Ducey’s evolving views on schools

#RedForEd was latest stop on winding path

In commercials and interviews over the past month, Gov. Doug Ducey has touted the education funding package he was able to push through the Legislature, burnishing his image as an education-minded governor committed to investing dollars in schools.

Those words stand in stark contrast to how Ducey has spoken about public schools and teachers before this year, when a massive teacher movement made itself known at schools statewide and at the Capitol.

Prior to the unveiling of his payraise plan in April, Ducey did not seem a fan of tossing money at the education system. He was more apt to emphasize outcomes, not dollars spent.

And, even when pushing a funding plan in 2015 and 2016, he couched the need as an ask coming from teachers,

not something he himself saw as a need.

The dollars he now says teachers have earned were not part of the budget proposal he released at the beginning of the year.

But the Ducey of previous times did not face what the governor faced beginning in March. An army of teachers clad in red T-shirts threatened to walk off the job, and then did, affecting more than 800,000 students statewide.

Paul Tighe, superintendent of the Saddle Mountain Unified School District in Tonopah, who met with the governor before and during the mass walkout, said he doesn’t think Ducey acted simply to placate teachers and end the crisis.

But the teacher uprising no doubt focused Ducey on the issue in a way he hadn’t been before, Tighe said.

In the meetings, Tighe said he saw an engaged governor who soaked in the details of school finance.

“When you have a crisis, you get more information,” said Tighe, who is also president of the Arizona School Administrators Superintendents’ Division. “And I have to believe that the governor got more information and became more versed in it than he ever wanted to.”

Ducey, in a brief interview following an awards luncheon in Scottsdale this week, said he has focused on education funding for years.

He rattled off a string of education-related initiatives, beginning with asking voters to approve Proposition 123, a measure that took more funds out of the state land trust and directed them to education to settle a lawsuit regarding underfunded schools.

He also mentioned the extension of an education sales tax and the teacher pay-raise plan, both passed this legislative session as pressure from teachers mounted.

“Certainly the teachers impacted and improved the plan,” he said. “And I know there will be more to do in K-12 education. But, I feel good that we were able to expand the resources for K-12 and get these dollars into teachers’ paychecks.”

Tighe said he thinks Ducey’s change came not just by way of policy, but also in the tone the governor has used to discuss education.

“Some of it is just semantics,” Tighe said, “but there’s a lot of meaning behind the words used.”

An examination of Ducey’s past statements on education — from his time as treasurer, his first public office, through his first term as governor — shows differences in both tone and policy.

Ducey came into office in 2011, as the nation and Arizona were pulling out of the economic recession. Arizona had a surplus of $400 million.

An Arizona Republic article from December 2011 listed officials’ ideas for the surplus.

Some Democrats, led by then-state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, now a member of Congress, wanted to use it on education, shoring up what had been an estimated $1 billion in cuts since the 2008 recession.

Ducey, along with Gov. Jan Brewer and numerous Republican lawmakers, was listed as a proponent of a plan that would divide the surplus between debt payments and savings. A version of that plan ended up passing, with a large portion of the funds going into a “rainy-day fund.”

In 2012, Ducey chaired the campaign against a permanent sales tax that would be used to fund education. He argued the increase in the sales-tax rate would dissuade businesses from relocating to Arizona.

He also said he feared the cash generated by it would end up not in the classrooms, but “soaked up into the bureaucracy.”

The measure would have placed additional dollars into the state’s per-pupil funding formula. Ducey, at the time, said that was not a good option since it did not ensure money went to teacher raises.

“There is not one dollar in Prop. 204 that is mandated to go to teachers,” Ducey said.

Teachers warned, back in 2012, that if the sales-tax measure didn’t pass, the effects would be felt in the classrooms. There was talk of closing excelling schools.

Ducey said comments like that were akin to officials holding schools hostage.

“It’s obvious the Chicago union way has come to Arizona,” he said.

That campaign succeeded. Voters rejected the 1-cent sales tax.

“(I) am eager to stay engaged and play a constructive role advocating for meaningful reforms and solutions going forward,” Ducey said in a statement issued after Prop. 204 failed.

Ducey vowed to work with educators, parents and business leaders on a new funding formula. Those meetings never happened.

Ducey announced the formation of an exploratory run for governor in July 2013, eight months after the sales tax was defeated at the ballot box.

On the campaign trail, Ducey’s comments about education emphasized parental choice. He said he wanted to aid construction at successful charter schools, so they could expand and serve more students. He also said he wanted to reward and honor “effective” teachers.

He discussed the possibility of using dollars in a new program called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts in creative ways, including school construction. Those dollars originally were targeted to help disabled students attend private schools.

“I think there is a flexibility around those dollars,” he said at the time. “I want to see those kids go where they and their parents want them to go.”

He also said the state had adequately funded schools. That money just needed to be spent more efficiently.

“I think we have $9 bil- lion in total federal, state and local dollars in the system that can be effectively spent,” he said.

In his first State of the State address in January 2015, Ducey announced the Classrooms First initiative, including a task force that would recommend changes to how schools were funded. Ducey said that schools “spend far too much on administrative costs — on overhead — and that’s got to change.”

A month after his speech, in February 2015, Ducey unveiled his first major educational proposal he wished to see