The University of Arizona must draw on its greatest strength — collective creativity — to withstand the budgetary assault from the Arizona Legislature. That's the message from UA President Robert N. Shelton during his annual state of the university address, anyway.
1. Comment by Phil G. (TitanMx)— November 22,2009 @ 12:38AM
Ratings:-12+12
OK, so the Daily Star hates Republicans, we know that.
You offer no proposed source of money. Word is we have 1-2billion problem this year and as much as $4B next year. You bash Republicans but you offer no solution. Where is the money going to come from, what taxes should be raised by how much? Please, offer your readers the silver bullet that is going to fix this.
Since the state can't print money and we're already way, way in the hole thanks to a recession, you need to give your proposed course of action.
Two of your editorial writers are employees of U of A, a state funded university, a conflict of interest you don't bother to cite in your editorial. Of course your editorial writers will always want more money for their state funded university that they work for.
3. Comment by Cindy L. (ParentX)— November 22,2009 @ 6:49AM
Ratings:-2+11
(#1) I am going to take an educated guess and say that half of the students in our state universities are Republicans.
Education shouldn't be a partisan issue. There are some Republicans in our state legislature who are alarmed by the continuing attack on our public education system, but the "leadership" which currently controls the legislature does not believe that the state should fund it.
Kirk Adams, the House Speaker, told an anti-tax group earlier this year that "we should not appear to be too gleeful" when using this recession as an opportunity to cut back on state spending. (ATRA)
Bob Burns, the Senate President, sent out an "Education Fact Sheet" that was full of outdated, mis-attributed and even false statistics earlier this year. When his office was called out on it by a parent group here in Tucson, a staffer said: "We have the House. we have the Senate, and we have the Governor's office, and - like it or not - we want to privatize education". (AEN)
Think this all sounds ridiculous? Consider this - we all know that Arizona is already ranked as the state that invests the least in education. A ultra-conservative group also pointed out recently that Arizona spent less per student on education in 2006 than we did in 1986. That's right...our legislature was already cutting before this recession to the point that we were already spending less in 2006 than we were 20 years earlier. (ALEC)
2008 was also the first year that we Arizonans spent more on our prison system than we spent for higher education. This, by the way, is not a statistic that is attractive to business. (JLBC)
(#1) - You are right about one thing --our state is in a dire situation. Even if the legislature cuts another couple hundred million from education, it isn't even going to come close to closing the deficit for 2011 (projection = $3.3 BILLION).
There is no more room for ideological games here...The tax structure in our state MUST be reformed and our Arizona Constitution requires our legislators to ensure that there is enough tax revenue to pay for essential services -- we have been cutting for over 20 years and now, at the very least, it is time to close the numerous tax loopholes that drain our general fund. This, however, is politically unsavory and it requires a lot of factual information and hard work. Our current elected representatives know that they can keep us distracted by sound bites and stereotypes. Until we hold them accountable for dealing in FACTS (and stop voting and/or defending them based on a political party), we are in big trouble.
5. Comment by sandra f. (azrabbit)— November 22,2009 @ 7:19AM
Ratings:-0+7
College has traditionally been a safe haven during tough economic times. Students could sit tight, and come out with a marketable degree in better times.
I don't think it will happen this time. We have lost our manufacturing base, we are far over our heads in debt, and our leaders have spent and inflated our currency to near worthless.
I would hate to be having to make the decision today. At best, students will find good jobs and pay off their debt in inflated dollars, thus saving money. At worst--well, who knows.
7. Comment by Jay T. (Jay RT)— November 22,2009 @ 8:23AM
Ratings:-3+7
Our state is letting a few legislators kick our future to the curb with education cuts.
Parents want more education funding, business wants better education for the workforce. The problem seems to be that while the Chamber of Commerce talks about a workforce that is not trained to take the jobs of the future in Arizona. Then the Chamber hires lobbiests to make sure that no business dollars are used for education. If the Chamber wants better education for their workforce then maybe they should recognize that business must participate in education and help pay for it, it is in their own best interest to do this. I know some of you think that the citizens are the only ones that should pay taxes but when business invests in job training these dollars come back to them many times in productivity and better staffing options.
8. Comment by T . (2388)— November 22,2009 @ 8:40AM
Ratings:-0+8
Comment #7 is absolutely correct. There is a conflicting message happening here.
What citizens want is the complete opposite of how Tucson is being promoted to companies considering relocation.
The problem is this; our city is being touted as a low-wage location due to its proximity to the border. I would suggest finding another competitive angle that doesn't negate the efforts to improve our educational standing.
When businesses complain that they can't find enough qualified applicants to fill their open positions, is it any wonder why?
11. Comment by Joseph B. (jberring)— November 22,2009 @ 1:03PM
Ratings:-0+5
First, let’s be clear: The only way toward prosperity in Arizona is through the creation of high-value human capital, particularly in the hard sciences and engineering. This requires university graduates from competent institutions of higher education.
Second, the only institutions of higher education that have the capability and credibility to do so are the three state universities.
Arizona is very unlike states like Texas and California that have private universities that are world class. We have what we have in Arizona and we need to leverage these resources to the greatest effect and benefit for our state and its citizens.
It would be nice to have a Stanford, MIT or Rice here in Arizona, but we don't.
Support for education is embarrassingly bad at all levels in Arizona. Performance and test scores for k-12 are among the nation’s worst; with investment per student and teacher pay at the bottom.
We cannot afford to eviscerate our state’s university system further. We need them to be both academically competitive and catalysts of growth and development. They need to be preferred destinations not only for Arizona high school seniors, but also for out-of-state students.
The out-of-state students should not be drawn to Arizona universities because they are a relative economic bargain. They should be attracted based on the reputation and the programs offered and be willing to pay accordingly.
At the same time, we need to have a very sound, credible k-12 system. In another article in today’s ADS the emphasis seemed to be on increasing the graduation rate of high school dropouts.
This is a very worrisome sign. We need to do more than simply increase the high school graduation rate. We need to set the expectations much higher and create high school students that not only graduate, but are on course to college, not just some trade school where they will be competing against workers from Asia.
Arizona’s universities as well as those from across the country should be vying for our high school graduates based on the overall quality of our state’s educational system.
There are plenty of other non-essential government functions that can be cut from the State’s budget - things that no Arizona would miss if they disappeared or were reduced. Education is not one of them and absent world-class private universities in our state, higher education is not one either.
To continue down the current road will become a race toward the bottom for all Arizonans.
12. Comment by PJ B. (pjburns11)— November 22,2009 @ 1:27PM
Ratings:-2+1
Well, it is good that U of A's greatest strength is collective creativity, bc they have very little when it comes to class. Wildcat fans' behavior last night after the game was shameful. It is time something is done about this at the highest level.
13. Comment by CARL O. (CDIVER)— November 22,2009 @ 3:37PM
Ratings:-2+2
Arizona can immediately save millions of dollars and lives by simply ending all public assistance (welfare) payments to cigarette smokers. Taxpayers are simultaneously subsidizing the living expenses and supporting the addiction of people who are literally burning money in the form of tobacco. Anyone who has money to spend on smoking neither needs nor deserves tax dollars for free food, subsidized housing, government daycare, and so on. An average pack a day smoker spends over $1800 a year on their cigarettes alone and an idle, unemployed nicotine addict obviously spends even more. The governor of Arizona already has sent a representative to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of Health and Human Services to prohibit purchase of soda, candy bars, etc with food stamps. The logic is impeccable and compelling: food stamps are for nutrition not junk food, while cigarette smokers have money for their nicotine addiction so they don’t need food stamps.
Also, a third of all Americans live in California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin and these 10 states on the verge of financial collapse also generate one out of three dollars of U.S. gross domestic product. For these reasons alone cigarette smokers who want to squander money on nicotine addiction while being on the public dole don’t merit any sympathy.
15. Comment by John J. (Fritz Cove)— November 23,2009 @ 8:07PM
Ratings:-0+0
I feel strongly that a whole layer of causality is broadly ignored--which I'm guessing is because people are not accustomed to thinking about causality on the psychological level. Just like it's taken several wars for people to think deeply about PTSD, it may take long-failing education to get people to look INSIDE students.
With the many possible angles to take, it's easy to assume that we already know everything we need to know. Could any "new idea" possibly make a difference? As a psychologist who's worked at how classrooms affect children since 1971, I see some key ideas broadly ignored (that could account for the array of lagging indicators): how students are motivated, how subjective vs objective scoring affects them, the centrality of emotion and perception, the systematic nature of long-term knowledge retention, students' influence over each other, the destructive power of broad purposes that are off-center, and so on. Instead of focusing on such subtle issues that actually determine students' success, attention goes constantly to issues that resist change.
A factor that can move rapidly, for instance, is that students change almost instantly as they move from the room of one (poor) teacher to that of another (good) teacher. As conditions align accurately with their needs, they "turn on." This implies that school change need not take longer than a few days if we understand the conditions rightly. Think how fast a school could move if all the students were on the same page, saying "Yeah! We're going to approach it this way instead." This is indeed possible if people understand the problem differently.
For some thoughts about causative factors ignored, the URL below is the main page for EdNews.org blogs on education.. A half dozen of mine are still noted there offering some angles I think national education needs to hear. Should you want more explanation, there's much more I can send or can answer questions. I can supply you an e-book copy of my book "The Silver Bullet Easy Learning System: How to Change Classrooms Fast and Energize Students for Success," (Xlibris, 2008). Contact me at jjensen@gci.net. If you want to talk, I'm at 480-588-6200. The bottom line is that any school can turn around in a couple months if it teaches differently. if you're not familiar with how this can be done, I'd appreciate the opportunity to explain it.
Best, John Jensen, Ph.D.. http://www.ednews.org/categories/blogs---educationnewsorg/education.html
We've added a feature to the comments pages - the ability to easily add paragraph breaks, boldface type and a few other typographical aids to your comments. Launch toolbar
Use single or double carriage returns to put line breaks or paragraph breaks in your comments.
At the same time, we removed the ability to put HTML coding into the comments. People were misusing that feature by pulling in cartoons, photos and other copyrighted materials from publications elsewhere. We won't allow you to use our pages to violate other publications' copyrights.
We've added a story to the site that includes a few tips to resolve common problems. You can use the comment thread attached to that story for practice and testing of the markup tools: Go to story | Go to the practice thread
General Instructions
Welcome to the story comments section of StarNet. Here are some helpful hints with you:
You must be logged in to comment or rate comments. Log in or create an account through our registration system.
All comments are subject to our guidelines (listed below) and our user agreement.
Comment Reporting
You can report other users' comments that are in violation of the StarNet User Guidelines. Users are limited to three (3) reports per day and are not allowed to report their own comments.
Any comment that has been reported will be moderated by StarNet. The comment will either be approved or rejected. Approval or rejection is based solely on the StarNet User Guidelines. Comments are only able to be reported once and are not viewable while awaiting moderation.
If you are a registered site user and are logged in, you can vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the comments.
The total votes of approval and disapproval on that comment will be updated when you vote — including your vote and any other votes that have been cast since your browser last loaded this page.
Votes by users who have been banned from commenting don't count in the totals.
User Guidelines
We welcome your comments on articles, editorials, columns, other topics on StarNet or any subjects important to you. Commentary submitted to StarNet (www.azstarnet.com) may be published or distributed in print, electronically or other forms. Opinions expressed in www.azstarnet.com's comments reflect the opinions of the author, and are not necessarily the opinions of the Star, StarNet, or its parent company. See terms of service for more information.
Our guidelines prohibit the solicitation of products or services, the impersonation of another site user, threatening or harassing postings and the use of vulgar, abusive, obscene or sexually oriented language, defamatory or illegal material. You may not post content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual preference, disability or other classification. It's fine to criticize ideas, but ad hominem attacks are prohibited. Users who violate those standards may lose their privileges on azstarnet.com.
Don't violate other publications' copyrights.
Do we edit user comments? No. The writers are responsible for the opinions they express and the accuracy of the information they provide. StarNet reserves the right to remove comments that violate our guidelines policy.
Our vision, hope for future rooted in higher ed
The University of Arizona must draw on its greatest strength — collective creativity — to withstand the budgetary assault from the Arizona Legislature. That's the message from UA President Robert N. Shelton during his annual state of the university address, anyway.OK, so the Daily Star hates Republicans, we know that.
You offer no proposed source of money. Word is we have 1-2billion problem this year and as much as $4B next year. You bash Republicans but you offer no solution. Where is the money going to come from, what taxes should be raised by how much? Please, offer your readers the silver bullet that is going to fix this.
Since the state can't print money and we're already way, way in the hole thanks to a recession, you need to give your proposed course of action.
Two of your editorial writers are employees of U of A, a state funded university, a conflict of interest you don't bother to cite in your editorial. Of course your editorial writers will always want more money for their state funded university that they work for.
Report this comment
Wow, there's a shock! The Star's editorial writers think the answer to a problem is having the government spend more money than it has.
Report this comment
(#1) I am going to take an educated guess and say that half of the students in our state universities are Republicans.
Education shouldn't be a partisan issue. There are some Republicans in our state legislature who are alarmed by the continuing attack on our public education system, but the "leadership" which currently controls the legislature does not believe that the state should fund it.
Kirk Adams, the House Speaker, told an anti-tax group earlier this year that "we should not appear to be too gleeful" when using this recession as an opportunity to cut back on state spending. (ATRA)
Bob Burns, the Senate President, sent out an "Education Fact Sheet" that was full of outdated, mis-attributed and even false statistics earlier this year. When his office was called out on it by a parent group here in Tucson, a staffer said: "We have the House. we have the Senate, and we have the Governor's office, and - like it or not - we want to privatize education". (AEN)
Think this all sounds ridiculous? Consider this - we all know that Arizona is already ranked as the state that invests the least in education. A ultra-conservative group also pointed out recently that Arizona spent less per student on education in 2006 than we did in 1986. That's right...our legislature was already cutting before this recession to the point that we were already spending less in 2006 than we were 20 years earlier. (ALEC)
2008 was also the first year that we Arizonans spent more on our prison system than we spent for higher education. This, by the way, is not a statistic that is attractive to business. (JLBC)
(#1) - You are right about one thing --our state is in a dire situation. Even if the legislature cuts another couple hundred million from education, it isn't even going to come close to closing the deficit for 2011 (projection = $3.3 BILLION).
There is no more room for ideological games here...The tax structure in our state MUST be reformed and our Arizona Constitution requires our legislators to ensure that there is enough tax revenue to pay for essential services -- we have been cutting for over 20 years and now, at the very least, it is time to close the numerous tax loopholes that drain our general fund. This, however, is politically unsavory and it requires a lot of factual information and hard work. Our current elected representatives know that they can keep us distracted by sound bites and stereotypes. Until we hold them accountable for dealing in FACTS (and stop voting and/or defending them based on a political party), we are in big trouble.
Report this comment
Our view: Small-minded legislators, damaging cuts are pushing UA to brink
and what a BAD VIEW it really is
TRADE school will provide more
COLLEGE COSTS have made higher ed UNAFFORDABLE
the cost of a degree is NOT WORTH IT today
If one has to spend $100,000 to get a degreee
and then the rest of their lives to pay off the STUDENT LOANS
then $25,000-$40,000 a year without debt
far exceeds $30,000-$50,000 with $75,000 of debt
and those $50,000 are the 1st to get cut
QUIT THE GOVT STIMULI OF student loans
and PRICES WILL HAVE TO COME DOWN
like a drivers license - it is a PRIVILEDGE
Report this comment
College has traditionally been a safe haven during tough economic times. Students could sit tight, and come out with a marketable degree in better times.
I don't think it will happen this time. We have lost our manufacturing base, we are far over our heads in debt, and our leaders have spent and inflated our currency to near worthless.
I would hate to be having to make the decision today. At best, students will find good jobs and pay off their debt in inflated dollars, thus saving money. At worst--well, who knows.
Report this comment
Arizona is so screwed when it comes to ANY educational support.
Report this comment
Our state is letting a few legislators kick our future to the curb with education cuts.
Parents want more education funding, business wants better education for the workforce. The problem seems to be that while the Chamber of Commerce talks about a workforce that is not trained to take the jobs of the future in Arizona. Then the Chamber hires lobbiests to make sure that no business dollars are used for education. If the Chamber wants better education for their workforce then maybe they should recognize that business must participate in education and help pay for it, it is in their own best interest to do this. I know some of you think that the citizens are the only ones that should pay taxes but when business invests in job training these dollars come back to them many times in productivity and better staffing options.
Report this comment
Comment #7 is absolutely correct. There is a conflicting message happening here.
What citizens want is the complete opposite of how Tucson is being promoted to companies considering relocation.
The problem is this; our city is being touted as a low-wage location due to its proximity to the border. I would suggest finding another competitive angle that doesn't negate the efforts to improve our educational standing.
When businesses complain that they can't find enough qualified applicants to fill their open positions, is it any wonder why?
Report this comment
Why would the Republican lead congress in AZ want an educated state. If all the people were educated, they wouldn't get elected.
Report this comment
10 - You are right. The GOP absolutely does not want an educated electorate. It would be their worst nightmare!
Report this comment
First, let’s be clear: The only way toward prosperity in Arizona is through the creation of high-value human capital, particularly in the hard sciences and engineering. This requires university graduates from competent institutions of higher education.
Second, the only institutions of higher education that have the capability and credibility to do so are the three state universities.
Arizona is very unlike states like Texas and California that have private universities that are world class. We have what we have in Arizona and we need to leverage these resources to the greatest effect and benefit for our state and its citizens.
It would be nice to have a Stanford, MIT or Rice here in Arizona, but we don't.
Support for education is embarrassingly bad at all levels in Arizona. Performance and test scores for k-12 are among the nation’s worst; with investment per student and teacher pay at the bottom.
We cannot afford to eviscerate our state’s university system further. We need them to be both academically competitive and catalysts of growth and development. They need to be preferred destinations not only for Arizona high school seniors, but also for out-of-state students.
The out-of-state students should not be drawn to Arizona universities because they are a relative economic bargain. They should be attracted based on the reputation and the programs offered and be willing to pay accordingly.
At the same time, we need to have a very sound, credible k-12 system. In another article in today’s ADS the emphasis seemed to be on increasing the graduation rate of high school dropouts.
This is a very worrisome sign. We need to do more than simply increase the high school graduation rate. We need to set the expectations much higher and create high school students that not only graduate, but are on course to college, not just some trade school where they will be competing against workers from Asia.
Arizona’s universities as well as those from across the country should be vying for our high school graduates based on the overall quality of our state’s educational system.
There are plenty of other non-essential government functions that can be cut from the State’s budget - things that no Arizona would miss if they disappeared or were reduced. Education is not one of them and absent world-class private universities in our state, higher education is not one either.
To continue down the current road will become a race toward the bottom for all Arizonans.
Report this comment
Well, it is good that U of A's greatest strength is collective creativity, bc they have very little when it comes to class. Wildcat fans' behavior last night after the game was shameful. It is time something is done about this at the highest level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pylgWDa1rlk
Report this comment
Arizona can immediately save millions of dollars and lives by simply ending all public assistance (welfare) payments to cigarette smokers. Taxpayers are simultaneously subsidizing the living expenses and supporting the addiction of people who are literally burning money in the form of tobacco. Anyone who has money to spend on smoking neither needs nor deserves tax dollars for free food, subsidized housing, government daycare, and so on. An average pack a day smoker spends over $1800 a year on their cigarettes alone and an idle, unemployed nicotine addict obviously spends even more. The governor of Arizona already has sent a representative to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of Health and Human Services to prohibit purchase of soda, candy bars, etc with food stamps. The logic is impeccable and compelling: food stamps are for nutrition not junk food, while cigarette smokers have money for their nicotine addiction so they don’t need food stamps.
Also, a third of all Americans live in California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin and these 10 states on the verge of financial collapse also generate one out of three dollars of U.S. gross domestic product. For these reasons alone cigarette smokers who want to squander money on nicotine addiction while being on the public dole don’t merit any sympathy.
Report this comment
Coming soon to bolster Tucson economy
More call center jobs...
Yeah, that's the ticket
Report this comment
I feel strongly that a whole layer of causality is broadly ignored--which I'm guessing is because people are not accustomed to thinking about causality on the psychological level. Just like it's taken several wars for people to think deeply about PTSD, it may take long-failing education to get people to look INSIDE students.
With the many possible angles to take, it's easy to assume that we already know everything we need to know. Could any "new idea" possibly make a difference? As a psychologist who's worked at how classrooms affect children since 1971, I see some key ideas broadly ignored (that could account for the array of lagging indicators): how students are motivated, how subjective vs objective scoring affects them, the centrality of emotion and perception, the systematic nature of long-term knowledge retention, students' influence over each other, the destructive power of broad purposes that are off-center, and so on. Instead of focusing on such subtle issues that actually determine students' success, attention goes constantly to issues that resist change.
A factor that can move rapidly, for instance, is that students change almost instantly as they move from the room of one (poor) teacher to that of another (good) teacher. As conditions align accurately with their needs, they "turn on." This implies that school change need not take longer than a few days if we understand the conditions rightly. Think how fast a school could move if all the students were on the same page, saying "Yeah! We're going to approach it this way instead." This is indeed possible if people understand the problem differently.
For some thoughts about causative factors ignored, the URL below is the main page for EdNews.org blogs on education.. A half dozen of mine are still noted there offering some angles I think national education needs to hear. Should you want more explanation, there's much more I can send or can answer questions. I can supply you an e-book copy of my book "The Silver Bullet Easy Learning System: How to Change Classrooms Fast and Energize Students for Success," (Xlibris, 2008). Contact me at jjensen@gci.net. If you want to talk, I'm at 480-588-6200. The bottom line is that any school can turn around in a couple months if it teaches differently. if you're not familiar with how this can be done, I'd appreciate the opportunity to explain it.
Best, John Jensen, Ph.D.. http://www.ednews.org/categories/blogs---educationnewsorg/education.html
Report this comment