Some Arizona businesses and their lobbying groups are spending money this week in a bid to convince voters that the state's education situation is not as bad as it’s perceived.
Matthew Benson, spokesman for the newly formed Arizona Education Project said it has made a "six-figure'' buy of TV ads in metro Phoenix to counter what he called the "negative voices'' in education, though he would not identify who they were.
"For too long, the debate in this state on education has been dominated by negative voices and by organizations and entities that see some kind of political advantage in tearing down our teachers and our schools,'' he said. "We're just not going to stand for that anymore.''
One of the points in the commercial is that education funding has increased by nearly $1.5 billion in the past three years.
However, that total includes what the state is legally mandated to fund, plus inflation increases and the more than $300 million a year going into K-12 education as a result of Proposition 123.