by Luci Scott - Sept. 16, 2012 09:07 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Advocates of permanently extending the temporary 1-cent-per-dollar sales tax to benefit education rallied on Sunday in central Phoenix as they kicked off a campaign to persuade voters to approve Proposition 204. Early voting begins Oct. 11.
Participants painted their car windows with "Yes on 204" and picked up bumper stickers, yard signs, pins and T-shirts. Radio and TV ads were to begin today, and supporters were already making calls to voters.
"Things have gotten to a very dire level," said Ann-Eve Pedersen of Tucson, the campaign's chairwoman and mother of a sixth-grade boy, referring to education funding.
"Not only are kids being hurt, our state economy is being hurt."
The group rallied at the central Phoenix offices of Integrated Web Strategy, a company that is supporting the proposition.
Pedersen heads the Arizona Education Parent Network, a nonpartisan group that says it has grown discouraged by what it perceives as a lack of support for education in the state Legislature.
"We said, 'Stop calling legislators, stop calling the governor. It's not working,' " she said. "We started working on a more permanent funding solution."
Of the revenue from Prop. 204, known as the Quality Education and Jobs Act, 80 percent would go to education, with the rest funding road repair and construction, Department of Public Safety officers and KidsCare, which provides medical treatment for children of the working poor.
Among those at the campaign rally was Marisol Garcia, an eighth-grade social-studies teacher in the Isaac School District, which cut out all-day kindergarten three years ago.
"First-graders are coming in with way lower levels of learning in reading and math," she said. "Second-grade teachers are feeling it, as well."
Class sizes are larger, too: Garcia teaches a class of 32, which she says includes a mix of students with varying learning needs and some who are still learning English.
Another rally participant was architect Paul Winslow.
"As we have looked at (education) cuts, we keep hearing we need to do more with less," he said. "Having been in business, we tried to do more with less, and it got to the point where we were doing less with less."
He said American society is based on universal education.
"That is what has made our country great, but we have so underfunded education, we are shirking that responsibility."
The 1-cent-per-dollar sales tax is currently set to expire next year.
For more information, visit qualityeducationandjobs.com.
17 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/2012/09/16/20120916sales-tax-rally-voter-support.html
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