Cheer (then fight)
Justice in Colorado City deserves kudos from taxpayers
 
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The Arizona Republic
 
There's a fight brewing. But first it is time to celebrate. So hold the debate.

The good news about the state's takeover of a school district run by a polygamous cult should not be eclipsed by controversy over Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne's push for greater state power over school districts.

The carefully crafted law that allowed the state to appoint a receiver to run the Colorado City Unified School District was not the first step down the proverbial slick hillside. The law was targeted to Colorado City. It was aimed at a known problem.

Lawmakers did the right thing by steering clear of controversy and passing that law without the broader powers Horne sought then - and still wants.

The situation in Colorado City is - thankfully - unique.

That public school has been run by members of a polygamous cult that treated public school funding like the cult's piggy bank. Members of Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints served as board members and bought an airplane with district funds. They failed to pay teachers. They dug the district $2 million into debt.

The state was powerless to act. That's why Attorney General Terry Goddard pushed for the legislation that passed last year. It allows state officials to appoint a third party to run a district that has grossly mismanaged its finances.

Goddard used that law to broker an agreement under which several board members quit and a state-appointed receiver will develop a financial-improvement plan, while assuring that none of the district's property is sold off by the cult.

Every taxpayer should give a cheer.

It was a victory for everyone who longs to see justice triumph over a polygamous cult whose fugitive leader has been indicted on charges of sex crimes involving a minor. It was a crack in the foundation on which this perverse cult is based. Take a moment to celebrate something good that elected officials did in your name.

Do it quickly, because here comes the debate.

Horne wants lawmakers to expand the new law so that it goes beyond finances and allows the state to take over districts for mismanagement in other areas. He also wants the state to be able to mandate that districts get involved in remedial plans for troubled schools. Currently, he says, students, teachers and schools are all held accountable, but districts aren't.

Yet districts are run by school board members, who are accountable to voters. The Arizona School Boards Association doesn't support Horne's plan.

This is the controversy that could have doomed last session's efforts to pass the law that was just used in Colorado City. Next session lawmakers will have the robust debate about whether to limit or expand the erosion of local control over schools. That erosion has been going on for some time as federal and state mandates land on schools.

Choose up sides, hone your arguments, and get ready.

But first, take a minute to celebrate how a Republican Legislature worked with a Democrat attorney general to stop the misuse of public education money in Colorado City.
 
azcentral.com
Originally published December 7, 2005
 
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