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Invest in Arizona's future.

Steve Gall has spent years advocating for daily exercise for school kids, which numerous studies indicate increases classroom attention and achievement at the same time it promotes better health. Ironically, the increased stress caused by the need to get high standardized test scores has meant less time for children to exercise their bodies as well as their minds at school.

Gall is a retired teacher with a doctorate in physical education. He volunteers in Tucson schools and has spent years advocating locally and state-wide for daily exercise. He’s worked with Republicans in the legislature, including Frank Antenori and John Huppenthal, getting them to sponsor legislation, but the bills didn’t get far.

Gall’s attempt this session looked like it might make it. Working with Republican Rep. Paul Boyer, he helped put together HB2539, which would create a task force to “examine, evaluate and make recommendations concerning the best practices for educating and encouraging physical activity in Arizona schools.” It passed the House on a 40-15 vote, but it was held in the Senate Education Committee by Republican Chairperson Kimberly Yee, which effectively killed it.

A sampling of Arizona students will be taking Common Core tests soon to see how they work. (We call it College and Career Ready Standards here. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.) So it's a good time to take a look at who's for Common Core and who's against it. In one segment in this month's Tucson Cable Access show, "Education: The Rest Of The Story," which I host with Ann-Eve Pedersen, we take a look at who are the folks on the three sides of the issue: the supporters, the detractors on the right, and the detractors on the left. Here's the short version.

Supporters include Obama, his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Jan Brewer, John Huppenthal and lots of others along the conservative-progressive continuum. They like it because they think it's good for kids, good for business or a combination of the two.

Detractors on the right include Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Al Melvin, and many others, including most of Arizona's right wing. For them, the Common Core standards are the Feds flying black education helicopters overhead to soften up our children's minds so they'll yield to the will of their socialist overlords. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

You don't hear the privatization crowd using the word "voucher" much. That's because the "V" word doesn't poll well. "Tuition tax credits" gets a pretty good response. "Empowerment Scholarship Accounts" and "Education Savings Accounts" — basically the same thing — are too new to be polled accurately. But vouchers themselves remain unpopular.

So, use the term "vouchers" whenever you talk about the programs, not the wrapped-in-a-pretty-package-with-a-bow-on-top euphemisms the corporate privatizers dream up. If people aren't familiar with vouchers, tell them it's paying for private school tuition at public expense.

Fitz gets it. In his satirical op ed in the Star, The case of the missing tax dollars or how Public Ed refused to die, he used "voucher" four times, twice pairing it with "vultures." And his Sunday cartoon, Vouchers, shows elephants in hard hats, called the "Voucher Crew," taking the bricks out of public education and using them to construct private schools. Perfect.

I'll be doing a blogger beat segment on the Bill Buckmaster Show today. The show starts at noon on KVOI, 10:30 AM on your radio dial or click here to listen online. The first half is a Face-off with Jeff Rogers and Bruce Ash. During the second half of the show, Bill and I will discuss vouchers, Common Core, education budget battles and whatever else comes up.

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Our Ed Supe, "Good Ole John" Huppenthal, has spent $900,000 a year more on our vouchers-on-steroids bill, euphemistically titled Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, than the law allows by giving some students between $1,684 and $1,963 more than they should have received.

We need to rewrite Huppenthal's voucher-friendly robocall to reflect his generosity. He said, if you remember, "You may be able to send your child to private school for free!" He should have added, "And I'm gonna give you an extra two, thousand, dollars!" To which a happy mother exclaims, "Thank you, Good Ole John!"

Republicans recently added a funding amendment to their attempt to expand the voucher bill. Currently, students moving from charters to vouchers get more money than students moving from district schools because charter schools get more state money per student. Republicans wrote the language that way so they could declare the bill revenue neutral. Now that the voucher program is established, they have no problem with it costing the state more than sending kids to public schools.

But Huppenthal admitted through his spokesman, he's been giving that extra money to students all along, saying that the bill's current language is "muddled." It may sound muddled to someone who thinks "Superintendent of Public Instruction" means the same thing as "Superintendent of Instruction for the Public" — it doesn't — but in this retired English teacher's reading, the clear intent of the original bill is to have two different funding levels.

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Day after day, education stories I want to write about stack up on my computer desktop. So many stories, so little time! To take care of the overload, I've decided to write the occasional Ed Shorts post with snapshots of what interests me in the world of education, including links to let you explore further if you wish. Without further ado:

• Hupp, robocalls and vouchers take hits. Huppenthal made such a big mistake lending his voice and the authority of his office to a robocall declaring "That’s right, you may be able to send your child to private school for free,” he felt the need to apologize, twice. That wasn't enough to quell the anti-robocall, anti-voucher outrage. The Arizona School Administrators Association had an op ed published in multiple papers condemning our two voucher programs. In the Republic, columnist Laurie Roberts asked, "Why does the Arizona Legislature hate public schools," and E.J. Montini suggested that, if we're giving away taxpayer dollars for vouchers, why not just hand out government money to lots of people to spend as they wish? Our local treasure, Fitz, wrote a series of "Vultures vs. Vouchers" comparisons on his blog, then published one as a cartoon.

• Funding fights. AZ public schools and the legislature are still at odds about how much money should be added to school funding to make up for years of the state illegally denying schools cost-of-living increases. Not surprisingly, the schools want more and the lege wants to give less. Hupp says, let's end all this squabbling, but doesn't propose a solution to the standoff.

(Hat tip to Lisa Hoffman, Arizona's best source of information about Arizona-ALEC Model Bill connections.)

This is the third try for a bill giving "Imagine Learning" what is essentially a no-bid contract to supply ELL learning software to Arizona schools. It passed the House with bipartisan support (and bipartisan opposition) in its current incarnation, HB2485. The first try was SB1319 in 2010, sponsored by Sen. Al Melvin and then-Senator John Huppenthal. The second try, SB1239, was a solo attempt by Melvin in 2013. (More details in an earlier post.)

I wonder if Democrats sponsoring and voting for this bill realize it's taken nearly word for word from a piece of ALEC model legislation, K-12 Technology-Based Reading Intervention for English Learners Act, approved by the ALEC Board of Directors January 9, 2014. I also wonder if Democrats are aware that Imagine Learning funds ALEC at its second highest level, along with some of the country’s biggest special interests, or that Imagine Learning is the darling of conservative privatizers everywhere.

The graphic at the top of this post shows one part of the Arizona bill that comes almost straight from the ALEC model bill. A larger graphic after the jump shows a few more of the many obvious similarities. (Note the {Insert State} direction so Republican legislators will know how to "tailor" the bill for their states.) You can go through AZ and ALEC versions yourself and find lots more.

In this week's Tucson Weekly, a story examined the lack of communication between an ad hoc committee, the Tucson Unified School District administration and the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council on the future of Richey Early Learning Center.

According to committee co-chair Ernette Leslie, who has been involved in the development of the school since Richey Elementary closed in 2010, a meeting is scheduled at the Pascua Yaqui Neighborhood Center, 785 W. Saguaro St., on Monday, March 10. The announcement of a meeting also came with good news attached in an email from Leslie—a Team Member Update from TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez that explained communications with Pascua Yaqui Tribal chairman Peter Yucupicio going back to mid-February:

Richey 2014‐15

On February 17, I had the opportunity to visit with Pascua Yaqui Tribal Chairman Peter Yucupicio. We  discussed areas where we can work together for the benefit of our Pascua Yaqui students. Chairman  Yucupicio and I had the opportunity to discuss Richey, as well. We talked about the origins of the  conversation to reopen Richey as a charter school and community center, which began two years prior  to my arrival. The information provided by the Chairman was invaluable in understanding the  conversations regarding Richey leading up to when I became superintendent.

When I assumed the role of superintendent, Richey was slated to open in August of 2013, a month after  I entered the district. At that point, I was informed that Richey would not be a charter school because  paperwork required by the U.S. District Court had not been sent by the district. Rather, the direction  would be an early childhood center and community center. Wanting to do my best to honor previous  conversations, I asked staff to provide the needed updates to open the building for two classrooms of  prekindergarten students.

The focus was to first support early education for Pascua Yaqui children and accept neighborhood and  interested families thereafter. Also, details for the community center were to be discussed and cost  sharing would be established through an agreement. To this point, the district has paid for all Richey  teaching staff, utilities, custodial services, instructional materials, meals, and upkeep costs. Our staff has  done a great job with the children.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's read my posts that John Huppenthal, our current Superintendent of Public Instruction, is not my idea of the kind of guy who should be holding that office. And it should be equally unsurprising that I support Dr. David Garcia who's running against Huppenthal.

This, however, isn't a post where I sing Garcia's praises. If you want to learn more about him, you can visit his website. I just want people to know that Garcia will be at events in Southern Arizona Saturday and Monday, March 8 and 10: Saturday in Green Valley (I'll be introducing him at the 3pm Town Hall) and Monday in Tucson. In down ballot races like this one, voters often know little about the candidates and rarely have a chance to meet them. If you're interested in hearing Garcia talk and maybe asking him a question or two, here's your chance.

Saturday, 9:30-11:00 Town hall
Sponsored by Quail Creek Democratic Club.
Madera Clubhouse Silver Room (in Quail Creek)
2055 E. Quail Crossing Blvd., Green Valley, AZ 85614

Saturday, 3:00-4:30 Town Hall
Sponsored by Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area.
Room #248 (upstairs meeting room), Continental Shopping Plaza.
240 West Continental Road, Green Valley

Saturday, 4:30-5:30 Reception - Green Valley Democratic Headquarters
Sponsored by Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area.
Ground floor, next to CVS, Continental Shopping Plaza.
240 West Continental Road, Green Valley

Monday, noon-2pm Democrats of Greater Tucson
Dragon View Restaurant, 400 N. Bonita Ave., Tucson