Linda Valdez

opinion columnist

Do we want today’s kids to grow up as mindless consumers of junk science, political sophistry and reality TV?

If so, no worries.

Just continue starving public education for funding.

Continue paying teachers like chumps.

It’s Arizona’s way.

The quest to discredit and defund public education is driven by the state’s ruling Republican party.

A House panel has approved a bill that would allow any student in Arizona to get a publicly funded voucher to attend private school.

There’s plenty of other legislative mischief.

So it should be no surprise that Arizona requires a vow of poverty from those who do what is arguably the most important job in a modern society.

If you think that’s hyperbole, consider this:

“The typical teacher’s salary is insufficient to support two adults and two children if he/she is the family’s sole provider. . . . over a 40-hour work week a teacher, who has earned at least a bachelor’s degree, makes only $328.80 a week more than an individual living in poverty.”

That comes from a January 2016 task force report for the Arizona Department of Education, which looks at the looming teacher shortage and suggests ways to retain or recruit teachers.

Arizona’s Department of Education is better known these days for political tiffs between Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas and the Arizona Board of Education.

But this report merits attention because of its content.

Put together by a group of educators and advocates from around the state, it reflects a real problem with how Arizona treats those to whom parents entrust the most important people on the planet: their children.

Those children are also the most important people in the state – regardless of what elected officials with big titles may think of their own individual specialness.

The teachers who shape the next generation of informed voters are critically important to the future of the state.

Recommendations from the task force include a directive for elected officials and policymakers to “publicly acknowledge the value of the teaching profession and the critical need for effective teachers in all Arizona classrooms.”

It also says Arizona needs to “increase K-12 funding to address teacher compensation issues and make Arizona competitive in the marketplace.”

Let me repeat: Increase K-12 funding to address teacher compensation issues and make Arizona competitive in the marketplace

Recommendations for parents and community members include supporting teachers and schools, as well as telling lawmakers the importance of education issues.

In other words: Speak out. Loudly.

If you can’t get through to the GOP elected officials who run the state, ask whoever answers the phone why the boss isn't available. You pay the salaries. You are the ultimate political boss.

Keep asking. Keep demanding. Be heard.

Task force reports are usually consumed by dust bunnies. That shouldn’t happen to this one.

Not if we expect our children and grandchildren to become successful adults who have the ability to see through the kind of shenanigans today’s lawmakers are employing to destroy public education.