Two recent studies take the topic of school funding and achievement head on, and they conclude that more money improves student achievement, and even boosts earning power after graduation. According to the studies, the results are strongest for children from low income families. It looks like "throwing money at schools," as critics like to typify spending increases, pushes students forward.

Results of studies on education are always worth questioning because it's so hard to run a controlled study. Children aren't genetically similar lab rats; every child is unique in nature and nurture. And you can't separate children into neat control groups and experimental groups. So researchers have to do their best to pull results from messy, real-world education data.

One group of researchers spent decades using a set of student data to "prove" that class size doesn't affect learning. Then another group of researchers took the same data set and created a convincing argument that lowering class size actually does improve student achievement. For years, education researchers on the conservative end of the spectrum have "proven" that you don't get any bang for added education bucks. When they're being more cautious, they say there's no evidence that increasing funding has any positive effects. Now, some researchers have created two high quality studies which indicate the opposite. Like all studies of this kind, the results aren't take-it-to-the-bank certain, but these are pretty damn robust. The two studies are summarized here, with links to longer discussions by the studies' authors.

The studies take advantage of the fact that since 1990, 26 states changed their school funding and 23 others left theirs alone. That allowed them to compare changes in student achievement in districts with increased funding to districts where funding didn't change.

The problem is, how do you compare student achievement? One group of researchers used the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) exam which has been given to a national sample of students since the 1970s and is considered the most valid and reliable standardized test there is by educators across the political spectrum. The researchers were able to look at individual student scores in districts they were comparing so they could match up students who were similar in terms of race and income. The result was, student scores in districts with added funding increased more than those in districts where funding stayed the same.

If the authors have it right, more money for schools with low income students means a significant improvement in achievement.

Ducey proposes billions in new taxes to pay teachers! Oops, sorry, my bad. Wrong governor. That should read, [Washington State Governor Jay] Inslee proposes billions in new taxes to pay teachers. The Washington State governor wants to add $4 billion in taxes so starting teacher salaries can increase from the current $35,700 to $54,578. Meanwhile, our governor Ducey has been toying with us for the 215 days since Prop 123 passed, putting out teasers about raising education funding, but he hasn't proposed a penny, and it's unlikely he'll call for a significant increase in the upcoming state budget. He could surprise us, of course. But don't hold your breath.

One more thing. Before the $4 billion Gov. Inslee is proposing, Washington is already spending $2,500 more per student than Arizona.

Which brings us to the recently published final report from Ducey's Classrooms First Initiative Council. The main thrust of the document is to change the way we distribute money to K-12 schools. If we don't see a significant budget increase, the recommendations, if implemented, will create financial winners and losers. The amount each school receives will increase or decrease. If it stayed the same, why bother changing things? Inevitably, some schools will get a bigger slice of the pie, and others will have their slices cut a little thinner.

If the recommended redistribution becomes law, it will be the most significant change in the way money is given out to schools in decades. And if I read the report's recommendations correctly, and combine them with what I know Arizona conservatives have been advocating for years, school districts with lots of low income students will be the losers, while charters and districts with high income students will be the winners.

Conservative talk radio loves to condemn the bias of the mainstream media. The hosts have persuaded their audience to ignore and discount any information coming from the MSM. The result is, the media has been delegitimized, the normal guideposts are down, the referees are discredited.

Of course I'd believe that, disliking conservative talk radio as much as I do. Naturally I'd blame them for harming our national discourse by demonizing the media. But I didn't say it. My first paragraph is a paraphrase from a column written by Charlie Sykes, a well known conservative talk show host from Wisconsin. Here it is in his words.

One staple of every radio talk show was, of course, the bias of the mainstream media. This was, indeed, a target-rich environment. But as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited.

It's a fascinating column from a guy like Sykes whose conservative credentials are impeccable. "I helped advance the careers of conservatives like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan; Gov. Scott Walker; Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Senator Ron Johnson," he wrote in the column. He dislikes collective bargaining and is a staunch supporter of school choice. He and I have nearly nothing in common politically or ideologically. The only thing we share is a dislike of Donald Trump. And that's where his trouble began.

Don't expect to see additional money for education coming out of the 2017 legislature. Ain't gonna happen, unless I'm happily mistaken. (Man, would I like to be wrong about this!) Instead, expect to see them talk about ways to change how we spread around the current funding, and about how to get more money into the classroom. That's how the Classrooms First Initiative Council framed the issue in its Final Report, and it's how Republicans are going to frame their argument when they write their budget, as if the most important thing is doling out the current funding more fairly and spending it more efficiently. They're going to use that to duck the biggest issue facing our schools: not enough money.

The fact is, any inequities in the way we dole out money to schools and inefficiencies in the ways schools spend it pale in comparison to our unconscionable underfunding of K-12 education in Arizona.

Ducey calls his group looking at education funding his Classrooms First Initiative Council for a reason. A favorite conservative ploy to change the subject from increasing school funding is to talk about the percentage of money that makes it into the classroom. So let's take a look at that bit of misdirection.

It's true, Arizona schools spend a lower percentage of their overall funding for instruction than most other states. It's true and inevitable. The less money schools have overall, the higher the percentage that goes to pay for fixed expenses like building maintenance, operating expenses, transportation and food services. You simply can't do much to lower those costs. But you can always cram a few more desks into a classroom, put off new textbook and computer purchases and, of course, pay your teachers insultingly low salaries. The less money schools have, the lower the percentage that makes it into the classroom.

But let's say Arizona schools figure out how to get a larger percentage of their funding into instruction. Let's say they raise classroom spending by five percent. That sounds like a lot more money in the classroom, right? But it isn't. It's less than $400 per student.

"Hey look, everybody, a brand new education finance pony! And there's money inside!"

Yeah, maybe, but I don't think so. Prove me wrong. Please, prove me wrong. Show me lots and lots of new money for education. But what I see is a new education funding plan that moves around the existing money without a commitment to add a single new dollar. And the way the money moves will very likely hurt district schools with low income kids, and help charter schools.

Ducey's Classrooms First Initiative Council published its long-awaited, long-delayed Final Report. The Council's mission was to come up with ways to redo our state education financing system. It came up with 12 recommendations, none of which specifically says the schools need more money. Recommendation 10 says we should increase teacher salaries. How? Doesn't say. Maybe new funding, maybe making cuts elsewhere, who knows? Number 11 says we need to create a funding priority for low income schools. With new money or existing funds? Again, doesn't say. But the first nine recommendations are filled with all kinds of ideas about changing where education money comes from and how it's spread around. Most of them were proposed years ago by Lisa Graham Keegan, former Arizona Superintendent of Education, former senior education policy advisor for John McCain during his 2008 presidential run and current top education advisor to Governor Ducey, albeit unofficially. She's a friend of charter schools—when she was in the State Senate, she pushed through the original charter legislation—and a friend of vouchers—she got her charter bill through by threatening voucher legislation if she didn't get her way. Then she went on to be the Arizona Superintendent of Education, where she initiated the wild-west-style approach to creating charters, the more the merrier, and letting them do pretty much whatever they want to do.

A story in the Star holds out hope for more education funding, but I'm not convinced. According to the article, Ducey said he's figuring out a way to get more money. How? He's had 210 days since Prop 123 passed and he promised a "next step" for school funding was coming. But now, after all that time, if he has a plan, he's not saying what it is.

“We’re going to have an exciting education agenda this year,” the governor said. “And you’re going to hear about it in the State of the State” address.

A few days ago, Ducey lied at least three times about this year's wonderful additions to education funding which weren't really additions to education funding in his 2016: Year in Review. No doubt those lies will be repeated in his State of the State address, with new lies about new funding heaped on top without any real plans to move us out of the dollars-per-student cellar.

Tuesday the TUSD board passed a resolution stating "the Governing Board and the District, and its administration, teachers, counselors and staff will support all students equally, whether their immigration status is documented or undocumented." The vote was 4-1 with Michael Hicks voting No. The TUSD resolution isn't as lyrical as the one put out by the Phoenix Unified High School District—it uses the more formal Whereas/Therefore format—but the intent is the same.

An important phrase in the PUHSD statement isn't in TUSD's resolution, which states that PUHSD will stand behind its students "regardless of changes in law or policy." But really, until a district is put to the test—something we hope won't happen, even with Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim campaign promises and similar rhetoric which has been coming from the Arizona legislature for years—we won't know how aggressively it will protect its students and their families. However, one portion of the TUSD statement is exceptionally relevant from an educational standpoint:

Discrimination against children, beyond being illegal, harms them emotionally, socially, and economically in ways and degrees that cannot be fully known or measured because their effects last throughout entire lifetimes.

I hear Pima Community College is preparing a similar statement. The more educational institutions that formalize a statement of support for all its students post-election, the better. If anyone knows of similar statements from other schools or school districts around the state, you can let me know at [email protected]. Put my name in the message and it'll get to me.

The entire TUSD resolution is below:

Hitler wasn't too worried about the U.S. getting involved in World War II, according to a column in the Sunday New York Times.

“I don’t see much future for the Americans,” Hitler said in January 1942. “Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half Judaized, and the other half Negrified. How can one expect a state like that to hold together?”

Man, was he lucky the U.S. hadn't decided to make itself whiter or he could have been in real trouble.

That was 1942. Since then, we've gotten even more Judaized and Negrified, not to mention our increasing Mexicanification. And what about all those Asians?

The 75-year-old quote is sounding more current these days with the recent emergence of white supremacists into the political mainstream. I'm sure I wouldn't have to dig very far to find a similar statement delivered from a podium by a clean-cut white guy in a suit, or in an article on breibart.com.

No, I'm not saying Trump and his followers equal Hitler and his followers. Like the saying goes, History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. What we may have here is a racist, antisemitic rhyming couplet.

Governor Ducey tells deadbeat dads to "Man Up & Pay Up" in his 2016: Year in Review. But when it comes to talking about education funding, Ducey isn't man enough to tell the truth, and he sure as hell isn't planning to pay up the money our children need to pull them out of the per-student-funding cellar.

Where to begin? How about the beginning section of the flashy online 2016: Year in Review titled Educational Excellence, which says Prop 123 "is adding $3.5 billion to our K-12 education system over the next 10 years." Prop 123 gives back a portion of what the deadbeat dads and moms on the Republican side of the aisle at the Arizona legislature stole from the state's school children in 2009. Yes, stole. Lest we forget, the lege illegally violated the 2000 voter mandate in Prop 301 to use a new sales tax increase to increase K-12 spending. When you renege on child support mandated by law, then pay some of it back, you don't get to pat yourself on the back for your generosity.

Right under the Prop 123 lie, Ducey says the 2017 budget "injected an additional $142 million into K-12 education and an additional $38 million into universities." Nope. Most of the K-12 money was to cover inflation and increased enrollment—that's stay-even money—and to delay planned funding cuts to schools—that's we'll-get-you-next-year money. The $38 million for universities includes $8 million to cover increased student population, $5 million to pay for the "economic freedom schools" which were previously funded by the Koch brothers, and $19 million total in one-time money to our three universities. With the amount slashed from university budgets over the past few years, that $19 million is small change and small comfort.

Directly below that comes the next deception: "The governor’s Classrooms First Initiative is making sure new money for our schools remains a top priority for Arizona." Nope. The Classrooms First initiative isn't about new money. It's about redistributing the insufficient funding that's already there, most likely giving more of it to charter schools and to schools filled with children from affluent homes.

The last sentence in that part of the document says, "Arizona is committed to providing every student with a world-class education." Whoever wrote that should be grateful there's not an Education God sitting in a classroom in the sky. If there were, a lightning bolt, or maybe a giant wooden paddle with the words "Board of Education" written on it would have come crashing down on the lying wordsmith's head.

Phoenix Union High School District issued a statement of its commitment to "excellence and equality for all students . . . every single one of the young lives entrusted to us." According to the press release, the statement was created "in response to the concerns of many parents, students and staff following the election cycle." It's a model for any school district wanting to affirm its commitment to the safety and welfare of all its students.

I'm including the entire statement, but first I want to spotlight the words at the end.

As a district, we make the following commitments:

We will continue to strengthen and implement processes that authentically raise up student voice.

We will work together - side by side and with all willing stakeholders - to address issues of race, of poverty, of discrimination, and of hate.

We will stand behind our Phoenix Union DACA recipients and DREAMers regardless of changes in law or policy. We will continue to work with community, city, state, and national leaders to create opportunities for our DACA and DREAMer students and their families so that they may thrive personally and academically. Our campuses will remain safe places for our students and their families.

Phoenix Union will continue to shun hate, judgment, violence, discrimination, and divisiveness. Instead, we will promote peace, acceptance, inclusivity, and compassion.

We choose love.

We choose our students and families.

Every single one of them.

The entire statement is below:

Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for Secretary of Education, and her husband Dick devote a chunk of their $6 billion fortune to funding the political campaigns of candidates who are for more charters, private school vouchers and the rest of the privatization/"education reform" agenda. The couple also has a family foundation which contributed more than $10 million in 2015. Politico looked over a copy of the Foundation's 2015 tax forms and listed some of the recipients. The money makes Betsy DeVos's priorities clear. She likes school choice in its many forms and has a soft spot for religious organizations. Here are some highlights from the Politco list.

The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation is a primary funder of a reasonably recent news-format education website, The 74, begun by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, which is pro-privatization/"education reform" and pro-DeVos. The Foundation gave $400,000 to the website and another $400,000 to Brown's nonprofit, The Partnership for Educational Justice.

New York's Success Academies, a chain of charter schools, got $150,000. Success's founder, Eva Moskowitz, was being talked about as a possible Secretary of Education pick until she took herself out of the running. (Word has it she's angling for the New York City mayor job.)

The American Enterprise Institute is a major voice of the conservative movement. It received $750,000.