Dust Settled! Outcome Still WIP

As many have read from my past 4 blog posts… I have been actively watching and participating in the #RedforEd movement. Having been there, I have seen and heard many different sides to what was…

For many of the 60K red shirts that marched to the capital (which was one hell of a sight) – they did not do this with any political motive. That does not mean that both sides of the political divide were not using #RedforEd as finger-painting and spreading their messages. What came from this was a very eye-opening experience for many. They quickly got educated on how the budget works, where the money comes from, how many actions take away from funding and the various agenda’s that our individual lawmakers have. Many were doing this because they wanted to improve K-12 public education funding for all. They are pissed off… As I said in other posts, if you poke the bear – that can not end well.

A budget bone was thrown the educators way – in the form of Gov. Ducey and his GOP leadership. Every Democrat amendment to the bill was voted down. Many of those amendments would have tighten down or clarified some of the verbiage.

So, the dust has settled. Teachers and students are back doing what they need to do to finish up their year strong. In my grandkids school district, the student will have to make a total of a half a day. Adding that time to the half day on the last day of school. Teachers will make up everyday they missed during the walkout. All fair!

The overall outcome is a work in progress. The budget was not even close! What we are seeing now are some actions that will either help or hurt getting to the place we all need public education to be..

• We are noticing the increased effort of many of the #RedforED supporters will be doing to insure that those going to the ballot will be more public education friendly. Many voters in the past, never spent as much time understanding where a candidate stands. Voters will be more active in educating themselves and making better choices.
• #InvestinEd is coming to help insure that sustainable funding is in the general fund to insure that true investments will be made in public education.
• Accountability will be coming to our AZ lawmakers for their decisions. Lawmakers will definitely be hearing from the districts voters on how they are doing (or not doing)! The voters should hold those voted in accountable. Town halls, meetings, communications – any method that is available to insure that those be represented are listening and doing the right things. If not, they will be voted out!
• Still missing is an overall overhaul of the total number of districts, how funding is applied, how contracts are awarded and everything that is normally behind the scenes. Do we really need so many districts? Do we really need to have so many different ways to accomplish the same task? It is time to revisit. Time to develop a better, more cost effective method.
• We need to have all changes to funding, removal of funding from the general fund and adding funding to the general fund be voter driven. We need to stop allowing a few develop a plan that can put us in the position we are in today. We need to have more say! Will it take longer to make stuff happen, probably!
• We need to fully understand who is funding the candidates, prop whatever or the negative ads. Dark money needs to be exposed. I can not tell you how many times if we truly knew who was behind this stuff – we can easily see that the actions are for the benefit of more getting richer on our expense. Will some of that still happen? Sure. If we know that it is coming from X or Y, we should uncover the reason as to why! Is that why within what you want or expect?