Illustration by Cody Angell

It's official this year: We're failing our children. Arizona ranks last in the nation for public education funding and received an "F" from Education Week's "Quality Counts" survey for adequate school funding.

Although not yet failing, the state went from a "D" to a "D" plus last year in the area of funding equity between districts. Ask any students on campus who attended public high schools in Arizona, and they will tell you there are serious inequities between districts, and that schools across the state are in dire straits. Many people cannot afford to teach, and the teaching profession in Arizona has developed record turnover rates - which are still increasing. We're getting what we pay for, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In 1998, only 22 percent of Arizona fourth graders were proficient in reading, and less than 18 percent were proficient in math.

I suppose the situation could be worse. After all, we have to make a name for ourselves somehow. One would expect Arizona's elected leadership to move aggressively to solve our education problems, but don't hold your breath. It has been nearly four years since Gov. Jane D. Hull, a former teacher, took office. She promised when she assumed the office to make education a top priority. Four years later, we are still dead last in the nation for education spending, and teachers are still waiting for their pay raises.

Nonetheless, the governor must be applauded for helping to bring Proposition 301 - the education sales tax - to the voters in 2000. However, she lacked the leadership to impose such a tax without asking the voters for their consent. Were our failing scores not enough to merit such a tax in her opinion? Apparently, while she was telling us that her top priority was improving education, she held the interests of taxpayers to be so sacred that she could not impose a tax without their unlikely consent, no matter how serious the situation.

Hopefully no state emergency will take place before her term is up that requires such leadership!

Proposition 301 has more serious problems than the governor's lack of leadership. The voters were presented with a proposition that would put more money directly into the classroom, and quickly. Teachers were promised pay raises, and classroom materials were to be improved. Only recently have state officials announced that individual districts will decide where the money should go. It sounded too good to be true - at least too good to be true in Arizona - from the beginning. Additionally, with retail sales down following Sept. 11, revenues from the new sales tax are likely to be much less than were projected anyway.

The money from Proposition 301 was not included in Education Week's score for this year. Many state officials claim that 301 revenues will work to bring us up from the bottom. Nevertheless, Wade McLean, superintendent of the Marana Unified School District, isn't convinced. "Arizona pays $5,006 per child for education; New Jersey, $9,362. A Proposition 301 sales-tax increase isn't going to do it," he points out. Clearly, without increases in education spending beyond Proposition 301, we will continue to fail our children, not to mention our future.

Just as we see how terribly ineffective our state government has been, the Legislature is set to slash nearly $1 billion from the budget. The governor, still more committed to keeping taxes down for the rich than caring for our children, says she "won't tolerate an across-the-board tax increase."

Candidates for state offices in 2002 will undoubtedly continue promising to improve education without raising taxes. If it sounds unrealistic, it is.

We need to choose better leaders for our state - leaders who are not afraid of making potentially unpopular decisions to prevent crises such as the current state of Arizona's public education. If we do not, we will continue to fail our children, and they will be entitled to blame us when we send them into a world where they cannot compete.