Pardon the noise - the soothing sounds of Capitol traffic are back this week, but so are our reporters with the latest.

The will of taxpayers is being evoked by both sides in the debate over a bill that would require school districts to sell property to charter or private schools when they are the highest bidders.

The head of the statewide teachers union said Wednesday a strike may be necessary to get salaries closer to where he believes they should be. But not this year.

The Arizona Association of School Business Officials may be out, but the lawsuit over school capital funding needs marches on.

When 60,000 students are without a full-time, certified teacher due to our state’s crushing teacher shortage, Arizona is clearly not living up to its obligation of providing a quality public education to our children.

Arizona’s teachers union called for a 20 percent pay raise for all educators in the state, arguing that if it’s good enough for Gov. Doug Ducey’s deputies, it’s good enough for teachers.

Teachers in Arizona are getting second jobs not because they’re struggling to survive on their low pay, but because they want to enjoy the finer things in life, like boats, according to House Majority Leader John Allen.

Each year without failure since the onset of the Great Recession, Democrats have denounced cuts to public education and clamored for more funding for K-12 schools, a demand that has gotten louder as the state’s economy improves.

Gov. Doug Ducey’s Classrooms First Council, which is charged with overhauling the formulas used to fund public schools, ended its grand unveiling of its finding with more questions than answers. But its members did agree on several broad priorities, including somehow finding a way to equalize the funding formulas between district and charter schools.

Before leaving office, former Gov. Jan Brewer urged Arizona lawmakers to settle a nearly $2 billion dispute over inflation funding for K-12 education. Gov. Doug Ducey, in his State of the State address in January, pleaded with lawmakers to settle the case as well.