The task ahead for Arizona lawmakers has gotten easier, though some will surely see it as complicating deliberations.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package includes $80 billion for an “education stabilization fund.”
The money is to be used by states to avoid cut backs in teachers and classroom programs.
Until the package becomes law, Arizona legislators can’t know for sure how it will affect their efforts to balance the budget.
So in that sense it could complicate state budget deliberations–if legislative leaders let it.
Or they can go with the flow, take the money and avoid dreary and repetitious debate over the efficacy of kindergarten programs and whether to eliminate them.
Going with the flow recognizes Obama’s popularity and election mandate to pump life into the nation’s economy. It is only a matter of a few weeks before a package with substantial funding for education becomes law.
The overarching opportunity is to keep as many teachers working and children in school in Arizona at federal expense as possible. Whether all-day kindergarten works or not is secondary.
It’s that easy.
(Disclosure: The columnist’s wife is a teacher in the Mesa School District.)
