Rodney Glassman visits Globe

Senate hopeful, Rodney Glassman, met with San Carlos Tribal Chairman Wensler Noise

If Rodney Glassman has his way, he will be the State’s first Democratic Senator since DeConcinni won the seat in 1977.

He is on a tour of 50 communities in 30 days in the final weeks before voters go to the polls and hopes his message of “Turning the Page” on business as usual will help him defeat Arizona’s 4th term Republican Senator: John McCain.

He spent time with Globe’s Mayor, Fernando Shipley and Gila County Supervisor Shirley Dawson on Monday and made stops at Vida e Cafe in downtown Globe and in San Carlos where he met with Tribal Chairman, Wensler Noise.  Although the Rasmussen poll has McCain as the Senate choice with 54 percent to 33 percent for Glassman, with 8 percent undecided, he points to the couple he met outside of the coffeehouse who came up to talk to him. They said, “We can’t vote for you because you’re a Democrat and we won’t vote for McCain.”  He is hoping they, and others like them, will listen to his message which centers on education and job creation and consider putting someone in office who, as he says, will work for Arizona. … Continue Reading

Senator Bill Hardt: Mr Rural Arizona

By Jim Turner, Arizona Historian
If you enjoy driving Arizona’s scenic highways, you may often wonder why we honor certain people by naming roads after them, such as the Senator Hardt Highway. Read on, and you will wonder no more, at least about that one. … Continue Reading

Jason Williams on Education in Arizona

Jason Williams, Democratic candidate running for State School Superintendent was in Globe Wednesday night to speak to a gathering of concerned parents and citizens who came to hear his vision for fixing the State's Education system. Tom Horn, current Superintendent is stepping down in 2010 after an 8 year tenure

Jason Williams, a Democrat running for State Superintendent of Schools was in Globe last night to talk to a group of concerned citizens and parents about his vision for the State’s educational woes.

Williams, who ran against Tom Horn in 2006, wants to shift the emphasis back onto public schools and do more to engage kids and address the issues in the public sector to raise the bar. Under the guidance of Tom Horn who has held the seat since 2002, the State greatly increased Charter schools (now at 453) and in a recent report put out by Stanford University the results  out from Charter schools appear disappointing.

“While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and
local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were
significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed
gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter
schools demonstrating no significant difference”

Arizona has the dubious honor of being one of the worst states in the country when it comes to education. (see: Smartest State) To overlook the impact this has when trying to attract business and industry to fuel our economy is to miss the mark entirely. It is not enough to reduce business taxes. If business owners look at the schools here in Arizona and decide neither they, nor their employees, want their kids going to them , and if industry can’t find enough qualified, educated workforce to do the job, then Arizona will continue to struggle to have jobs and economic prosperity. It is critical to our livelihood- not to mention just caring about kids futures- that the State find a way to be better than Dead Last in this area.

Williams thinks he has a few ideas on how to get there.

… Continue Reading