Governor Ducey Education Increases (Gilbert: sales, private schools, property tax)

[sh9730]

As I have always said - it is nice to see a politician try and address ISSUES rather than party. I don't agree with everything our Governor does - but I do like that he tries to tackle issues in a businesslike way.

400,000,000 in education funding in this year's budget. Hopefully he will get it all as it goes through the process.

And remember, I am center RIGHT - not a lefty. But it is a fact that our education budget has been in need of improvement. Money doesn't fix everything - but we have had the pendulum swinging too far the other way for too long.

Glad to see him try and deal with it in a budget minded fashion. He is not asking for additional taxes to accomplish this - just shifting priorities.

I appreciate some of his other "non-traditional" initiatives as well. On both sides.

[ajonesaz]

Now lets see if that money makes it to the teachers or not.

Education isn't a left or right thing. Even people on the right are getting frusterated with the state of education. Even Gilbert, a republican strong hold voted overwhelmingly to voluntarily increase our property tax for education.

[Burning Madolf]

Originally Posted by ajonesaz

Now lets see if that money makes it to the teachers or not.

Exactly. The skeptic in me says there will be a mad rush of stupid ideas on how to do everything else under the sun that won't include better educating kids.

[Hoonose]

Originally Posted by ajonesaz

Now lets see if that money makes it to the teachers or not.

Education isn't a left or right thing. Even people on the right are getting frusterated with the state of education. Even Gilbert, a republican strong hold voted overwhelmingly to voluntarily increase our property tax for education.

Education has always been higher up on the to do list of liberals.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by sh9730

As I have always said - it is nice to see a politician try and address ISSUES rather than party. I don't agree with everything our Governor does - but I do like that he tries to tackle issues in a businesslike way.

400,000,000 in education funding in this year's budget. Hopefully he will get it all as it goes through the process.

And remember, I am center RIGHT - not a lefty. But it is a fact that our education budget has been in need of improvement. Money doesn't fix everything - but we have had the pendulum swinging too far the other way for too long.

Glad to see him try and deal with it in a budget minded fashion. He is not asking for additional taxes to accomplish this - just shifting priorities.

I appreciate some of his other "non-traditional" initiatives as well. On both sides.

Overall, Ducey is a much better Governor than Brewer and Napolitano, but he's wrong about education. I'm also center right, but I'm also a Libertarian who is staunchly against government being involved in matters which could easily be funded and managed by private entities ... education & health care are two of them. The public education system is failed & broken, and is enormously expensive. At this point, the LAST thing we need to do is throw more government money into it.

You know very well that his $400 million education budget will not be enough for many people. All you have to do is look at how many school tax increases have been passed by voters in past elections. In fact, some of the largest tax increases in AZ history have been geared specifically for education ... but yet, we keep hearing how we're not spending enough despite the fact that the greatest expenditure in the state budget is public schools! On top of state taxes, we also pay sales taxes and the dreaded property taxes (nearly 70% of which go to public education). After all they money we throw into this beast of a system, the quality is still substandard compared to most private schools.

No, I don't agree at all with Ducey (or you for that matter) about increasing education spending. In order to make education less costly, more efficient, and better managed overall, I seriously believe it needs to be removed entirely from government hands and be privatized. The argument I keep hearing is that K through 12 should be free ... however, it's not free by any means. Somebody is paying for it, and that is the taxpayers. Too many people with kids take advantage of their free education privilege and use the schools as a free babysitting service. If they need a place to plunk their offspring, fine, but they should pay for it with their OWN money ... not with taxpayers' money!