Yikes.

No, it's not a bad idea. Despite my liberal political ideology, I find no fault in having an American Flag at the front of my classroom. It's fine. It's not obnoxious, it's not distracting, whatever. No worries. It is kind of sickening how the Republicans have hijacked both it and the definition of patriotism. Apparently, neither stand for liberty, freedom, equality, or the privilege to dissent, after all. That's a different rant, entirely, though, and I'll do what I can to refocus my musings to the matter at hand.

So listen. Arizona is the dumbest state in the Union, according to Morgan Quitno's book of state rankings. Perhaps not coincidentally, we're 48 in school funding. We have a ridiculous high-stakes exit exam, designed more to assuage public concerns about our poor level of education and to appease the business community (who argued that a diploma didn't mean anything to a potential employer) than to improve the educational oppurtunity for students and to support teachers.

Now, this isn't a partisan thing -- only one lawmaker voted against it, so I can't blame the Republicans alone for this. I'm upset about it because it doesn't fix anything. For one, it's an unfunded mandate. They didn't allocate any money to do it. Second, they wasted time on making some stupid law they could pat themselves on the back for. It's really tragic that they aren't using this time to work on the budget, find money for the schools, and see if there's something they can do about Arizona's economy (which, I'm afraid, may be in trouble. Low wages, high inflation, and a slowing housing market could spell stagflation).

Maybe the chalkboards in classrooms won't be so lonely anymore, but I can't help but fear that our neglected education system in Arizona won't churn out more people dumb enough to write such a law.