast.

While I’m enjoying the drink (responsibly, of course), nothing is better than chips and guacamole. The ingredients are likely from both sides of the border. The avocados probably come from Mexico, the onions from the US, and the tomatoes are a jump ball.