Goldwater Institute

Despite the fact that American students enjoy higher average family incomes and per-pupil funding, they consistently rank near the bottom in international examinations of high school achievement. Many researchers point to the United States’ poor practices of recruiting, training, compensating, and retaining teachers. The highest-achieving countries tend to recruit their teachers from the top 5 percent of university graduates; however, on average, American K-12 schools recruit from the bottom third.

Like most states, Arizona finances its public schools through the application of complex formulas, some of which depend on enrollment and some of which rely upon categories of spending.

Legitimate governments are meant to secure liberty. Local governments are no exception. That's why this report recommends adopting and enforcing the first principles of legitimate government at the local level. It provides the theoretical basis for advancing a judicially enforceable set of individual rights, as opposed to simply relying on local political processes to achieve reform. And it furnishes a road map for legislatively implementing the recommended reforms. In so doing, the proposed Local Liberty Charter aims to restrain out-of-control local government growth.

The state budget crisis is estimated to be at least $3 billion for fiscal year 2010, and perhaps reach $4 billion. When facing a 40 percent General Fund shortfall, reducing spending by 2 or 3 percent in some of the state's biggest budget areas won't even begin to make a dent. The Goldwater Institute proposes 16 systemic changes that will save the state money now and bolster the private economy in the long term.

Arizona's recent economic record has been impressive. Over the past 10 years, Arizona has been the third fastest-growing state in the country on average, Arizona's annual economic growth rate has been 1.6 percentage points faster than the national average. Job growth has been impressive, too. Nonfarm payroll employment grew over 33 percent, the second-fastest payroll employment growth in the country among all the states.