If CEOs are serious about schools, put their cash on it

Arizona Cardinals president Michael Bidwill made misleading claims in his recent op-ed (“Schools need more than mediocre progress. How to get it,” March 28).

We appreciate his recent interest in the issue as he looks to start yet another conversation about addressing Arizona’s education woes. But voters have clearly spoken about a comprehensive long-term sustainable funding source — one that CEO groups fought and continue to fight against with new legal and political tricks.

This is Proposition 208, the Invest in Education Act.

For years these CEO groups claimed to support education but only through the most regressive tax systems that disproportionately impacted lower income families such as sales taxes. Their CEOs received both state and federal income tax breaks far exceeding the impact of Proposition 208, and shunned any other option than a sales tax.

So, voters took matters into their own hands with a reasonable solution that passed in November and is voter-protected.

Bidwill ignores that fact and claims that over the last five years, billions of new dollars were invested in our education system. This concept is a perpetual shell game between the governor and voters.

An estimated $2.6 billion in votermandated school operating funds that was cut by lawmakers during the recession has still not been repaid. There was also another $3 billion in cuts to school building repair.

Mr. Bidwill, we know what the solutions are to the achievement gap. This has been researched for years. The governor’s own Classrooms First Council concluded that funding was needed for key issues like special education, the teacher shortage, literacy programs and additional resources for low-income populations.

And yet, only a few of their recommendations have been funded.

The only endeavor that has come close to fulfilling the promise of the Classrooms First recommendations has been Proposition 208. It specifically targets teacher funding, mentorship and scholarship programs — all recommendations from the council, with almost $1 billion per year.

Invest in Ed was passed by 1.7 million voters and a 4-percentage point margin this fall, and should be a huge step forward.

We are stumped why Bidwill and Greater Phoenix Leadership, the organization he was representing in his op-ed, ignored these solutions — and in GPL’s case, actually fought against the proposition. An incredibly fair, nonregressive, accountable and economically sound policy should be just the game changer he’s looking for.

If he and his CEO friends have another solution that would work better, then by all means submit it to the voters like we did with 208 and make it happen.

Instead, CEO groups like the Arizona Chamber of Commerce are funding or supporting legal and political efforts to stop Proposition 208. In fact, a recent Arizona Republic opinion piece by Bob Robb called one such attempt, Senate Bill 1783, a “clever” workaround to Proposition 208.

A recent Joint Legislative Budget Committee report estimates this would reduce the revenues from Proposition 208 by up to $377 million.

This report also showed that more than 85% of the funds removed from Proposition 208 would come from about 6,000 individual income tax-filers with net taxable income over $1 million per year.

People like Mr. Bidwill.

Each of these wealthy individuals would save an average of about $35,000 in taxes per year — close to the average starting teacher salary in Arizona. SB 1783 also violates the Voter Protection

Act that “requires three-fourths vote to supersede measure, or to transfer funds designated by the measure.”

It is a violation of this act, whether it’s proposed as a Senate bill or as an element of the state budget – the newest legislative tactic to try to undermine Proposition 208.

Regardless of the mechanism, the Arizona Legislature is planning to take hundreds of millions of dollars from Arizona’s students, give it to multimillionaires like Mr. Bidwill, and violate a law passed by 1.7 million voters a few short months ago with no alternative solution to funding education.

There is nothing clever about SB 1783 or new about Mr. Bidwill’s call to action. And there is nothing clever about playing games with the future of our state and the lives of kids who need us most.

Let’s respect the will of the voters and the laws we elect legislators to uphold. Protect Proposition 208 or present a better solution and get it passed by voters. That should be Mr. Bidwill’s priority and his obligation from the chair in which he sits.