🔥 TUSD Budget Bombshell: Superintendent Trujillo Reveals $37 Million Voucher Drain While Conservative "School Choice" Narrative Crumbles
🏫 Fortress Schools: TUSD Installing Bullet-Resistant Glass as Educational Priorities Shift from Learning to Survival 🧠 DEI Debate Dissected: Trujillo Explains TUSD's Position
Based on the Buckmaster Show for 4/23/25, a daily radio show in Tucson, AZ, interviewing local newsmakers. Analysis and opinions are my own.
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
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Dr. Trujillo from Tucson schools explained that money meant for public schools is being given to private schools instead - about $37 million! This makes it harder for public schools to buy supplies, pay teachers, and fix buildings. He's trying to protect important things like art classes and help for kids with special needs. Meanwhile, two book experts shared cool books about history, climate change, and people trying to make the world better. Even though schools are having a tough time with money, Dr. Trujillo's schools are getting better grades than before, which gives us hope.
🗝️ Takeaways
🚨 87% of 3,700 voucher recipients in TUSD boundaries never attended public schools, costing the district $37 million
📊 TUSD improved from 25% to 65% of schools with A or B ratings under Trujillo's leadership
🛡️ New security measures include bullet-resistant plexiglass and emergency notification systems in staff badges
📝 Despite financial challenges, TUSD prioritizes classroom experience over administrative cuts
📚 Literary experts recommend books addressing climate change, historical injustice, and visionary solutions
Voucher Vultures: TUSD's Trujillo Exposes $37 Million Siphoned from Public Education While Buckmaster's Literary Guests Offer Escape from the Madness
In the latest episode of the Buckmaster Show, airing on April 23, 2025, host Bill Buckmaster and his steadfast producer Tom Fairbanks delivered a midweek dive into two seemingly disparate topics that, viewed through a progressive lens, reflect our society's ongoing struggle between public good and private profit, between knowledge as liberation and ignorance as control.
Education Under Siege: Dr. Trujillo Reveals the Voucher Vampire's Bite
The first segment featured Dr. Gabriel Trujillo, Superintendent of Tucson Unified School District, who painted an inspiring and infuriating picture. He began with a touching tribute to Borman K-8, a TUSD school nestled within the confines of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
"April is Recognition of Children of Military Service Personnel Month," Dr. Trujillo explained. "Today we're purpling up for our military kids, recognizing the challenge of being a young person or a child of a military family and having to switch schools every time a parent gets deployed, and making new friends and getting used to new communities."
Borman K-8 serves approximately 450 students, of whom a staggering 97% are children of military personnel. Despite the challenges these students face—frequent relocations, parents deployed overseas, constant social transitions—the school maintains an A-rating. It stands as a testament to what public education can achieve with proper support and dedicated educators.
And yet, the same political forces who wrap themselves in patriotic rhetoric and claim to "support our troops" are systematically dismantling the public education system that serves military families.
The conversation quickly pivoted to the financial bloodletting afflicting TUSD, courtesy of Arizona's voucher program (euphemistically called "Empowerment Scholarship Accounts"). Dr. Trujillo revealed statistics that should outrage every taxpayer in Tucson:
"We are now up to 3,700 students within TUSD's 220 square mile boundary who are receiving these vouchers," Dr. Trujillo explained. "Now, here's the startling part of that statistic. 87% of those 3,700 students have never been to a TUSD school. They've always been going to private schools, tuition-charging, either religious/Catholic schools or tuition-charging private schools, elite charter schools."
Let that sink in. The vast majority of voucher recipients were never in the public school system to begin with. The program isn't "empowering" families to leave failing schools—it's subsidizing wealthy families who already chose private education.
"The leakage is coming out of our district, and it costs us $37 million," Trujillo continued, his voice tinged with justified frustration. "That $37 million that could go to teacher raises, employee compensation, school uniforms, buses, building renovations, technology purchases for kids, field trips, supporting athletic and performance arts programs."
This is nothing less than highway robbery dressed up in the language of "school choice"—a massive wealth transfer from working-class taxpayers to the already privileged. The modern conservative playbook: privatize profits, socialize costs, and call it "freedom."
When Buckmaster noted that proponents had promised vouchers wouldn't hurt public schools, Dr. Trujillo's response was unequivocal: "It is absolutely maddening that this is allowed to go on in this state."
He pointed out another cruel irony—the voucher program was initially sold as a way to help families with special needs students, but in practice, "These families of special education students, they walk through the door of a private school voucher in hand, they're turned away. These private schools, these elite charter schools, they don't want these students with disabilities."
Instead, these schools redirect families back to TUSD, praising the district's "full army of special education professionals and therapists and psychologists" and door-to-door transportation. So, TUSD not only loses funding through vouchers but also bears the cost of serving students with the most labor-intensive needs.
It's the privatization playbook perfected: skim the cream, dump the costs on the public sector, then complain that public services are inefficient. Create the crisis, then offer privatization as the solution to the very problem you engineered.
Faced with an $8.5 million deficit, Trujillo pledged to protect the classroom experience: "We lead by example. So I'm cutting my own administration... We will not cut the arts, PE, electives, services to refugee kids, or special education."
Nonetheless, these cuts to administrative staff will impact vital services: "Your payroll techs who work with our employees to make sure their paychecks are accurate or on time are an administrative expense. School safety, those officers who travel the district and help out our schools, that's administration, human resources going out there and recruiting the best talent."
While conservatives rally against the mythical "administrative bloat" in education, real people doing essential work are losing their livelihoods.
Dimantling DEI?
Dr. Trujillo also addressed DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programming concerns, explaining that TUSD had signed state assurances confirming they don't determine access to programs based on race or ethnicity. He clarified this wasn't abandoning their commitment to diversity, but simply acknowledging what was already true:
"It's not that we're abandoning our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We signed that quality assurance saying we don't give out jobs based off of race, ethnicity, or nationality, or religious affiliation or political affiliation. We don't determine enrollment and registration by families into our schools based off of race and ethnicity."
The right's manufactured moral panic about DEI is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to silence discussions about systemic inequality and roll back hard-won progress.
On a more positive note, Dr. Trujillo reported that TUSD is now a B-rated district with 65% of schools achieving A or B ratings—a dramatic improvement from just 25% when his administration began. The bond program approved by voters has already replaced HVAC systems in 20 campuses. It is implementing security upgrades, including bullet-resistant plexiglass window guards and emergency notification systems in staff ID badges.
"And what it is, is it's designed to give our staff time in the event of an emergency to contact TPD, school safety," Trujillo explained of the plexiglass barriers. "But there's a hint of sadness that we even have to go here because schools aren't meant to be fortified in this way. They really aren't, but it is a sign of the times."
In a society that refuses to address its epidemic of gun violence, we fortify our schools like prisons rather than tackling the root causes of the problem. This is the American abnormal that we've been conditioned to accept as normal.
Literary Lifeboats: Reading Our Way Through the Apocalypse
The second half of the show offered a welcome respite, featuring literary experts Greg McNamee and Bruce Dingus sharing their spring reading recommendations. In times of social crisis, books provide both escape and the intellectual tools for resistance.
Greg McNamee, who has written or edited 45 books and chairs the selection committee for Southwest Books of the Year, offered these recommendations:
"The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston 1777 to 1780" by Rick Atkinson - A detailed exploration of the Revolutionary War as both a civil war and international conflict. McNamee noted wryly, "I continue to wonder though whether we didn't make a mistake in seceding from England in the first place given current conditions."
"Beartooth" by Callan Wink - A novel set in Montana's Yellowstone River area about two impoverished brothers who attempt an illegal antler heist, with a villain who reminded McNamee of "Judge Holden in Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Just pure evil."
"Hope Dies Last: The Visionary People Across the World Fighting to Find Us a Future" by Alan Weisman - Chronicles scientists, engineers, and activists working to reverse environmental damage. McNamee explained how one Iraqi engineer, "convinced that 'impossible often masks a lack of imagination,' has helped to rebuild the critically important marshes at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates River."
"Changing the Recipe" by José Andrés - A memoir by the renowned chef about food, hope, and changing the world. McNamee quoted Andrés as saying, "We're all in this country together. All on this planet together, your success is my success." McNamee added that Andrés "grows cross when he gets on the subject of a certain oligarch who says you can build as many walls as you like, but there isn't a wall high enough to stop the mother of a hungry child."
Ah, José Andrés—feeding the hungry while billionaires build rocket ships to escape the planet they're destroying. Now there's a contrast in values worth contemplating.
Bruce Dingus, formerly the editor of the Journal of Arizona History, offered these selections:
"American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest" by Kyle Pauletta - Examines how southwestern cities can provide solutions for surviving in a hot, dry world. Dingus explained that Pauletta "starts with the premise that climate change has made today's southwest the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country" and "makes a compelling case for cultural diversity, innovation, and environmental custodianship on our warming planet."
"The Antidote" by Karen Russell - A magical realism novel set in Dust Bowl Nebraska where "puri witches" bank unpleasant memories for their clients. Dingus described it as exploring "history and memory" where "the residents of the immigrant farm community of us, which I think is a conflation of us and Oz, struggle for survival in the wake of the epic Black Sunday Duststorm of 1935."
"Sorrowful Mysteries: The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the 20th Century" by Stephen Harrigan - A memoir exploring faith, mysticism, and the author's journey from unquestioning faith to rational doubt. Dingus noted that "even readers who arrive at a different destination than Harrigan will find the pilgrimage worthwhile."
"The Buffalo Soldiers in Arizona" by John Langellier - Chronicles the service of Black regiments in Arizona, highlighting their patriotism despite facing racism. Dingus described it as "an impressively researched volume stands as a testimony to unwavering patriotism in the face of unremitting racism."
These selections represent the kind of nuanced, thoughtful engagement with history, climate change, and systemic inequality that the book-banners would like to erase from our consciousness. Reading remains a revolutionary act.
The Road Ahead: Fighting for the Public Good in Private Times
As we absorb Dr. Trujillo's revelations about the voucher program's impact on TUSD, we're confronted with fundamental questions about our values as a society. When we allow public dollars to flow disproportionately to affluent families while special education services strain under increased demand, we're making a choice about who deserves quality education in America.
The Arizona voucher program isn't a bug in the system—it's a feature. It's designed to accelerate educational inequality while giving its architects plausible deniability. "School choice" sounds so much better than "defunding public education," doesn't it?
And yet, there are reasons for hope. Dr. Trujillo's commitment to protecting essential services, the improved academic ratings of TUSD schools, and the fortitude of educators who continue showing up despite dwindling resources all demonstrate the resilience of our public institutions.
The books recommended by McNamee and Dingus offer additional lifelines—whether through José Andrés' culinary optimism, Alan Weisman's environmental visionaries, or the Buffalo Soldiers who served a country that didn't serve them. These stories remind us that progress has never come easily, but it has come.
If we want to preserve public education as a cornerstone of democracy, we must act. Contact your state representatives and demand accountability for the voucher program's impact. Attend school board meetings. Vote in local elections—support organizations fighting for educational equity.
Support independent media like Three Sonorans, which brings you critical local stories that the corporate media often overlooks. Your subscriptions, donations, and engagement make it possible for us to continue shining a light on the issues that affect our community directly. Without your support, these stories go untold, and the powerful remain unaccountable.
What do you think about the voucher program's impact on Arizona schools? Have you witnessed firsthand the effects of these funding cuts in your local schools or community?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below and join the conversation about how we can build an education system that truly serves all students, not just the privileged few.
Quotes
"87% of those 3,700 students, they've never been to a TUSD school. They've always been going to private schools... And so basically they're receiving a subsidy out of our budget." - Dr. Trujillo explaining how vouchers primarily benefit those already in private education
"The leakage is coming out of our district, and it costs us $37 million." - Dr. Trujillo quantifying the financial impact of voucher programs
"It is absolutely maddening that this is allowed to go on in this state." - Dr. Trujillo, expressing frustration with the voucher system
"These families of special education students, they walk through the door of a private school voucher in hand, they're turned away." - Dr. Trujillo revealing how private schools reject special needs students despite accepting vouchers
"There's a hint of sadness that we even have to go here because schools aren't meant to be fortified in this way." - Dr. Trujillo on installing bullet-resistant glass in schools
"I continue to wonder, though, whether we didn't make a mistake in seceding from England in the first place, given current conditions." - Greg McNamee making a wry political observation
Names Mentioned and Their Quotes
Dr. Gabriel Trujillo (TUSD Superintendent): "You're footing the bill as a taxpayer. These are your tax dollars that are being reapportioned to the most affluent families in the district at the expense of the less affluent and the economically disadvantaged."
Bill Buckmaster (Host): "Is this going to hurt our public school system? And their answer we received was absolutely not. Well, it's just to the contrary of that."
Tom Fairbanks (Producer): "Sometimes the computer controls me. Case in point. All of a sudden, I've lost my mouse."
Tom Horne (Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction): Referenced by Trujillo as having TUSD "famously been on Superintendent Horne's radar for the better part of, I think, going on 20 years."
Greg McNamee (Literary expert): "Hope is a prerequisite for courage." (quoting Alan Weisman)
Bruce Dingus (Former editor, Journal of Arizona History): Described Kyle Pauletta's book as making "a compelling case for cultural diversity, innovation, and environmental custodianship on our warming planet."
José Andrés (Chef/author): Quoted as saying, "you can build as many walls as you like, but there isn't a wall high enough to stop the mother of a hungry child."
Alan Weisman (Author): Described as believing that "impossible often masks a lack of imagination."
Frank Borman (Astronaut): Mentioned as the namesake of Borman K-8 school, "the famed astronaut from Tucson, Arizona. From Tucson High."
Commander Wills (Davis-Monthan Air Force Base leader): Mentioned by Trujillo as "running the show out there."
Dustin Williams (Pima County School Superintendent): Trujillo thanked Dustin Williams for "cleaning up the numbers and actually tracking how many students in each district actually accept empowerment scholarship accounts."
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