The education disconnect

There was this article from the Arizona Republic about students who want the Board of Regents to freeze tuition in the face of increases that the Universities are seeking. I have written about this several times and I am not sure I much more to say other than I still don't understand how smart people can be so stupid.

Our Republican friend, Espresso Pundit has a pretty good entry about this topic here. I think his analysis is pretty close to the mark. The simple fact is that if you want more people in Arizona with bachelors degree raising tuition is not the way to get there.

In general, I am a big advocate of Arizona and Phoenix. I don't buy into all of the negativity about us being last in everything. However, the one area the I think Arizona is really deficient is university/college education. ASU, NAU and UofA are all fine schools, but there is not nearly enough choice in the state to satisfy a vibrant growing economy.

When I lived in Georgia (pop. 9,363,941) there were 20 colleges/universities just in Atlanta. Of those, about there are 7 major institutions (Georgia Tech, Emory, Georgia State, Morehouse, Agnes Scott, Ogelthorpe and Spelman). That does not count the rest of the state which probably had half a dozen Universities, including the University of Georgia. The beauty of the system there (besides it being mostly free because of the HOPE Scholarship) is that there is broad range of colleges and programs through out the state. There are 5 laws schools (two top tier, two middle tier, one bottom tier). There are probably 5 MBA programs just in Atlanta. I am not trying to rub it in, but this is what a state looks like when they take the link between economic growth and education seriously.


If Arizona wants to become a state with diverse economy with a lot of variability it must offer more education opportunities. Companies are still flocking to Atlanta in spite of the fact that the city is running out of water and that it is nightmare to live there. Build it and they will come...

It's the mismangement stupid, part II

Yesterday I wrote about the mismanagement of Andrew "the douche" Thomas' office. Today will switch to Joe "dime bag" Arpaio. The Arizona Republic has these two articles (one and two) about cut backs in the Sheriffs office. Yesterday, Joe closed the county police training academy to outside police forces to save money. In typical fashion, he had no regard for anything except his own gigantic ego. He left police forces scrambling to find training for their new officers since closed up shop without notice.


Mostly small cities were affected by the charge and luckily Phoenix stepped up and offered spots in their police academy to the affected cities.

The second article is about Joe trying to get his drunken sailor spending under control. He is making cuts all over the department, I will get to those in a second. Interestingly, Sheriff Joe had his stupid tank at the parade in Tempe last week. In typical Dime bag fashion PR always trumps actual law enforcement. Here is what he is planning to cut:

1. They will not hire 25 new deputies.


2. They will not hire 200 new detention officers.


3. They shortened jail visitation hours (which makes it difficult to inmates to exercise their constitutional to have access to council).


4. They have already cut back on transporting prisoners to court.

To me this is just stunning... Maricopa County's population will not stop growing over the next year, but the county jails and law enforcement will. I know a lot of people think Sheriff Joe is keen because he so mean to prisoners and a self-promoting media whore (BTW -- The shortest distance between any two points is wherever Sheriff Joe is standing and the nearest news crew camera :)), but I think I would just prefer a properly managed Sheriffs office. Once again, this is not partisan to me (at least not entirely). Law enforcement is too important to be left amateurs and political hacks. Maricopa County, in my opinion, is pretty well run and deserves two really boring competent law enforcement official to take their jobs and disappear into the background to do their work.

The Nanny state strikes...

I have not had a lot of time to write lately, but I could not resist this article in the Arizona Republic. The Maricopa County health inspector is cracking down on grannies and their bake sales. While I am sure that the health inspector is well within its rights to regulate bake sales, I am not sure it is the best use of resources. There is a difference between blindly enforcing the law and prudence. My feeling is that if you are regulating an area as a public official you should strive to protect the public as best possible while causing the least disruption.

I am sure Andy Thomas would love to give everyone the death penalty, but it does not make it prudent. There are sometimes and I know this is a slippery slope, when things should just be left alone. This is a solution in search of a problem...

Thomas Watch: It's the mismangement stupid...

Sorry for the delay in writing, but I have been too busy. There was this today in the Arizona Republic about the ongoing debacle involving Andrew "the douche" Thomas and the New Times.
Poor Andy suffers from the same inability to do the job he was elected to do as George Bush. At a minimum the government has to do a few things and prosecuting criminals is one of them. No one expects an elected official to be saintly, but we would like competence. Using a political office as a stepping stone is somewhat expected, but when you are playing with peoples lives (life and death in some instances), it is not acceptable to be overly political.

Andy, you are a political hack... I don't care who replaces you as long they are an experienced prosecutor with more allegiance to justice than to seeking higher office (see scruples in the dictionary).

UPDATE: The judge ruled that Thomas' office did not follow proper procedures when it issued the subpoenas.

A Democrat's Lament needs contributors!

I am looking to add another blogger to my site for a variety of reasons: First, to increase the content. Second, I would like another view point. Third, I am increasingly busy. Like last week when I could do no blogging at all.

I work about 10 hour/day and writing early in the morning and late at night is tough. As many of you know, my blog is anonymous. I would like to keep it that way at least for now, but I will leave it up to you whether you want to remain anonymous. However, I would have to know your identity. If you are interested in local Arizona politics and want a platform, drop me a line (ademlament@gmail.com). I would like to improve coverage of local elections particularly in Maricopa County, but primarily the blog covers all things about Arizona Politics (with special focus on people like Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio lately, a la Thomas Watch) Traffic at the site is constantly creeping up and slowly becoming a blog that people seek out on certain issues.

The only qualifications are that you are able to write reasonably well and (yes) you have to be a Democrat (it is not Libertarian's lament after all). My only requirement time wise is that you write at least three entries per week. I would be willing to have more than one person help. This is my second request for contributors so far the potential contributors I have heard from have not panned out, so I am still looking.

Thanks,

A Democrat's Lament

Obama's breathtaking speech in Iowa

I have been around politics for a longtime and I am justifiably cynical. I have been disappointed many times, so it takes a lot to get me fired up by political candidate. I would recommend that anyone who plan on voting in the Presidential Preference Primary in Arizona watch this video (please excuse the fundraising plea attached). Even if you are determined to vote for another candidate, Obama's speech is a thing to behold. I cannot imagine another candidate in the race giving this good of a speech.


I am not sure if our vote will matter by the time Arizona its primary, but this makes me even more sure that Obama is a good choice for our nominee.

Robert Robb wants to know why silly voters do not like vouchers

Here is Robb's latest column from the Arizona Republic addressing the lack of support for vouchers. He thinks the evidence is pretty clear that vouchers are a really good thing. I won't address the specifics of the information he cites, but I will explain to him why voters don't like vouchers.

In in a nutshell Mr. Robb, voters do not trust your party when it comes something as important as education. People will gamble on a lot of things when it comes to government policy, but gambling with your child's future and education is a hard sell. There is also the problem that most people see through the disingenuous motives of many voucher supporters. I do not think you could deny that at least a portion of the coalition built up around vouchers has only two goals: ending free public education and breaking teachers unions.

Your coalition lacks the earnestness to make vouchers work. You don't believe that government can do anything right and your party is far too concerned with think tank theories to fashion a pragmatic solution in the likely possibility that your program will not work as advertised. In short, your party has lost its credibility. The Democratic Party has some issues around credibility as well, but right now voters trust us more. If we can clean up some of the mess created by your party, maybe, just maybe we can regain some of the trust lost during your party's reign.

If you want vouchers, here is my suggestion for you and your party. Make something work. Prove to voters that your party can do something right. Be earnest about wanting to improve peoples lives and admit that vouchers may not be a magic bullet. Make sure voters know that no matter what you will find a way to provide their child an education (even if vouchers don't work). Maybe then voters would support your idea...

Michael Nowakowski: Why he won

This article was in the Arizona Republic yesterday trying to explain Laura Pastor's loss in her race for Phoenix City Council.

This is really campaigns 101. The Nowakowski campaign was doing grassroots door to door campaigning since early in the race. A good indication of this is the first controversy of the race, the handheld devices being used for door to door campaigning. I thought it was interesting that the Pastor campaign complained to the AZ Democratic Party, but did not try to get the devices from party for their own use. The implication is that even back then the Nowakowski campaign was going door to door in a systematic way and collecting the results for GOTV.

I think Pastor was running as an incumbent. It is bad when a de facto incumbent is forced into a runoff. The first election showed the extent of her support. The people that did not vote for Pastor before the runoff were looking for an alternative. The runoff eliminated all of the alternatives to Pastor except Nowakowski.


Finally, almost anyone can win a low turnout election. If you have a strong GOTV operation you can win, it is that simple. A good example in contrast is Raul Grijalva's first race for Congress. The Grijalva people are known for their grassroots campaigns and for taking nothing for granted. Grijalva won a multi-candidate primary without much support from the Democratic establishment by running a superior grassroots campaign and GOTV operation. He found a strong base of support and turned them out. (BTW -- They still do this every election. )


Here are couple things to remember about any election:

1. Winners usually have a campaign plan and they stick to it.


2. To be successful campaigns have to communicate with voters to determine the level of support and to influence undecided voters.


3. Early vote operations are more important than Election Day. Most elections in Arizona are won in the weeks before election day.


4. If you are not available when the press calls your point of view will not be represented. See the New Times Article about the race.


5. Respond quickly and vigorously to attacks.
   
6. The only endorsements that matter are ones that bring you resources (money, staff or boots on the ground like the Firefighters and UNITE HERE), everything else is just inside baseball for people like me (and anyone who reads this blog).
7. Do not believe your own press. No matter what the political establishment thinks, you are not inevitable until you actually have more votes. Until the votes are cast, you should work like you are 4 points down and act as though every vote counts.

I know many Pastor supporters are upset (I know, I have gotten my share of hate mail from them), but Laura Pastor's political career does not have to be over. She still has a lot to offer and she can win another office, if she learns the lessons of this campaign. The press loves writing the story about a political candidate overcoming defeat (After all, Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton and Abraham Lincoln all lost their first race for public office). The Pastor family still has a lot of offer Arizona.

College Tuition (how to get it wrong)

This article from the Arizona Republic covers the controversial topic of tuition increases at ASU and I assume U of A. Regular readers of my site know how I feel about this topic, education should be free, end of story. The economic benefits of free University education easily outweigh any costs, but that is not what I want write about today.

Here is the quote I want to talk about:

University officials say the initial hikes are an attempt to bring tuition at Arizona universities more in line with tuition at other public universities. Nationwide, tuition and fees are averaging $6,185 this year at four-year public universities, according to the College Board. UA, which currently is the costliest for undergraduates among the three state universities, charges $5,037 in tuition and fees.

I was nearly speechless when I read the quote above. Let me see if I have this logic straight: You are raising tuition, not because of increasing costs, new programs or too little funding from the Legislature. You are raising it because it is below the national average? Our tax burden in Arizona is also below the national average will you be raising that as well? Foolish me, I thought tuition was based on the actual costs of providing an education, not on how much you think you can squeeze out of parents.

The point of having a public university is to make the education as affordable as possible, hence the tax dollars they get for their operation. It is not a for profit business where you charge as much as possible based on the prevailing market rate.

If there was a smart and ambitious politician looking for a good issue, they would see the political hay to be made by helping parents pay for college. The HOPE scholarship kept Democrats in power in Georgia for two election cycles longer they should have been there. I hear many of my liberal friends criticize the South, but most of them don't realize that many kids go to college for free in Georgia. I don't see that happening in Massachusetts... (or Arizona).

Arizona's dumbest law strikes again... (We don't need no education)

The Arizona Republic has this article and this article about the failure of many of the override ballot props up for a vote last night. These override elections are stupid. School districts have elected boards that can be recalled and defeated in subsequent elections if they raise taxes too much.

Even Tom Horne sees this as potentially catastrophic:

Arizona schools chief Tom Horne said that if the districts do not persuade voters to change their minds, they will face "catastrophic" cuts that could reduce teacher pay, increase class size and leave new schools without desks.

This change will reduce funding by about $70 million over 3 years for the affected school districts. Arizona already has one of the lowest spending per pupal averages in the US. We cannot let this spending cut happen. It is time to overturn this stupid, counterproductive, think tank conceived law. Here is some of my previous writing on the subject. Here are my previous entries on education.

We need to decide whether we want Arizona to be competitive economically and properly fund the activities or whether really want a low tax and tiny government haven. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Thomas Watch: Andy draws a possible opponent

The Arizona Republic has this article about the first possible challenger to Andy "the douche" Thomas. I do not know much about Gerald Richards, but I would vote for just about anyone over the douche.

Mr. Richards seems qualified. He currently works as Administrative Director in the Phoenix Police Department, he served as a Deputy County Attorney, Chair of the Arizona Supreme Court Commission on Minorities and he strikes the right tone.

"I believe that it's time for a concentration of prosecution over politics and a consensus builder to bridge the gap between law enforcement, the courts and the community," he said. Recent controversies out of Thomas' office have given the community insight into why a new county attorney is needed, he said, referring to the recent arrests of two New Times executives ordered by Thomas' office.

I know I make a lot of snarky comments about Thomas, but seriously we need a less political County Attorney. CAs have the power to destroy peoples lives, a duty to protect us from criminals and that should not be taken lightly. Everyone in Maricopa County should have faith in the fairness and impartiality of the execution of such an important office.

Michael Nowakowski wins!

Here are the results of the Phoenix District 7 city council race:

It is not uncommon for a second place finisher to win a runoff. While Pastor picked a few % points Nowakowski picked up the rest. I find it particularly interesting that the number of voters actually increased for the runoff. My guess is that Nowakowski had a really strong GOTV effort (Pastor probably did too). Kudos to the Nowakowski Campaign for a job well done.

As many of you know, I preferred Nowakowski as a candidate and I am glad that he won. I think it is good for Phoenix that we will not have a political dynasty. Having said that, I think Laura Pastor has a lot to offer the city, I wish her the best and congratulate her on well run race.

Ward Connerly comes to Arizona (for no particular reason)

The Arizona Republic has this article about the anti-affirmative action initiative making its way onto the ballot. I find attitudes towards Affirmative Action fascinating. I can think of few issues that have more misconceptions associated with them. This leads to unintended consequences...

One misconception of affirmative action is that it only helps minority groups at the expense of poor white men. In college admissions in particular, men are under performing women in both qualifications for undergraduate and graduate schools, but also in the sheer number of applications. Therefore many schools have to give preference to men to balance their classes. There was a study in Georgia (sorry I cannot find it) that looked the likely outcomes of eliminating all preferences (including legacies much to the consternation of many of the people that supported the change). Basically the change would mean that the flagship liberal arts universities would have been around 65% women and primarily from 3 counties. Just so you know Georgia has 159 counties.

My favorite portion of the article is below:

University officials say it could have less impact on schools here than in California because gender and race generally are not admission factors. But some programs, such as Arizona's law schools, can take race and gender into consideration along with many other criteria. Supporters of the initiative maintain that colleges use race and gender for admission more often than they let on.

and this

Connerly said he doubts the universities' claims that they don't use race or gender in admitting students, although he has no specific examples."I have no doubt that race is somehow a subliminal factor in the consideration," he said.

If race is a 'subliminal factor' how would that be eliminated by law?

SHOCKER: Sheriff's office mismanaged

How could it be true? Sheriff Joe "Dime Bag" Arpaio is already $1 million over budget. Joe Arpaio's office is so badly over budget that he decided to stop transporting prisoners into some courts (one of the his few legally mandated duties). He is slowing down the wheels of justice, so where is Maricopa Country Attorney Andrew "The douche" Thomas' complaint? Maybe he should sue the Sheriff because he is biased against the County Attorney's prosecutions (by not transporting them to court).

When do we rid ourselves of this no-nothing tool? How is this one explained away my right-wing friends? Where is the superior management that all Republicans supposedly possess? Where is the fiscal responsibility? Or have you just come to accept Joe as the media whore blow hard that he really is?

Anti-tax crusaders are just dumb

I have talked about issues like this so many times that I have become weary. I would like to institute a rule that would require anyone wanting to change the tax structure to actually understand how government is funded and how it works.

Oh yeah, here is the article

And yes, they are running an initiative that would freeze property taxes in Arizona. It would work in a similar manner to the disastrous prop 13 from California. Maricopa and Pinal counties in particular would be hurt by this. It would likely just force tax increases in other areas.

California public schools, which in the 1960s had been ranked #1 nationally in student achievement,[citation needed] have fallen to 48th in many surveys of student achievement.[6] Some have disputed Proposition 13's direct role in the move to state financing of public schools, because schools financed mostly by property taxes were declared unconstitutional in Serrano vs. Priest, and Proposition 13 was then passed partially as a result of that case.[5] California's spending per pupil was the same as the national average until about 1985, when it began dropping, which led to another referendum, Proposition 98, that requires a certain percentage of the state's budget to be directed towards education.[3]
Public libraries have seen a decrease in funding from cities.[5] Fire departments were gutted because of a drastic loss of funds.[citation needed] Police departments received generally the same amount of funding, from 15% in 1978 to 16% in 1995.[5] Cities also cut water, gas and electricity expenses.[5]
California's Proposition 13 has introduced major problems of equity and efficiency into the state's tax structure.[7] An analytical approach to examining a tax policy is to apply the traditional principles of taxation, including equity, allocative efficiency, revenue yield/elasticity and administrative and political feasibility. Equity reflects the basic values of how our society determines different groups should be treated; these values include horizontal and vertical equity, ability to pay and benefits received. Allocative efficiency refers to the ways in which a tax policy influences changes in private consumption behavior. Revenue yield and elasticity refer to whether a revenue policy has the capacity to increase in the future in order to continue enabling government agencies to meet the demands of its residents. Lastly, administrative and political feasibility refer to whether a tax policy can be implemented and enforced with relatively little effort and is politically possible.
Proposition 13 freezes the value of properties at the time of purchase with a possible two percent annual assessment increase. Therefore, properties of equal value have a great amount of variation in their assessment, even if they are next to each other.[3] Assuming that the price of a house is somewhat a determinant of a person’s wealth (and therefore ability to pay) and benefit received, this feature would lead neighbors or business owners who purchased a property at different periods of time to pay a different assessment, without any relationship to ability to pay or benefits received.[3] Overall, these qualities create serious inequities and potentially introduce some amount of regressivity into the tax structure.[citation needed] (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

A Democrat's Lament needs contributors!

I am looking to add another blogger to my site for a variety of reasons: First, to increase the content. Second, I would like another view point. Third, I am increasingly busy. Like last week when I could do no blogging at all.

I work about 10 hour/day and writing early in the morning and late at night is tough. As many of you know, my blog is anonymous. I would like to keep it that way at least for now, but I will leave it up to you whether you want to remain anonymous. However, I would have to know your identity. If you are interested in local Arizona politics and want a platform, drop me a line (ademlament@gmail.com). I would like to improve coverage of local elections particularly in Maricopa County, but primarily the blog covers all things about Arizona Politics (with special focus on people like Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio lately, a la Thomas Watch) Traffic at the site is constantly creeping up and slowly becoming a blog that people seek out on certain issues.

The only qualifications are that you are able to write reasonably well and (yes) you have to be a Democrat (it is not Libertarian's lament after all). My only requirement time wise is that you write at least three entries per week. I would be willing to have more than one person help. This is my second request for contributors so far the potential contributors I have heard from have not panned out, so I am still looking.

Thanks,

A Democrat's Lament

The Governor is right and (as usual) the Legislature is wrong

There was this article from the East Valley Tribune about the current budget difficulties faced by Governor Napolitano and the legislature. The Republican controlled legislature gets things wrong as usual. The dispute can be summed up as a fight over about $300 million dollars. The governor wants to borrow the money (through bonds) and the legislature wants to cut spending.

I know all my anti-government Libertarians out there do not want to hear it, but cutting government spending in this context is a bad idea. First, borrowing for capital expenditures is the norm and a good practice for government to make large scale capital improvements. The $300 million dollar short fall is mostly intended to be used to build schools (a capital expenditure). Borrowing in this context is smart because it insulates the government somewhat from uneven revenue.

Here is the problem with cutting government spending in Arizona, we are always behind the curve of our growth. This means that our revenue growth trails our expenditures. If we keep government expenditures the same, we are actually falling behind because of growth. If we lived in the North East where growth is flat or declining it might be a different story.

I think a smart way to think of it is as a per unit cost. The unit being a person. Our government's costs on the state and local level increase with every resident. The revenue also increases, but not immediately. A person would have to live here a year before they would pay full taxes in Arizona.

Another thing to look out for is the state cutting state shared revenue to cities. This is the legislature's favorite budget balancing trick (along with stealing DSH funds from Maricopa County Hospital). In a nutshell, cities and counties are promised a certain % of revenue from the state. This was put in place when the state prohibited cities from having an income tax. Unfortunately, the legislature can cut the amount to balance their budget. This forces the real cuts to the cities. Way to pass the buck guys!

My pet peeve: Why I would never vote for Hillary (in the primary)

John Edward's campaign posted this video today of Hillary Clinton's ever present politician speak. One my biggest pet peeves with political candidates is the inability to answer even a simple question. I am not naive about the realities of politics, but I don't think equivocating and parsing every question helps politically. I watched the debate from which they pulled the video and have to say it is a pretty accurate (although somewhat out of context) portrait of her performance.

BTW - I think Hillary's campaign is making a big mistake by playing the poor girl getting beat up by mean men card. I personally think Hillary is pretty damn tough and that she can take it. Being the front-runner is tough, just ask Howard Dean.

It makes me wonder how Iowa will shake out and what affect it will have on Arizona's primary.

Should there be rights that you cannot give away?

I saw this interesting entry over at the Consumerist about binding arbitration invading every part of our lives. It got me to thinking about the nature of rights in business transactions. Would we be better off as consumers if there were rights that could be eliminated by contract?

Obviously, there are already many things that cannot be forced on you in a contract. I am no lawyer, but surely they could not force you to cough up a pound of flesh for missing a car payment (or maybe they could?). If most contracts force binding arbitration and they are virtually unavoidable, are you willingly agreeing to those terms? If you have no other choice, isn't it some sort of de facto coercion. Sure, you could forgo credit cards, building anything, buying a car, getting a cell phone, but is that a reasonable position?

Tort reform is often cited as a solution to many of these problems, but I cannot support tort reform in any form I have seen presented. I can understand the frustration with outlandish lawsuits, but I also value the protection affording by being able to sue. There are two things about tort reform that are important: First, how do you limit liability, but still successfully punish companies that knowingly endanger consumers? Second, I think much of the perception about outlandish lawsuits is overblown. Many jury verdicts are overturned on appeal. The media hypes these decisions, but then gives much less coverage when they are overturned. It seems that the system could use a tweak, not an overhaul.

Like all things related to public policy you cannot avoid bad outcomes all together. If you pass tough tort reform, many consumers will suffer without recourse. Under the current system, some companies will suffer from frivolous lawsuits (like when another company sues over a bogus patent).