The Sanctification Begins...

Wow, I thought it would at least take a couple days before the media rewrote the history of Governor Napolitano's six years in office.  But I guess I was wrong.  Here's a glowing article from Monday's Republic that pays tribute to our Education Governor.

Napolitano advanced cause of education

If, as expected, Janet Napolitano, the ''Education Governor,'' joins the Obama administration, some Arizona education leaders worry if they will keep the important gains made under her leadership.

Gains?  I thought that when Napolitano took office, Arizona was nearly last in per pupil spending, had a high drop out rate and spending was constrained by a billion dollar deficit?

Now after six years, I'm happy to report that...well, you get the picture. 

Nothing to Crow About

Actually, Napolitano's real legacy with respect to education is that Arizonans can no longer afford to attend college.  Here's a graph that I printed last year when ASU raised tuition.  You have to click to enlarge it, but the slope says it all.  That steep climb reflects the beginning of the Napolitano administration and the "vision" of Michael Crow.

The graph is going to get a lot taller this year. The graph shows that an in state resident payed about $4,700 per year.  The new number is $5,400.

I have to give the Republic some credit.  The article actually mentions her real record.

Despite her efforts, if Napolitano heads to Washington, D.C., she will leave the state still nearly last in the country for K-12 funding, with a high-school graduation rate of 70 percent and state universities burdened with students unprepared for college work.

And indeed, some editor was at least a bit embarrassed by the blatant cheer leading in the headline.  The on line version of the article has a new headline.

School-funding setbacks feared if gov. leaves

The new headline isn't much better and it provides a good example of the "Republicans at the Helm" fantasy that I detail below. 

The article is simply a platform for the education lobby to talk about how wonderful Napolitano was and how bad Brewer is going to be.

The article is also a great example of the partisanship of the education lobby.  After all, it was Governor Jane Hull who created Prop. 301 to increase the sales tax half a cent for education.  She pumped billions into facilities as well aa Operations and Maintenance.  If money is your criteria, then Hull was clearly the Education Governor.  But the Education Lobby and the media will never recognize Hull's efforts.

That's a lesson that I've often tried to teach my moderate Republican friends.  The Spending Lobby will never be with you.  No matter how much you cater, how much you raise taxes, or how much you spend they will never be with you.  Hull was desperate to be the Education Governor and bowed to the spending lobby's every whim, and when she left office, her approval ratings that were lower than Symington's.  That's saying a lot since Symington underwent a very public bankruptcy and was removed after a felony conviction. 

Now the media and teacher's union ignore the statistics that they hung around every Republican Governor's neck--last in spending, high dropout rate--and declare that after 6 years, Janet Napolitano is the "Education Governor."

Her real legacy is that she made no progress on the Union's key issues but succeeded in making College unaffordable despite a provision in the Arizona Constitution that says a college education should be "As nearly free as possible."

But you won't be reading about that in the Republic.

Comments

[Gerald]

In part because I have a daughter who is a sophomore in high school, I have been watching college tuition climb as well. My first degree is from Oklahoma State and it gives a significant discount on out-of-state tuition for kids of alums. With one more ASU or U of A tuition hike, it will actually cost the same for me to send my daughter out-of-state to OSU as it would to pay in-state tuition here. Oddly, Article 11, Section 6 of the Arizona Constitution requires college to be “as nearly free as possible.”

[RG]

Greg, you misspelled "defecation" in the title of your post.

[Gordie Howe]

My wife reminded me that any parent in Arizona can buy a used book at a book sale for TEN cents. The notion that Janet somehow solved the bookless family disease by bestowing first graders (who could finally say they had "a book of their own", wipe tear from eye) is a bit of a stretch, eh.

[Commander In Chief]

Janet's been such a horrible governor. How on earth did she win every single county in the state in 2006, running against a solid religious conservative Republican, the only good kind of Republican out there? Incomprehensible, really.
Or perhaps it's more a matter of inconsolable. Utterly inconsolable Republicans who can't get over it two years later. Maybe they're not into democracy all that much. Maybe they don't think you've really won an election unless you run vicious smears ads against your opponent, suppress the votes of African-American voters, and deploy Diebold to fudge the vote count. Maybe you have to lose the popular vote to really be a winner.

[Name:]

Greg, small point but Symington was not "removed" although he did resign. Maybe you were thinking of Mecham's impeachment.

Can someone tell my why an "education governor" would make a good homeland security chief?

[Terrance]

Commander, do you ever get tired of repeating the same tired argument to each post? Yes, Republicans are fear mongering, vote supressing, religious zealots, who hate democracy, we know. Now can you go back to posting at Daily Koz???? Thanks.

[todd]

Does anyone have data on how what the growth has been in state spending directed towards ASU during the same time as the tuition graph.

[Dale]

Interesting take on the article, Greg. I think if you read the article again you'll find that the "Education Lobby" is not doting over the Governor as you may have seen in the past. These folks are clearly done with Napolitano. They've been taken advantage of, taken for granted, and screwed one too many times by the likes of Noah Kroloff, Dennis Burke, Mike Haener, and others to give a flip if she stays or goes. I talk to these folks on a regular basis and when the Guv's folks aren't around Democrats and liberal organizational reps have far worse things to say about Napolitano and her staffers than any of my Republican friends. Sure, Jan Brewer is a Republican who will have a Republican majority in a conservative legislative body, but, at least she's a known entity. No back stabbing from the 9th floor anymore will be a welcome change, not just for Republicans, but for all of Arizona's political community.

[AZGOPgal]

RG - You may have been kidding but I don't believe our dear friend Greg meant "defication" in the title of his post.

de·i·fi·ca·tion
Pronunciation (d-f-kshn, d-)
n.
1.
a. The act or process of deifying.
b. The condition of being deified.
2. One that embodies the qualities of a god.

[RG]

Yes, I was definitely kidding. My sense of humor hasn't changed since I was ten. I like that Greg changed the title, though, to "sanctification." I think "deification" was better for the point he was making, but the new title works all the same.

Greg, check out the second and third definitions for the word I pretended to think you misspelled -- you may want to use it as a title for an article describing what the GOP will be doing as we usher Janet out (I omitted the first definition for obvious reasons):

–verb (used without object)
1. . . . .
2. to become clear of dregs, impurities, etc.
–verb (used with object)
3. to clear of dregs, impurities, etc.; purify; refine.

[Ken]

When I read this article in this morning's paper my immediate thought was Janet should be lauded for her support of _public_ (i.e. district) K-12 education -- arguably the worst performing sector in the K-12 education mix. Her support for charters, private schools and homeschooling has been notable by its absence. Greg also rightly points out the increasing hindrances to university education that have taken place under her leadership.

Her crowning achievement has been all-day Kindergarten, a practice which is known to have little if no long-lasting positive impact on educational outcomes. I wish her a speedy trip to Washington.

[Geoff]

I believe the technical term for all-day Kindergarten is state-funded day care.

[jdleslie1]

So true, Geoff. In fact, all public schooling really is state-funded day care, no matter what the grade. We should make all these parents pawning off their kids to the state take their kids back and educate them themselves. All home schooled kids are better off than kids who go to state-funded day care.

[JB]

Forget Napolitano. Is everyone here forgetting that a significant portion of the problem lies with the fact that the "rainy day" fund was capped at 15 percent of the general fund expenditures and now is only 7 percent? AND AZ has some of the highest business property taxes in the Western region. AND GPLETs are given to malls, instead of manufacturing and R&D companies. How can you expect to expand an economy that's based on low-paying jobs (like retail) and have stability in tax revenue when the two biggest industries are tourism and construction? Brewer and the Legislature, need to see this as an opportunity to create revenue sources that are more stable and create reserves that won't have them sweeping funds in the middle of the night.

[Tom]

Hey all, remember it's for the children; except of course children under care of Child Protective Services. How many have died under JayNo's watch?

[Dave K.]

"That's a lesson that I've often tried to teach my moderate Republican friends. The Spending Lobby will never be with you. No matter how much you cater, how much you raise taxes, or how much you spend they will never be with you."

Can we get that tattooed in reverse on the foreheads of every "moderate" Republican candidate, so they can see it in the mirror every morning, and perhaps remember who the base really is?