"He was governor?" The sorry state of Arizona's public schools

I've got a guy working with me that graduated from a Phoenix, Arizona, high school in 2003.

Yesterday, he asked me why Texas performed so many executions. "Dude, I was looking at a list the other day. No one is even close to Texas."

So I proceeded to explain to him that most of that is courtesy of one George Walker Bush, who signed nearly 200 death warrants. I told him how they would send a death warrant to Bush, who would spend fifteen minutes having it read to him before he sent the guy to the table. I told him about Karla Faye Tucker and how Bush mocked her.

My guy looked at me and asked, "death warrants have to go through the president?" I told him no, death warrants are all handled by the governor of the state they're signed in.

"Bush was governor? I thought he was just president."

:banghead: No wonder we're in trouble!

>_<

in 2000 voted for bush because she thought "he had a nice smile & the other one seemed like he was a liar or something". When she told her grandmother that she voted for bush, her grandmother told her "I've told you, republicans only cause wars & recessions!!!" How can you make people pay attention though -- people like that don't pay attention until something directly affects their everyday life, like losing their job, etc. It's a shame.

He was the worst governor we've had, and Perry is running a close second.... I sure miss the days of Ann Richards!

So a moran (or perhaps someone who was just a self-absorbed middle-schooler during the 2000 election, and who doesn't pay much attention to politics) doesn't know GWB was the governor of Texas. I don't think this is really cause for an indictment of the entire Arizona public school system.

Both the OP's and my own experiences with AZ public school graduates reveal that there are stunning gaps in one's knowledge, if their entire education consists of going to Arizona schools.

To top it off, there is also a lack of curiosity about anything. I dated a Business major from here once, and she LOVED Silvio Berlusconi with a passion. I tried to explain why he's so close to being thrown in jail, and she just didn't care. I constantly hear Arizonans rationalize why they shouldn't vote or do anything about politics/government. Most of the time, the people I see sleeping in class or skipping altogether went to Arizona schools.

Values are different for everyone, but it's clear to anyone who has spent time in Arizona that the educational system here is total crap and its graduates do not come away with a desire to learn anything. Learning is like a chore for them, whereas I find it fun.

The people I know from Arizona who possess any knowledge or curiosity at all went to private or religious schools.

Last I checked, Arizona ranked 50th when it came to public school funding.

The quality of public education here is so poor that Governor Napolitano made it a top issue in her own re-election campaign.

EDIT: BTW, who is that in your avatar picture?

since I graduated from public school in Arizona. (And the two years I spent at a Christian school there were the most educationally stunting years of my life.)

Granted that was two decades ago, so it may well have become worse since I left, but my son has been in California public schools his entire life, and they are so inferior to what I grew up with that it just makes me want to cry. His elementary school couldn't even afford a library, and his classroom for three years was in a mold-infested trailer. The teachers had to buy their own supplies and kids had to share books. (And this was in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood.)

I think you can find head-in-the-sand, willfully ignorant people anywhere you go, regardless of their educational opportunities. That said, if you are in Tempe and not Tucson, you are likely to meet a less intellectually curious bunch. ASU has long had that reputation, and it wasn't just the in-state students.

The picture, by the way, is from the poster for the movie Betty Blue.

At ASU, I remember engaging in a lengthy debate with an English major (I'm PoliSci) about grammar rules.

I said something which he corrected, and I attempted to inform him that his "correction" was itself incorrect.

It was regarding the use of "I" and "me" when doing something with someone else. For example:

Bob and I went to the store.

versus

He was talking about Bob and me.

I politely explained that you simply take Bob, or whomever, out of the equation, so it becomes

I went to the store.

and

He was talking about me.

I learned this in third grade, in public school. This guy, a graduate of Phoenix schools, apparently doing Honors studies at a university, had never learned it.

This kid insisted that I was wrong, over and over, until another English major (from Detroit) corrected him.

Schools here are among the least funded in the entire country, and the rich people moving in would rather keep it that way, and have children terribly uninformed about everything, than see their precious property tax rates go up.

Also, my out-of-state friends constantly bring up this point:

Hardly any native Arizonans understand the concept of sarcasm.

had never heard of Barack Obama until I mentioned him a couple weeks ago. She's a big Hillary Clinton supporter. Why? Because she's a feminist and Hillary is a woman.

doh!

Arizonite/Arizonist/Arizonesian?

I'm an Arizona public school teacher who was also educated here and take offense at your sweeping generalizations. You met a dumb guy who graduated from high school in AZ and now he alone represents the "sorry state of Arizona's public schools?" I'm sure that ill-informed people can be found in every state, don't you?

label doesn't change the fact that AZ's public schools are in a sorry state.

Why Arizona ranks dead last among the states in 'Smartest' study
By ANNE RYMAN and PAT KOSSAN
The Arizona Republic

In the annual "The Smartest State Award," Arizona got last place.

Researchers at Morgan Quitno Press reached that conclusion after they analyzed calculations from federal agencies and census data.

The Arizona Republic took a close look at the research and examined Arizona's track record on six key education factors used in this report: money, attendance, grads, teacher pay, test scores and class size.

Here's the sad story: Arizona's thrashing is largely deserved.

more... http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/student_achieve06/30144.php

I moved to AZ in the fall of 2000 and stayed for 5 years. When we moved there from IL, my kids were in 3rd and 1st grade. Both were a full year ahead of their AZ grade level in math. Even though both kids were placed into the district's challenge program, it wasn't challenging enough. When my son was in 3rd grade (the grade the challenge program begins) I was dismayed to find them doing easier work in all subjects than my daughter did 2 years earlier. I decided to meet with the principal to share my concerns and to see if it was my imagination. The principal admitted that the group of 3rd graders in my son's grade were not at the same level as the group of 3rd graders in my daughter's 3rd grade year, so they made the curriculum easier. :eyes: In order to keep our kids from falling behind, we decided to pull them out of the public school and enroll them in a very challenging charter school.

For the most part AZ's schools suck, but their roads are awesome. I was always amazed at how many roads that looked like they were in great condition to me were resurfaced.

As one who lived there for 5 years, let's just say I'm glad to be back in the Midwest where the roads suck, but the schools are better.

Guy shows up at the store today wanting one sheet of plywood--one that's ten feet long by six feet wide--to put on the floor of his dog kennel. This happens more often than you think, so I gently explained to the man that plywood doesn't come that way.

He handed me this little picture he had drawn with the dimensions he really needed: "8 feet 18 inches or 8 feet 24 inches" by 4 feet 18 inches.

I went off and got three sheets of plywood...but before I cut it I decided to confirm what he wanted. "Sir, would you like it to be 9 feet 6 inches, or 10 feet even?" He started ranting and raving about how he wanted it 8 feet 18 inches, not 9 feet 6 inches.

I gently explained that 8 feet 18 inches is also 9 feet 6 inches. "No it's not! I want it 8 feet 18 inches!"

Fine. I cut the two boards to make 9 feet 6 inches then told him it was 8 feet 18 inches.

Oh god, where do I GET these people?

I don't think this problem is unique to Arizona. They don't usually ask about current events on standardized tests.