Local Opinion: The no good, pointless, wasteful 'Empower Hotline'

My fingers tingled with excitement as I dialed the Arizona Department of Education’s “Empower Hotline” to report inappropriate public school lessons. Finally, I thought to myself, there is a leader like Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne who will save Arizona’s educational system from years of neglect and an all-out war against public education. After all, as of 2022, Arizona was 48th in the nation in K-12 per-pupil funding and 49th in spending as a percentage of state taxpayer income.

“Empower Hotline, may I help you?” A pleasant voice was heard at the other end.

“I’m thrilled to use this service. I’ve been waiting for years to share my disapproval with everything wrong with our educational system.”

“That’s the whole purpose of this hotline, sir. Please share at ease your unhappiness.”

I was on cloud nine listening to this understanding voice. I would start with an easy one.

“Well, I have two boys in public schools in Tucson. They have smart, hard-working, engaging and caring teachers, but their salaries are pitiful. Did you know that in 2022 Arizona ranked lowest in the nation in teacher salary when adjusted for cost of living and quality of life?

“I didn’t know that sir,” she said with an empathetic tone. “But I should let you know this hotline was created to denounce educational malpractice, what happens in the classroom.”

That is educational malpractice, I thought to myself. Our children spend more awake hours at school than at home, and we trust that our teachers are paid well because it’s not only a sign of respect but it also leads to better employment satisfaction, desirability of the teaching profession, and continuation of teaching as a career.

With a hint of frustration, I noted, “One of my boys, in high school, has had a long-term substitute teacher since the beginning of the school year for English, language arts and math. For. Language. Arts. and. Math.”

My theatrical ending sought to emphasize that as of September 2022 close to 2,600 Arizona teaching positions were vacant, the seventh year in a row that our beloved state was experiencing a severe teacher shortage. In previous years, Arizona has had the highest teacher turnover rate of any state nationwide.

“Uh, umm,” I heard on the other end. I sensed my talk on how long-standing tax cuts were starving public schools was making no inroads, so I decided to appeal to her sense of justice, and using my professorial voice I threw her a soft ball.

“You know, about 25 years ago Arizona put in place an education tax credit system that was a big salvo against public education, and essentially it took money from the poor and gave it to the rich. As Luke (or was it Matthew?) said, ‘I tell you, that to everyone who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’.”

“Sir, as a reminder, this hotline was created to…”

Then I recalled the universal voucher program of 2022. I knew that the good-natured lady would concur with me that it was an absolutely asinine idea to give vouchers to well-off families while taking money away from public schools that serve poor children.

“The tax credit is nothing compared to Arizona’s universal voucher program,” I said with righteous indignation. “Last year, 75% of the new voucher applicants never attended public schools, so not only are working families subsidizing the education of the wealthy, the poor will end up sending their children to private schools with no accountability or transparency, and it will bankrupt the educational budget as it’s costing 10 times more than originally projected.”

“Maybe so, but what about Critical Race Theory, wokism, gender ideology, drag queen shows, inappropriate books…”

The nice lady’s voice seemed distant and automatic as my mind recoiled at the thought of Arizona ranking last in the nation in 2022 in the student-counselor ratio (716 students for every counselor), had one of the highest pupil-to-teacher ratios (general education classes with 35 to 40 high school students not uncommon), and tied last with the highest dropout rate in the US.

But at least the good superintendent did create a hotline for frustrated parents like myself. Why create solutions when hotlines will do?