Tea Party Challenged on Education Ideas

I don’t know how else to say it. Arizona is failing its students.

• 65% of children in Arizona are not proficient in math by the 4th grade
• 71% of children in Arizona cannot read at grade level by the 4th grade
• 1/3 of our kids are dropping out of school every year, giving Arizona the 2nd highest dropout rate in the nation.

Our political leaders are clearly taking us in the wrong direction, and since I ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction four years ago, lawmakers have managed to make things worse. In recent days, we’ve witnessed some of the largest cuts to public education in the history of the state of Arizona. We now rank 51st in per pupil funding, putting Arizona behind all the states and the District of Columbia. Those in charge of education at the state capitol clearly have the wrong priorities.

You can help make public education Arizona’s top priority. Please consider giving a $5 clean elections qualifying contribution to my campaign today.

As you may have heard recently, I’ve started to take the fight directly to conservative voters and to my likely Republican opponent, should I have the privilege of being the Democratic nominee once again, because I believe we need to challenge them on their turf if things are going to change. I stepped into the “lion’s den” last week when I attended the Scottsdale Tea Party meeting, where I challenged those in attendance on the misinformation they’ve been fed from Republican politicians.

That’s what we’ve got to do if we are not only going to change the conversation, but change the direction in which our state is headed. It’s critical we build a broad, diverse coalition so we can support our kids by ensuring every child in Arizona has access to a quality public education.

Let’s do this together for our children. Please give $5 today so we can change direction and move Arizona forward by moving ALL our children forward!

Thank you for supporting my campaign. Your clean elections qualifying contribution helps me reach voters across the state to confront the misinformation they’ve been hearing so we can put our kids first once again.

Please give $5 today and help us take our message to the people. Visit my website at http://www.williamsforarizona.com to download and return the clean elections qualifying contribution form with your $5 to the address at the bottom of the form.