Educator calls Capitol rally to protest school budget cuts

An Arizona school superintendent says maybe it's time for "a reverse Boston Tea Party" to protest the state's proposed cuts in funding for public education.

A list of proposed budget cuts being circulated at the state Capitol totals $900 million for public education in fiscal 2009 and 2010.

Florence Schools Superintendent Gary Nine will lead a rally at the Capitol Sunday afternoon to protest the cuts.

The architects of the plan, Sen. Russell Pearce and Rep. John Kavanagh, are showing they're exceptional managers, especially when it comes to subtracting," Nine said.

"I hesitate to call them leaders. They were elected by regular folks and they're not paying any attention to regular folks," Nine said about the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.

Nine said his first reaction to the proposed budget cuts was, "What are those guys smoking down there?"

The budget cuts, if they become reality, will wipe out thousands of jobs, end all-day kindergarten, cut the number of school days from 180 to 175, lead to huge class sizes and even four-day school weeks, Nine said.

"Those are things that were told to me in one meeting or another. Those came from our county school board meeting."

Nine has written a heated essay, condemning the budget proposals.

"I sent it out to my board first and our principals and our teachers and to superintendents around the state," Nine said. "The reaction has been very positive, kind of unbelievably so."

Nine said tighter budgets are a reality in today's economy.

"Every administrator I know knows we have to cut, we have to tighten our belts, but we can't hammer the core," he said.

Arizona currently ranks 49th among the 50 states in educational funding, and would lose more than $1,000 per child under the proposed budget cuts, educators said.