Friday, January 27th, 2006...6:56 am
Republicans: Underprivileged Kids = Big Bucks
I posted a blurb about Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Sandra Dowling a few days ago. Now I’m hearing more about the story, and it should outrage every citizen of this state.
Dowling, in addition to her other duties as Superintendent, is the sole member of the board of what is called the Maricopa County Regional School District. This district manages twelve schools, seven of which are alternative schools and includes three that serve the homeless. Because of the quality and profile of these programs, they have managed to raise private money.
Turns out, both the Attorney General and Maricopa County Sheriff have been investigating Dowling’s office for mispending and mishandling the district’s funds to the tune of at least $3,000,000. There are also the allegations of bid-rigging and nepotism. Ah, the joys of one party Republican rule!
The trouble became public for Dowling when she had a tiff with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. She refused to open her books so that the Board, which has fiduciary responsibility, could see if there was any debt that they could be responsible for. This all came to a head when the Board had to subpoena the District’s books earlier this month.
By the way, State School Superintendent Tom Horne investigated too, and said that the shortfall was “justified.” One hand washes another.
Dowling is claiming that this is all politically motivated and over sensationalized. Knowing Sheriff Arpaio, he probably did something over the top to get into the papers, but I can’t see how losing three to four million dollars to educate homeless kids is no big deal.
This story comes on the heels of the silliness at the State Legislature over the English Language Learners bill. The Republicans insist that they are justified in trying to put corporate tuition tax credits in the bill, which just gives the Governor reason to veto it. This isn’t working for them, but they keep trying it anyway. They want to use this bill, which is supposed to help immigrant students learn English, as a way to fund a massive corporate tax giveaway. Either they think the public supports such a move, or they think that people are too stupid to notice.
Well, people are noticing:
Survey USA poll for KPNX, 335 responses:
“Do you think Gov. Napolitano has handled the ELL situation the right way?”
48% Right Way
39% Wrong Way
14% Not Sure“Do you think the Arizona legislature has handled the ELL situation the right way?”
27% Right Way
61% Wrong Way
12% Not Sure
Yep. Looks like there is a huge groundswell of support in the land for corporate tax credits.
Even without the tax credits, both bills that the Governor vetoed were deeply flawed and would probably have been rejected by the judge in the case. The bill counts money that schools are recieving, from, say Youth Opporitunity or No Child Left Behind grants, against their ELL money, whether or not that money is being or can be spent on English Language Learners. It also uses that money to mask how little is actually being allocated by the bill. Further, it forces districts to go to a board of political appointees to ask for the money. All Napolitano did was veto the bill before the judge could look at it. Jim Weiers and company ought to thank her for saving them the embarassment of having the judge publicly scold them.
Some other random thoughts that I have: I have heard Weiers use words like “dictator” when describing the Governor’s actions. This is silly, since near as I can tell, the state constitution allows the Governor to veto bills. Of course, unlike Mr. Weiers, I have actually read the state constitution.
I find it funny that a group of people that are elected from highly gerrymandered districts and that have shown little regard for the rights of the legislative minority (even attempting to silence some members last session) are now squaking about an anti-democratic power grab. It seems that the Governor and her vetoes are far more representative of the majority in this state than these ideological bills that the Republican leadership is pushing.
Also, someone told me that Rep. Jonathan Paton was interviewed on Channel 12 up in Phoenix and said something like “this bill isn’t that important.” An $850,000,000 tax giveaway is not important? Gawd, I know you are a reasonable guy (for a Republican.) What Kool-Aid do they make you drink up there, Jonathan?
7 Comments
January 27th, 2006 at 8:26 am
migod - polishmexican
maybe it’ll only take 2 to change that lightbulb now
Uncle Frank
temujin41@snet.net
January 27th, 2006 at 8:51 am
first of all, let me say i’m not the anonymous who posted the first comment … whatever the heck that was.
anyhow, the depth of Weiers ignorance on the workings of government and its citizens comes as no surprise to me ever since i saw this attorney general opinion he asked for. He apparently felt the need to ask the AG if Navajos were eligble to serve in appointed state office because he was unaware that they are citizens of this state.
I’m not kidding! See the opinion here.
http://www.azag.gov/opinions/2003/I03-007.pdf
January 27th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Ted, first, your link to the story seems to be broken. As for school administrators wasting money, why in heck do you think the right-side-of-the-aisle bitches about just throwing dollar after dollar at education? We have a deep-felt belief that public school administrators blow too much of the money on nice offices and other silliness rather than spending the money in the classrooms and educating the kids. Why else would we be for private schools, school vouchers, AIMs testing, accountability in the schools, merit based pay, be anti-Teachers’ Union and the like? Apparently, Dowling may be evidence to justify our beliefs.
Additionally, if you want to bitch about one party rule, let’s make ALL elections in the state partisan elections. Funny, where the Dems are weak, they bitch for non-partisan elections, like in Phoenix and Maricopa County. But where the Dems are strong, they make the elections partisan, like in Tucson. Tell you what, make ALL elections partisan, THEN when some REPUBLICAN school admin wastes money, you can blame Republicans all day long AND I’LL SUPPORT YOU!
Yep, Dowling is a Republican. However, she administers the Pappas school for the homeless. That school has gotten praise upon praise. Perhaps if the schools under her care were doing poor, I’d be more response to your bitching. Such is not the case.
Let’s see Dem administrators run schools that get endless praise. We know that the inner cities are largely Dem and their school boards are overwhelmingly Dem. We also know that by-and-large, inner city schools suck. I posit that if those inner city schools were run by Rs, they’d be doing a hell of a lot better, like the Pappas school, even if there is corruption.
If she’s doing corrupt things, she needs to go nevertheless. I’m just not as concerned about it because her schools do well. Look, the leftists in Canada got thrown out of power in Canada, the Congress has some scandal swirling about, Fatah got thrown out due to corruption, we’re seeing it all over the world. The message isn’t that right-wingers are bad, it’s that GOVERNMENT is bad. Yet the lefties want more and more government. I think we should throw all the bums out and hold new elections right now, but we’ll have to wait until November, won’t we?
As for Horne, he’s a RINO, philandering sack of crap and I helped Dean Martin oust his butt the first time. He voted all too often with the Ds when he was a Senator. I voted against him in the General Election when he ran for Superintendant. He should be barred from holding office in the state, but the unwashed proletariat believed otherwise. OF COURSE Horne is gonna protect school administrators! He’s been in bed with that industry all along! He was a School Board member for Phoenix, he’s pro-Teachers’ Union, etc. Horne should be labeled a D and we all know it. Don’t try to pin Horne’s modearate shenanigans on the Rs…we hate him.
January 27th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
The problem is that some people are corrupt–not the institutions. People get away with corruption in government because most voters and the media aren’t doing what’s needed to force government to be honest. Same thing holds for stockholders and corporations. Same thing holds for any institution–church, union, etc.
The present federal government is the prime example of this. Our present federal debt is approximately $8 trillion or so, with some of this money owed to China. Both parties have played a major part in producing this debt–but we, the citizens, are ultimately to blame for this.
A prime example of this corruption is President Bush and Company. Bush says, “You know how to spend your money much better than the government does,” and he keeps passing numerous tax cuts. But to do this, he has to BORROW money on our kids’ credit card. So, in reality, he’s not giving us back our own money; he’s borrowing from our kids [by adding to the federal debt]to give us a tax cut. This borrowing is to the tune of $300-$400 billion a year. Last time I checked, approximately 15% of the federal budget goes towards paying just the interest on this debt.
Ultimately our kids and grandkids will have to pay this bill and they weren’t consulted. If this isn’t totally corrupt, what the hell is?
January 30th, 2006 at 9:08 am
CC Burro, what’s more corrupt than all the spending? How about instead of borrowing to pay for the debt, raising taxes as the Dummycrats always do? Look, the conservatives are not all that happy with Bush because of his spending. That’s why when we see the RSC propose Operation Offset and the like, we’re all behind it. BTW, if I were emperor of the US, I’d ensure we spent below projected receipts and I’d be sure that AT LEAST $100 Billion per year were spent on debt reduction. Even if I were to get that kind of dictate passed, it’d take 80 some-odd years to pay the debt back! That’s an outrage!
And as for your individuals, not institutions comment, you better tell your red media buddies that, because instead of labeling the individual R and D members of Congress who took Abramoff money, or money from his associates, they just parrot, “Republican scandal! Republican scandal!” ceaselessly.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
they just parrot, “Republican scandal! Republican scandal!”
Dude, it is a Repubilcan scandal. All of the Abramoff money went to Republicans. As for the tribes that he was advising, donations to democrats actually went down after he started advising them. The Repubilcans own the Abramoff scandal, and it owns them.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Sadly I have to say that the charges being leveled at Sandra Dowling are true. The district is a mess, the quality of education is poor (no social studies, science, PE, art, music, library, or computer classes), there aren’t enough staff members at the schools, there is drug use by the students while at the school, families put their kids in the schools just for the free services and clothes, and Dowling gives special treatment to her friends and family (her daughter is Dean of Students at the middle school even though she is not qualified for the position). The county or state needs to take over the district (most of the employees would welcome it) and let Sandra Dowling stick to what she was elected to do.
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