Many of you Arizonans know that there is a prop 100, about raising sales taxes, for money for schools and law enforcement. I am being told so many conflicting things.
I know so many people whom I love and respect that are voting no. They have good and very valid reasons. The budget in AZ is being spent sadly in very wrong ways, and those choices are effecting families greatly.
My family is largely effected by this decision, and I feel sad, hurt, and trapped.
I don't want to have to pay more taxes (nobody does), and give into the twisted ways of politics, but how do I help the schools from being hurt?
My husband, mother, and many other loved ones are teachers. They are being directly hurt from this horrible assault on the budget!!!
My sweetheart personally received a letter from the school district that if this prop 100 doesn't pass, he will possibly loose his job. How can I not vote YES, to keep my husbands job! I am always willing to pay more for a good education system. I want to show that this is my priority!
For years the education budgets have been being spent badly. Classrooms are overfull, there isn't enough aid for the teachers! They have the teachers pay for much of their own supplies. There has been pay freezes (which is horrible, because teachers already work 11-12 hr days on a small salary)
I know, I've heard it before, "Oh but teachers get their summers off. Yes, but those summers are 2 months long, and the rest of the year they work more and longer than any career I know. I can tell you personally that Jim rarely sits down, and maybe gets 5-10 minutes a day to eat food in between children coming into his classroom. There are no breaks! Those summers are needed to survive!
Teachers are overworked and under appreciated! They are blamed for everything that is wrong with their children. And it is ridiculous how little parents take responsibility for their own children.
Not to complain, because Jim LOVES being a teacher!! It is truly his calling in life! He wants to teach because he feels he has much to offer. And he is good at what he is doing. I love him all the more for that!
Our children's education and school experience is so important. The majority of our kids days are spent in school. It is so important that things are done right. I am so saddened to think that they will take away arts and music away (children will miss the opportunity to learn music from the greatest music teacher in the world, my MOM!). They will cram classrooms full of kids and make it even harder for our children to get the needed attention that they deserve. And if they continue to pay teachers less and less then, we will loose teachers all together. Our taxes DO pay for our kids education. When will we be willing to pay for a better education? And even if we do pay more, how can we make sure that the funds are spent in the right way, for the right and most important things for our children?
What can we do, to make sure that things are done right? How can we make sure that politics doesn't destroy our children's schools? I feel so helpless!!!
4 comments:
I completely understand how you are feeling. Since I work at a school, and so does my entire family, I would like to vote "yes" on this bill. It will very seriously effect my family, and I am more than willing to pay 1 penny in order to improve our schools, keep our teachers employed and help our children. That having been said, the state of Arizona has not shown that they can handle budgets well. In the history of our state, there has never been such a thing as a "temporary" tax and how can I be guaranteed that they won't spend it the way the spent the increase that was meant to save the jobs of police officers and law enforcement? Instead of police officers getting their jobs back, the "higher ups" suddenly had huge pay raises!
In the end I will probably be forced to trust the state government and vote "yes" because we simply need it so badly! I hope they don't disappoint me.
OH MY! The age old debate over schools and taxes. I agree with all that you are saying and as a former teacher would probably vote yes as well. Good for Jim for keeping up in this career despite the damage of politics and poorly run government. No one has any right to say how easy or hard a teacher's job is until they've tried it!! After being a public school teacher for not very long, it was long enough to teach ME that I will be homeschooling my children if we can't afford private school (I realize this is not an option for all families and the need for public education is vital). I hope and pray that Jim will not lose his job!!
I know I am not the best example of this, but you see something that you don't like, I bet you can do something to change it. You are such a force for good, maybe research what good legislation needs support through signatures or other outlets. Myra was telling me about AZ mothers, I think we can all be more active in supporting the good causes in the world. I am supporting this, and I hope others will too because I feel like it's the teachers and kids who are suffering if I don't. I hope that there can be future improvement though. Let me know what you find out, I will help out if you find a way for us to support our teachers and schools.
I am so mixed on this, but even though we are friends... I'll be voting no.
I equate this to Government Blackmail. I've had it with the government putting schools on the line first and foremost. They want to place the people on the cutting block first who are the people who they look to first for more money.
There's so much spending on stupid non-essentials that for them to put teachers on the block is ridiculous.
I think that Gov. needs to see that stripping "the People" of what little they have is not the solution. It's going to just make things worse with a shadowscreen of "solid funding". There's no guarantee that the funds are going to go to the schools and how it's spent. It's only going to lead to more mismanagement of funds they didn't have in the first place.
Government Blackmail.
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