Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons Schooling from p 19 Bill 1159 despite criticism from some educators who said it backfired. State Representative Jennifer Pawlik, a Gilbert Democrat and veteran Arizona teacher who’s running for re-election, trains new teachers in the Arizona Teachers Academy. Last year, she had 23 students. This year, she has 12. That’s despite the more than 50,000 people in Arizona who are certified to teach but choose not to, she said. “We do not have a teacher shortage in Arizona. We have a teacher retention crisis,” Pawlik said. “Teachers are standing up for themselves in new ways — like running for office.” In 2010, Arizona legislators took an axe to public school funding and slashed the budget by $1.1 billion. Now, a decade and a $5 billion surplus later, that funding has yet to be restored. Arizona students get less money now than in 2008, a study found. Arizona has also made more cuts to public school funding since 2008 than any other state. At the time, amid a bid for school board, Casteen “could see the vision that the other side had,” she said. And it wasn’t pretty. Taylor Kerby, a Casa Grande Democrat and school board member running for the state Senate, added that “the controlling party refuses to address the need for additional investments.” That’s why the Arizona Education Association, a nonpartisan coalition of educators, students, activists, and parents, is backing the Democrats. “Arizona educators know the stakes of 20 this election,” said Marisol Garcia, presi- dent of the Arizona Education Association. “For years, we’ve been fighting for the funding and support our public school educators and students need. We know State Representative Jennifer Pawlik is a Gilbert Democrat and veteran Arizona teacher who’s running for re-election. that the only way to do that is by electing education champions to our legislature.” The organization and each of the Democrats who spoke to New Times are also concerned about the impact of the state’s massive expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account, which is the state’s school voucher program. It allows all Arizona students access to taxpayer-funded vouchers of $7,000 for educational expenses outside of public schools, including private school tuition. They said the voucher program is an effort to privatize public schools. An effort to trigger a ballot referendum about the voucher expansion failed earlier this year and the expansion took effect in September. “Our Republican colleagues allow people to make money on the backs of our children and to indoctrinate them with their own conservative beliefs,” Schweibert said. Casteen said Republicans are only interested in starting culture wars and “desperately demonizing public school teachers,” opening the gate for now-subsi- dized private schools to operate with little to no accountability as interest in the voucher program snowballs among conservative parents. These private schools are cropping up everywhere. Turning Point USA, a conser- vative nonprofit that has a blooming romance with the alt-right, opened a private school in Phoenix this year that enrolls more than 600 students — each eligible for taxpayer-funded tuition subsi- dies. Schools like Turning Point Academy don’t need curriculum approval, have no school board, no standardized >> p 22 NOV 3RD–NOV 9TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
