First off, Republic Editorial Writer Doug MacEachern is a personal friend of mine and has been for decades.
Second off, sometimes Doug is blind as a bat.
Including his Sunday column, when he took off on Schools Superintendent Diane Douglas for her suicidal attack on Governor Ducey last week. He and I agree she was an idiot to do that, but we completely disagree on some of the points she was trying to make. Especially the point that Ducey is sacrificing public education to help his charter school cronies. Doug wrote that she was completely off base to suggest there was a conservative conspiracy on charter schools.
He wrote: “There is no firmer expression of hostility to the conservative vision of education reform than rejecting charter schools. As…a…conspiracy, for love of heaven.”
So I was glad to see Republic columnist Laurie Roberts has better eyesight. On Monday morning her column was headlined: “Beneath the vitriol, Douglas is right about a few things.”
She notes Ducey’s proposed budget cuts operating funds for K-12 schools by $13.5, with another $24 million for school improvements moving into a fund used to guarantee loans to charter school operators to build new schools.
She adds that his transition team is filled with Charter School advocates, so it’s no wonder that it’s not hard to see the governor’s preference for charter schools is a threat to the public schools that education 83 percent of the state’s K-12 students.
I agree Diane Douglas is a train wreck. But she is right about a few things. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Wish everyone could see that.