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

As a product of Arizona public schools and former resident, I am saddened by the bill recently passed in the Arizona House of Representatives on March 11 to repeal the implementation of Common Core State Standards.

The joke is on you, Senator Carlyle Begay. You sold your vote, your district and your integrity for one mile of road repair.

It was just a few years ago that Arizona took a positive step forward with the new academic standards in English, language, arts and math: the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards (ACCRS). Since its adoption in 2010, the ACCRS [better known as Common Core] have been implemented throughout the state’s public schools in grades K-12.

How many times are we going to watch this movie? State imposes budget cuts. Recipient fights back. Repeat. Play. Repeat. Play. We’re sick of this movie and have worked diligently to change the script.

Every election, it seems, politicians give lip service to the need for fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget. But once they are in office, they lack the courage and resolve to actually achieve one. It’s always politically more convenient to spend more than we take in, hide growing debt and liabilities through clever accounting tricks, and leave the consequences for someone else to clean up down the road.

Earlier this legislative session, many state lawmakers grilled Charles Flanagan – who was then director of the Department of Child Safety – about why reports of child neglect are still going up. They pointed fingers, made speeches and issued statements about how important it is to protect child safety and reduce child abuse and neglect.

Government overregulation isn’t a friend of either the business community or consumer. I’ve been pleased that many voices from Gov. Doug Ducey to key legislators to community business leaders desire to cut red tape and simplify government policies to promote economic development.

As people of faith, we are united in opposition to any further prison expansion in Arizona. In particular, we are opposed to the practice of incarceration for profit, through contracts with private prison corporations.

The state budget is approved, and many think the battle for public education is over for the year. This coming fall, with the implementation of this new budget, we will reach a crisis with one-half of Arizona’s school children having never attended a classroom fully funded as the voters mandated with the passing of Proposition 301 in 2000.

There is a well-established link between one’s level of educational attainment and social advancement. Unfortunately, the recent drift of the national discussion on higher education, aided by a recent New York Times column by Paul Krugman, questions that correlation