Jeff's Commentary - 4/12 - The one cent sales tax

I go to little dry cleaners in a strip mall by my house. A nice lady who is about 75 years old works there every day during the week. She is small and feeble but is there at 6am and works to close on most days. So when I heard that a thug went in and robbed her at gunpoint Friday, I got really upset. What kind of loser human being robs a little old lady by gunpoint these days? According to the police, the guy was a young man wearing a hood over his head. He staked out the cleaners from a nearby gas station and at 11AM in the morning went in for his take. Statistically he is probably a meth head say the police trying to score drug money.

Later I went home to an email from the Scottsdale Unified School District. The Arizona Legislature passed an 8 percent cut to all education funding. If the one cent sales tax increase ballot measure does not pass in May, education budgets will be cut by another 8 percent. At my kids high school, that means class sizes will increase to an average of 37 students to teacher ratio. It also means ten more teachers will be cut from an already downsized staff.

I can tell you this…..it’s already almost impossible for teachers to teach at the current 34:1 ratio. At 37 we can guarantee more failing grades, more kids lost in the middle and ultimately more drop outs for a state that is close to the nation’s worst in that category. So what happens to those kids who don’t make it and can’t find jobs because they have no skills? Statistics show greater propensity to be in bad home situations, early pregnancy, increased drug use and ultimately crime.

I can only think about the the little old lady at my cleaners and how this story will continue to multiple to other shops, businesses and homes around Arizona if we don’t start to take a stand on fixing our academic situation. Major employers will not settle in Arizona if we don’t figure this out. And for the little old lady at my dry cleaners who was robbed; maybe she was lucky. The next person may take a bullet for a few bucks to get drugs.

Think we don’t need to pass the one cent sales tax? Just look around for the young men and women wearing hoods that are coming into your neighborhoods. Think they aren’t there…..look again. Ask my sweet 75 year old at the local dry cleaners.

Jeff