Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s (R) “mad rush” budget prioritizes prisons over schools.
It secures an additional $32 million a year for the Arizona Department of Corrections, while reducing $99 million in funding from state universities, $15.6 million from community colleges, and $123 million from non-classroom K-12 schools. Further cuts to education are expected.
{mosads}Such spending priorities are those of the industrial prison complex, not a society committed to providing economic opportunities for everyone.
If only the legislature funded schools like they do prisons.
Prisons in Arizona receive up to $23,652 per prisoner per year, while K-12 schools only get around $7,496 per student per year.
Private prisons are one of Arizona’s growth industries. The state private prison population grew by 106 percent between 2000 and 2011, and in the rest of the country it grew by only 15 percent.
Arizona’s legislature even agreed to pay the GEO group, a private prison corporation, a “100 percent occupancy rate” for all non-emergency beds in exchange for a discount rate for housing overflow prisoners.”
The budget ties the fate of Arizona’s economy to the increasing prison population, not to our children’s ability to acquire higher-skilled and better-paying jobs.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the median earnings for young adults with a bachelor’s degree was $46,900, while the median income for those with only a high school education was $30,000. Those without a high school credential have a median income of $22,900. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that, by 2018, 61 percent of all jobs in Arizona will require some training beyond high school.
Arizona’s schools need more funding, not less.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked Arizona 46th nationally as one of the worst places to be a preschooler. Some 72 percent of Arizona fourth graders are not proficient in reading. Fewer than 20 percent of all Arizona high school graduates are college ready.
Since 2007, Arizona has decreased state funding for higher education by 32 percent, more than any other state. To compensate for this decrease, Arizona’s public universities have had to raise tuition by 80.6 percent. If college tuition continues to increase, many Arizona students may forego college aspirations.
Investing in good education is good for the economy.
According to Arizona State’s Morrison Institute report, Dropped, “if Arizona reduced its number of Latino high school dropouts by half, those additional graduates would earn an additional $31 million a year, allowing them to spend an additional $23 million annually.”
Ducey’s budget hurts low income, underrepresented students.
In 2010, Hispanics earned 14 percent of bachelor’s degrees in Arizona, Asian Pacific Americans 5 percent, African Americans 3 percent and Native Americans 2 percent, according to the Arizona Minority Student Progress Report.
And contrary to popular belief, not all Native students go to college for free. To shift the cost of education from the legislature to the students is to price college beyond the reach of most Navajo families.
The median family income of the Navajo Nation (the largest tribal nation in Arizona) is $27,389, half that of Arizona ($51,310). Increased tuition would severely restrict college access for the Navajo people.
Arizona has to make tough financial decisions, and enhancing the quality of education will require Arizona citizens to recognize that having better educated citizens is in its best interests. The investment in our education today will determine the quality of our economy tomorrow.
Dovi is an associate professor at the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project. Next year she will be a Fulbright Fellow in Norway. Tachine is Navajo, a doctoral candidate in the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.