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November 18, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
·KAET-ASU Poll;
·Education funding lawsuit;
·Arizona's drought and water conservation.
In-Studio Guests:
·Tara Blanc and Derigan Silver, KAET-ASU Poll;
·Attorney Tim Hogan, Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest.

>> Michael Grant: Tonight on "Horizon," the latest KAET ASU poll shows democratic can candidates are no match for President Bush in our state if the election were held today. Plus, a new lawsuit on education funding has state leaders concerned. We'll take a closer look at Crane versus Arizona and how at risk students might benefit. Finally, we conclude a two-part series on the state's drought and what's being done to conserve water in Arizona. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "Horizon." In Arizona, President Bush would easily defeat any of the top four Democrats who might run against him if the election were held today. That is one result of the latest KAET Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Arizona State University poll. The poll of 409 Arizona voters conducted November 14th through the 17th, it has a margin of error of 4.9%. Let's take a look at the results.

>> Reporter: President Bush outpolled all four top democratic presidential candidate by about 15% each. Bush would defeat Vermont governor Howard Dean 50-35% with 15% undecided. Former general Wesley Clark 49-34% with 17% undecided. Senator John Kerry, 51-33% with 16% undecided, and senator Joe Lieberman 49-34% with 17% undecided. Meanwhile, 47% approve of the way President Bush is handling the economy, 45% don't approve while 8% have no opinion. That's up from September when 38% supported his efforts with the economy, 55% were opposed and 7% had no opinion. However, Bush's approval ratings on his handling of terrorism dipped. The November poll indicates 52% approved of his war on terrorism, 42% disapproved, 6% had no opinion. That was a drop from September's numbers of 64% supporting, 27% unfavorable and 9% having no opinion. We also asked that whether in light of the continuing casualties in America if America had done the right thing by attacking country. 56% think that the United States did not make a mistake, 36% felt it was a mistake, 8% had no opinion. Arizonans are feeling more optimistic about the economy. 38% expect their financial situation will be better a year from now. 10% expect to be worse off. 48% think their situation will not change. 21% of those surveyed said they were better off this year compared to last year, 23% were worse off and 56% felt about the same as a year ago. Finally, turning to a guest worker program sponsored by several Arizona lawmakers, 59% support that legislation, 28% oppose it, 13% had no opinion.

>> Michael Grant: With me tonight to talk about the poll results is Tara Blanc, who assists Bruce Merrill with the poll and also here is Derigan Silver, another grad student assistant. Thanks for joining us. Bruce is having dinner out.

>> Derigan Silver: That's right.

>> Michael Grant: Derigan, I saw these results a couple, three hours ago and I thought what's happening here is there is just an anybody but George Bush vote. I don't know that I have ever seen results so consistent regardless of who's name you threw in, Kerry or Dean or someone else.

>> Derigan Silver: That's right, Michael. There's a hard-core group of Democrats out there that just really want to see Bush gone in the next election. It's one reason I think that when we start polling about the democratic primary you're going to see a lot of people -- the issue that's going to come up is electibility. They want the candidate that's going to get George Bush out of office and that's why the numbers are the same across the board. They just want to vote for the democratic candidate.

>> Michael Grant: Subnumbers, women going for Democrats, men, however, overwhelmingly going for George Bush.

>> Derigan Silver: That's right. You're seeing a couple issues play into there. Women are about 50-50. They're voting along party lines, 50% for Democrats, 50% for Republicans, but men overwhelmingly are supporting George Bush. I think they're a little more supportive of what he's doing in the war, more supportive of getting in there and taking Iraq and taking control of Iraq and I think women might be feeling like the recent abortion issue is coming to light and not sure who they're going to vote for.

>> Michael Grant: There had been some sentiment politically that perhaps 9/11 might have focused women's attention more on national security issues and who is the best leader to get us through those kinds of issues, that kind of thing. This poll would seem to indicate that that element is not playing heavily, at least at this point in time.

>> Derigan Silver: Well, I think probably what happened after 9/11 is the media was so pervasive about the country being attacked that the soccer mom phenomenon, people rose up to the challenge and wanted somebody that would be strong in the country. Now what you're seeing is soldiers killed in Iraq every day, right before we did this poll, the Blackhawk helicopter was shot down, the Chinook helicopter was shot down, while we were doing this poll, the two Blackhawk helicopters ran into each other and crashed and I think that the more that's on the national media, the more that people are going to be saying, let's get out of Iraq, and just naturally women say appear little bit more than men.

>> Michael Grant: In fact, Tara, we saw that in the last poll that we conducted, I think, on CPS and child-related issues. Media and timing of polls will very much drive different poll results.

>> Tara Blanc: They will, depending on what you see in the media really affects what people say when you ask them certain questions. No doubt about it.

>> Michael Grant: Speaking of which, what a difference a 7.2% annual growth rate in the economy does for President Bush.

>> Tara Blanc: I think he is benefitting from the headlines and he is not benefitting from the headlines. His ratings for his handling of the economy have grown 9% since the last time we asked the question in September, and on the other hand, his ratings for handling of terrorism in general have dropped 12%. And so has Derigan mentioned earlier when we did the poll, we were getting some bad news about the war in Iraq. At the same time, we were getting a lot of good news about the economy, the economic indicators are growing, the stock market is up, lots of good thing are happening, and so George Bush is definitely benefitting from that kind of media attention.

>> Michael Grant: And understandably the poll result also indicating Arizonans feeling better about their own personal economic situation.

>> Tara Blanc: We asked the question about whether people felt that their situation this year was better or worse than last year, and about a fifth of the people said that they thought they were worse off, more than half the people thought they were about the same, but what he asked about next year, almost 40% of the people said they thought they would be better off next year than they were this year. So people are really optimistic about what's going on in the economy.

>> Michael Grant: Going back, though, to what we were talking about in relation to the war, given the timing of the poll and those kinds of things, how do I square that, though, with most Arizonans still saying that we -- they feel we did the right thing in going to war?

>> Tara Blanc: I think that there's a lot of things involved with that. We had, I think it was almost 60% of the people we asked, said that they still supported the effort in Iraq, and I think a lot of things come into that. The pressure that was put on people after 9/11 to support the country and to show their patriotism, I think there's still some of that kind of feeling. If I say I'm against it I'm unpatriotic or unamerican. I think people are really supportive of the troops and in order for them to say that I don't support the war would be viewed as being unsupportive of the troops. I also think there's a phenomenon as our allies in the world become a little less our friend and they don't quite do the things we were hoping that this he would do, we tend to sort of close in, close ranks --

>> Michael Grant: Rally around the flag?

>> Tara Blanc: Exactly. I think you're seeing some of that in those kinds of responses, too.

>> Michael Grant: Derigan, final question, we asked about the guest worker program and we did do a very detailed question geared specifically to a specific legislative proposal on a guest worker program.

>> Derigan Silver: That's right. We were interested in finding out support for the program being sponsored by John McCain right now. So we did our research and we tried to find every issue identified with that guest worker program and we asked specifically about that, detailing how would it handle people who are already in the country, how it would handle people who are coming into the country, what they would have to do to get their guest worker status, and we found that Arizonans, two people out of three, support the guest worker program as we stated it. Now, certain people didn't like one part of it, didn't like the other part and they said, no, they couldn't support it, but overall I think that people here, guest worker, and they realize we need to change something and do something different with our policy.

>> Tara Blanc: I think if we had asked the question in a more general way and asked about a guest worker program, the support would have been even higher if we hadn't had some of the specifics of this particular measure in the question.

>> Michael Grant: Okay. Thank you very much for being here.

>> Tara Blanc: And thanks to our volunteers. They did a great job as usual.

>> Michael Grant: We always want to thank the volunteers because they spend a great deal of time.

>> Derigan Silver: And our volunteers, a lot of times they have their real -- their thumb on the pulse of the opinion out there, and they can give us a lot of very valuable comments about what people are saying besides just answering our questions.

>> Michael Grant: And it has to be their thumb because they are their dialing finger gets tired.

>> Michael Grant: This week oral arguments took place in Maricopa County Superior Court that could have a significant impact on Arizona's schools and taxpayers. The lawsuit is crane elementary school district versus Arizona. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars that would pay for programs to help at-risk students pass mandatory graduation tests. Judge Peter Reinstein heard motions Monday from the state to suspend the March 2004 trial or issue a summary judgment in favor of the state. The judge also heard arguments for partial summary judgment on behalf of schools. In a moment I will talk with the attorney behind the lawsuit, Tim Hogan but first Paul Atkinson takes a closer look at what crane elementary school district versus Arizona is all about.

>> Betty Madrid: Who had the most links? Which car went the furthest?

>> Reporter: Betty Madrid teaches her car about measurement in a way that has her first graders excited. These kids at Arthur M. Hamilton school in southwest Phoenix get to roll hot wheels and matchboxcars down a ram to that see how far they can go. The distance is measured in chain links, which the kids must count.

>> Child: 34, 35, 36, 37...

>> Reporter: While this cool lesson in math and measurement takes place in the Murphy school district, a few miles away a similar lesson on math and measurement goes on in Maricopa Superior Court. That's where Crane Elementary school district versus Arizona is in the process of litigation. The outcome of which could mean more money and more programs to help kids like these in Miss Madrid's first grade class. The premise for the lawsuit? If these kids must pass the AIMS test to graduate, then the state needs to make more resources available to ensure they do so.

>> Bob Donofrio: All kids have to pass the standards. What we're saying is that for some students perhaps they may take longer and they may need certain programs that the state has failed to fund so that we ensure that all students meet the same set of standards.

>> Reporter: Bob Donofrio is superintendent of Murphy elementary school district, which has four schools, including Arthur M. Hamilton, where Miss Madrid's measurement lesson takes place. Murphy is also one of five school districts suing the state in the Crane lawsuit.

>> Bob Donofrio: We're not necessarily saying there needs to be more money. What we're saying is that the State of Arizona has to the constitutional responsibility to determine what the adequacy is for all kids to meet those standards.

>> Reporter: School districts don't specify what programs the state needs to fund but does offer some ideas.

>> Bob Donofrio: We have given them over 20 suggestions of what we think is needed based on review of the research and best practices, things like access to universal early childhood programs, access to all-day kindergarten programs, quality staff development programs, summer programs, extended school year programs which will allow us to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers, especially in urban and remote rural areas, are just a few of the things that we're suggesting to the state.

>> Reporter: Oblivious to the lawsuit, students in Miss Madrid's class anxiously wait to see whose car can go the farthest. Satellite TV truck roars past the classroom record and our photographer to the delight of all.

>> Betty Madrid: I wonder how long it will take to count all these links?

>> Reporter: Luckily, Gabriel, the kid with the satellite TV truck gets help counting his record number of links. Soon the state could be counting, too, if the Crane lawsuit is successful, lawmakers could have to come up with anywhere from 50 to $250 million a year to fund additional programs.

>> Bob Donofrio: The economic impact of not having all kids master standards and be literate and get into the world of work, to me, is a much greater economic impact than providing those fundamental basic education things that students need.

>> Michael Grant: Here now to talk about crane V. Arizona is Tim Hogan, an attorney with the Arizona Center for law in the public interest. Mr. Hogan was successful in the landmark case Roosevelt versus bishop that forced the state to create school building standards and a new system to pay for school construction. Tim, it's good to see you again.

>> Tim Hogan: Good seeing you, Mike.

>> Michael Grant: The essence of this case that because the state has established academic standards for graduation it also needs to provide additional funds for at-risk students to assure they can meet those academic standards?

>> Tim Hogan: That's right, Mike. The state in 1991, before the federal government required it with no child left behind, established pretty rigorous academic standards for not just graduation, but grade levels for students in each grade level indicates what level of achievement and learning they should be at. The AIMS test measures those you a -- achievement with those standards. They're rigorous standards. The state brags that they're the fourth rigorous in the country and we support high achievement standards. They're a good idea. But now the state's got to put the resources behind the program. It's all fine and well to tell kids to learn, but you've got to put some funding behind it to put the programs in place so they can. And these at-risk kids are the ones who are the most vulnerable here. They come to school not as prepared as their peers, not -- oftentimes a grade level or more behind, and we need additional programs in place to get those kids sooner.

>> Michael Grant: I guess that goes to the point. Are we constructing a general and uniform school system or are we constructing a system that instead is required to take into account the inputs into that school system? Not everybody will present, obviously, with the same amount of academic fire power, intellectual fire power, social standing, whatever the case may be, but are all presenting to a general and uniform system.

>> Tim Hogan: Well, the standard under the law is students are supposed to have an equal opportunity to achieve these academic standards. These students, and other students that we do provide additional programs for, English language learners, for example, students with disabilities, even gifted students, state law requires that additional funding be provided for them so that they can start at the same place as other students and have a chance, just a chance, to achieve those academic standards. Nobody's guaranteeing that all students are going to achieve the academic standards.

>> Michael Grant: Haven't we always had academic standards, though, Tim? I mean, from the standpoint that you needed, and I'm not sure what it is, if you needed a D average to pass or you had a C average, I mean, we've always had academic standards associated with it. I agree, we've got a lot fancier --

>> Tim Hogan: It changed dramatically, though, in the '90s, and the way it changed dramatically is each school district up until then had their own standards. In 1991, the state enacted statewide academic standards that students in all school districts were expected to achieve. That had never been true prior to that time. And then they developed a statewide test to measure whether or not students were achieving those academic standards. Up until then, it was up to each one of the 228 school districts to figure out what they were going to teach and what kids needed to learn to be promoted from one grade level to the other and then pass.

>> Michael Grant: To a certain extent it sounds to me, though, like that was a less general and less uniform statewide school district.

>> Tim Hogan: I agree, there's no question about that and now that we've gone to a more general standards-based system, we need to figure out what kinds of programs need to be in place and this is true for all students, given the monumental failure rates that we've seen on AIMS from all students since it's been administered. We need to establish a school finance system that figures out what it costs to put in place the programs for all these children to achieve, have an opportunity to achieve the academic standards.

>> Michael Grant: I think the suit suggests that the at risk student be one who qualifies for the free lunch program?

>> Tim Hogan: Free and reduced lunch program, which is a percentage of the federal poverty level, and, in fact, no child left behind now requires school districts to identify those students and determine how they are performing as a group and determine whether or not they're making adequate yearly progress as a group.

>> Michael Grant: That's a pretty broadbrush, though, isn't it? You're going to have "A" students qualifying for free and reduced lunches.

>> Tim Hogan: Just like any other group. You'll have -- I mean you'll have students who are achieving the standards, but the data we have from the school districts I represent who have high populations of low-income students, students from low-income families, they're failing the aims test twice the rate of their peers, and that's because we don't get them soon enough and keep them in school long enough. I mean, it's very clear from all the research out there what we need to give these kids a chance to succeed academically. They're just doomed to failure if we don't.

>> Michael Grant: I guess I'm just thinking of a variety of other categories that might qualify for not being able to meet the academic standards. Bad test takers, for example, obviously reduced I.Q. levels, just -- that just seems like a difficult catch-all.

>> Tim Hogan: Yeah, the bad test takers goes more to the way you determine whether or not a student has achieved the standards as opposed to what those standards are. I mean, you can devise other ways to measure achievement with the academic standards. Right now we've got AIMS for the foreseeable future and that's what we're using.

>> Michael Grant: Judge going to be ruling on whether or not this will go to trial March of next year?

>> Tim Hogan: March of next year.

>> Michael Grant: Together with a wide variety of other rulings as well.

>> Tim Hogan: Absolutely. On -- you know, our point has been you've got to devise a system that links funding to the academic standards.

>> Michael Grant: All right, Tim Hogan, Arizona Center for law in the public interest, appreciate it.

>> Tim Hogan: Thank you.

>> Michael: Last night we showed you the damage done by Arizona's sixth year of drought. Many scientists hope this winter will bring needed rain and snow ending that dry spell but some researchers fear that's not going to be the case. Instead, Arizonans may be asked to change their lifestyle to reflect the lack of water. Ted Robbins looks at what people may be asked to do if our drought continues.

>> Reporter: So far people in Arizona's big cities have not been asked to do much to counter the current drought, unlike other western cities.

>> Dallas Reigle: Phoenix and Tucson are the only large cities in the entire intermountain west that don't have mandatory water use restrictions. Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, those areas are really feeling it much worse.

>> Reporter: Phoenix and Tucson are fortunate because they have multiple sources of water. The Colorado River, via the Central Arizona Project canal, groundwater from wells, and 234 Phoenix, water from the Salt River. Some other areas of Arizona are not so lucky.

>> Herb Guenther: Most of the problems that we will encounter this year are going to be in rural communities, which are dependent upon wells for their groundwater supply and the drought -- and because of the drought the wells have been declining, and they will be either short of water or out of water for potable purposes by the end of the summer. In those instances what we will be doing is making sure they have a plan to augment those supplies by transporting water to those areas where it is necessary.

>> Reporter: Phoenix and Tucson are already taking steps to avoid severe water shortages. Recharge facilities such as this one in the Avra Valley store C.A.P. water underground for future use. Plumbing codes already mandate low-flow water fixtures. And Tucson water encourages conservation by the way it structures water rates.

>> Marie Peartree: If you use a small amount of water, you pay like $1.03 for 750 gallons if that you use a lot of water, the incremental higher usage, you'll be paying over $6 per 750 gallons.

>> Larry Dozier: Water is cheap in Arizona, very cheap.

>> Reporter: Is it too cheap?

>> Larry Dozier: Too cheap? No, because it's -- it's sort of a governmental furnished commodity that is based on the cost.

>> Reporter: But should the current drought last a decade or longer, some experts think conservation could become mandatory.

>> Dallas Reigle: I think the lifestyle is going to change. I don't think we're looking at mass extinction, but I think you would see the elimination of water use outside the home. Nobody's going to be able to wash their cars. Nobody's going to be able to water their plants. It's going to be -- the little amount of water that will be left will probably be reserved for human consumption.

>> Reporter: 60% of people's water use is outside the home. That's why planners encourage drought-tolerant landscaping instead of lawns, for instance. Eventually people may use treated effluent wastewater for landscaping. It's already being used for some golf courses and other municipal irrigation. If things get bad enough, though, treated effluent could be used for more.

>> Marie Peartree: So we've been modeling, we're preparing a long-range plan right now, we'll be going out to the public with a discussion about that in the next year or so, but the modeling shows that at some point in time we can't use any more groundwater for legal reasons as well as supply reasons. We're using as much Colorado River water as we have allocated. But the population continues to grow. So then what? Then you start looking at technology. You start looking at taking reclaimed water, which is already treated wastewater, and treating it further, ultimately to potable standards and if the population keeps growing, that may one of the water supplies that we have to look at.

>> Reporter: Another price for growth that will continue happening, taking water from farms and giving it to cities.

>> Larry Dozier: California is looking at that right now in their water transform, cutting down agricultural use to be able to give it to the municipal use. Arizona already has that in place for its laws for declared shortages on water supplies. You take it away from ag first.

>> Reporter: Is water a finite -- it might be the limiting factor on growth, because the laws in Arizona now limit any new development to first proving that you have a 100-year water supply and groundwater cannot be part of that certification.

>> Reporter: Faced with a possible long-term drought, the state's top water officials are creating a statewide conservation plan and a drought task force. Arizona's first.

>> Herb Guenther: To make sure that we have a complete plan which -- with thresholds that will trigger both state assistance and/or federal assistance.

>> Reporter: Why do you think the state had not had a plan before now?

>> Herb Guenther: Well, if I were to guess, every time we start planning, putting together a drought plan, it starts to rain and when it starts to rain, everybody packs up and goes home.

>> Reporter: This is not the worst drought the state has seen. The late 1890s and the 1950s were worse. Problem is, no one knows when it will end. They do know how it will end, with several years at least of above-normal winter rainfall. And no one is counting on that for several more years to come.

>> Michael Grant: Here's a look at what's on tomorrow's "Horizon."

>> Reporter: There's progress happening in the special legislative session. Bills to reform CPS and state prisons are moving ahead. We'll have an update. Plus we'll preview an upcoming symposium to educate lawmakers and opinion leaders on mental health policy and issues. That's Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant: Thursday a Massachusetts ruling against same-sex marriage ban and how it affects Arizona. On Friday the Journalists Roundtable. Thank you very much for joining on this Tuesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

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