🚨 Trump's War on Equity Costs 3 Arizona Schools $16 Million

Pima County Superintendent Reveals How Three Districts Lost Funding Simply for Using the "Wrong" Word

Mar 21, 2025

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
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🎙️ The Buckmaster Show revealed how public systems are being taken apart piece by piece. 📉 Arizona schools lost millions of dollars just for using the word "equity" in grant applications, while 👩‍🏫 teachers are leaving because of low pay and political attacks. Meanwhile, 💰 financial experts warn that giving government jobs to private companies adds huge profit costs that taxpayers will have to pay. 🚰 Water managers are working hard to protect Arizona's water while teaching people about this important resource. All these challenges show how important it is for regular people to get involved in protecting public services that benefit everyone instead of just the wealthy few. ✊🤝

🗝️ Takeaways

🏫 86% of public schools nationwide struggle to hire teachers, with special education positions facing the most severe shortages.
💵 Three Arizona school districts (Osborne, Avondale, and Gadsden) lost $16 million in federal funding simply because their teacher retention grants contained the word "equity."
📉 Financial expert Shelly Fishman warns that privatizing government functions add a 12-15% profit margin paid by taxpayers while potentially recreating Gilded Age economic conditions.
🌊 The Central Arizona Project is building a Water Education Center to provide public access to view the canal, potentially inspiring the next generation of water professionals.
🚂 March 20, 2025, marks the 145th anniversary of the railroad's arrival in Tucson, an event that fundamentally transformed the city's connection to the outside world.

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Education Under Assault: How Trump's Anti-Equity Agenda is Bankrupting Arizona Schools While Wall Street Waits to Profit

In a particularly revealing episode of the Buckmaster Show, the curtain was pulled back on the systematic dismantling of public institutions happening right before our eyes. From cash-strapped classrooms to corporate colonization of government functions, Tuesday's guests painted a portrait of a society at a crossroads—one path leading toward public service, the other toward private profit margins. The conversations revealed not just policy disagreements, but fundamentally competing visions of America's future.

The Educational Extinction Event: Dustin Williams Bears Witness

Pima County School Superintendent Dustin Williams joined Bill Buckmaster with alarm bells ringing loudly about the teaching profession's death spiral. A disturbing report from the National Center for Education Statistics confirmed what educators have long known: 86% of public schools across America are desperately struggling to fill teaching positions.

"We're holding the line in different districts, different areas," Williams cautiously began, before laying bare the harsh arithmetic of education economics. "Salary is a big part of it. We're about 20% under normal professions like nursing... They start from around 65 in that general area. You're going to see education starting somewhere in that low 40s. I've even heard of high 30s, and that's not an area that you can make a living in and start a family."

And corporate America wonders why they can't find qualified workers while simultaneously strangling the very system that produces them. It's like refusing to water your garden while complaining about the price of vegetables.

But beyond mere compensation, Williams highlighted how the profession has become a political punching bag. "As we see education become a bully pulpit in politics, it's another area that just turns people away," he explained with palpable frustration. "It is a taxing job. It's one of the most rewarding, unbelievable professions in the world, but it is hard. You're dealing with a lot of humans."

The superintendent's voice grew increasingly concerned when discussing what was happening under the new presidential administration. His revelation about three Arizona school districts losing $16 million in federal funding stopped Buckmaster in his tracks.

"Osborne, Avondale, and I believe Gadsden—they lost out on $16 million because they had the word 'equity' in their hiring message of retaining teachers," Williams disclosed. "It had nothing to do with teaching DEI, but it had everything to do with gaining more money to retain their teachers through an equity grant at the federal level. But because the word 'equity' was in that grant, it got them kicked out."

Imagine losing millions for public schools because a word triggered conservative fragility. What's next? Banning "equality" from the Pledge of Allegiance? Perhaps "indivisible" sounds too much like socialism?

Williams' most poignant observation was when comparing today's educational landscape to the pandemic era: "It feels like COVID all over again in the way of kind of a traumatic sort of state that we're in. One thing about education—education does not thrive on disruption. It needs to have continuity."

The implications for special education—already facing the most severe teacher shortages—are particularly devastating. "Of all the positions that we have in the industry, special education teachers is our greatest need," Williams emphasized. "Those kids can't have disruptions, and they need a lot of different strategies and more people."

His concerns about compliance cuts from the Department of Education elimination plan rang with chilling clarity: "Unfortunately, you're going to see cuts in those areas because that's compliance. And those are the first parts of the Department of Education that are getting slashed. Our compliance controls will be gutted completely if they haven't already with the 50% of the people that got fired at the Department of Education."

Financial Feudalism Returns: Shelly Fishman's Warning from the Wall Street Watchtower

As if on cue, financial expert Shelly Fishman connected the educational chaos to broader economic trends, noting that "markets don't like uncertainty" either.

Fishman, typically an economic optimist, surprised Buckmaster with his uncharacteristic pessimism. "I've known you for many years, and I would say you're a half-full guy generally in most cases," Buckmaster observed.

"When so many people were forecasting, especially in the economic community, were forecasting recessions and dire consequences of this thing or the other, I said, no, wait a second," Fishman reflected. "The economy is doing just fine. It doesn't matter whether you feel it or not. According to statistics, the overall economy is the envy of the world. We're doing fine. Not so sure about it anymore."

Capitalism's most faithful defenders are starting to sound the alarm. When the cheerleaders stop cheering, perhaps it's time to check if the stadium is on fire.

Fishman didn't mince words about the administration's true agenda: "What Trump and his policies are doing... has nothing with fentanyl or anything like that or waste and abuse. It has to do with privatizing government functionality. What it's trying to do is say we are going to put the functions that are currently being provided by government agencies in the hands of private corporations."

When Buckmaster asked about the efficiency argument often trotted out to justify privatization, Fishman scoffed: "To which I answer, probably not. I've worked for some very large corporations that had plenty of waste and abuse."

But the financial advisor's most damning assessment came next: "Even if you give Trump the idea that private corporations will tend to be more efficient than government bureaucracy, especially if you remove the regulations that are right now slowing down so much of what the government tries to do, you still have one overlay in private corporations that you don't have in government. That's called the need to make a profit."

"Bingo," Buckmaster interjected. "Right on top, you've got a 12% to 15% hit. That's going to be paid by, guess who—taxpayers."

Fishman drew a stark historical parallel: "That's what happens when you go back to this gilded age. You go back to 1890 and constant recessions and constant working conditions that were simply abhorrent... It's because tariffs don't work. It's because letting governments or letting corporations in an unregulated sense make these kinds of decisions that affect people... corporations don't consider those things very effectively. What they consider is the stock price and how much money I need to make to keep my job. It is a very inefficient way to run a country."

When a caller challenged Fishman's analysis with claims about government waste, the financial expert firmly retorted: "Paul, I'm going to interrupt you because you're quoting stuff that is not factual. There are not hundreds of billions of dollars that have been actually proven to have been stolen. What we're seeing is a bunch of lies, quite frankly."

Conservative mythology about government waste always conveniently overlooks the corporate profit extraction that funnels public dollars to private yachts. The "efficiency" promised is often just an efficient transfer of wealth from taxpayers to shareholders.

Fishman closed with a somber economic forecast, warning about "stagflation"—persistent inflation combined with diminishing growth: "The question, I mean, we're going to have a recession. The question is when and how deep? Stagflation will make that deeper than we would normally expect."

Water in the Desert: Karen Caesar Navigates Political Currents

As the program shifted to water management, Karen Caesar, secretary of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board, brought welcome practical expertise to the conversation.

"We are your elected representatives on the board," Caesar reminded listeners, noting that CAP officials are often overlooked despite their critical role. "We are one of the extreme down-ballot offices. But still very important."

Caesar highlighted the importance of the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District Committee she chairs: "You think of CAP as a surface water source, which it is, but we're also very tied to groundwater replenishment, which is essential and tied to our growth and prosperity, particularly in our three-county service area."

Her enthusiasm shone through when discussing the upcoming CAP Water Education Center: "For years when elected officials, stakeholders, members of the media got to CAP headquarters, one of the first questions everyone would ask would be, 'Well, where's the canal?'"

The new center will create "an amazing, beautiful, accessible and secure space where people can learn about CAP's history and operations, the Arizona water story, and actually walk over the canal and see it up close safely."

In an era of infrastructure neglect, at least someone is building something that doesn't just generate profits for developers. Public education about public resources—what a revolutionary concept!

Caesar highlighted the unexpected biological aspects of water management, introducing Buckmaster to the delightfully named phenomenon of "rock snot."

"Did you have saying ‘rock snot’ on the air in your bingo card this year?" she joked.

"I don't think I ever thought I would ever say it, not only this year, but maybe ever in my long broadcast career," Buckmaster replied.

Caesar explained: "It's technically known as something called Symbella. It's an organism that can form stocks and cause issues when mats of it break off at the side of the canal and flow to the surface... It can really gum up our works, as the name implies."

On the critical Colorado River negotiations, Caesar sounded cautiously optimistic while acknowledging the slow progress: "We would like to have it when we did the drop contingency plan in 2019. That was successful because we were able to bring a seven-state solution with everybody agreeing to it—everybody's got to share a little pain."

Sharing pain equitably? How refreshingly un-American in the current political climate. Someone tell the folks in Washington that cooperation doesn't have to be a dirty word.

Railroads and Remembrance: Ken Scoville Connects Past to Present

Historian Ken Scoville rounded out the program with reflections on Tucson's 145th railroad anniversary, which coincides with the city's 250th birthday year.

"The arrival of the railroad was probably the most significant event in Tucson, as far as the change and all this modernism," Scoville explained. "Toly and Achola, Mr. Achola knew that his business was going to be gone within six months or a year with the arrival of the railroad. So all the early merchants knew this was big changes, but they all saw it as a betterment for Tucson."

The historian shared that despite the event's significance, "The irony of irony for anybody that does historical research: We have no image of the train arriving in Tucson. Everybody forgot their cell phones."

Some things never change—people missing historic moments because they weren't ready to document them. At least today's excuses involve battery life rather than forgotten cameras.

Scoville noted how the railroad "changed everything. Housing, fashion, everything, growth in Tucson, because we were finally connected with the outside world."

The Democracy Disconnect: Systems Severed from Solutions

As different as these conversations seemed, they revealed a common thread: essential public systems are being deliberately disconnected from democratic oversight and public purpose.

Education faces not just budget cuts but ideological purges disguised as efficiency measures. Government functions are being earmarked for corporate takeover. Even our historical understanding becomes fragmented without conscious effort to preserve and interpret it.

These aren't accidental developments but coordinated efforts to privatize profit while socializing risk, to concentrate wealth while distributing hardship, and to silence certain words while amplifying others.

When public schools lose funding for using the word "equity" while corporations receive tax cuts for creating inequity, we're living in an Orwellian dictionary where language itself becomes weaponized against the common good.

Reconnecting to Hope: Pathways to People-Powered Solutions

Despite these challenges, the path forward remains visible to those willing to see it. The passionate advocacy of educators like Dustin Williams, the clear-eyed analysis of experts like Shelly Fishman, the dedicated public service of officials like Karen Caesar, and the historical context provided by scholars like Ken Scoville—all provide foundations for informed civic engagement.

The antidote to disconnection is participation. Every school board meeting, water conservation district election, historical commemoration, and economic policy discussion offers opportunities to reconnect our public systems to public purpose.

True patriotism involves protecting public resources from private plunder, defending educational excellence against ideological interference, and preserving historical understanding against convenient amnesia.

So what can you do? Start local—attend a school board meeting, volunteer at a historical museum, and learn about your water district. Register voters, support candidates who value public institutions, and challenge narratives that frame government itself as the enemy rather than one of our most critical collective tools.

Most importantly, remember that uncertainty is not the same as inevitability. The future isn't set, and awareness allows action.

What systems in your community are being disconnected from democratic oversight? How have you seen privatization impact public services in your neighborhood? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Quotes:

"Osborne, Avondale, and I believe Gadsden—they lost out on $16 million because they had the word 'equity' in their hiring message of retaining teachers. Had nothing to do with teaching DEI, had everything to do with gaining more money to retain their teachers through an equity grant at the federal level." — Dustin Williams, Pima County School Superintendent
"Even if you give Trump the idea that private corporations will tend to be more efficient than government bureaucracy... you still have one overlay in private corporations that you don't have in government. That's called the need to make a profit." — Shelly Fishman, Financial Advisor
"Education does not thrive on disruption. It needs to have continuity. It needs to have consistency." — Dustin Williams, Pima County School Superintendent
"What Trump and his policies are doing... has nothing with fentanyl or anything like that or waste and abuse. It has to do with privatizing government functionality." — Shelly Fishman, Financial Advisor
"If we don't educate the next generation and kids coming up that this is a career path in many forms, we'll be facing some dire shortages, I'm afraid." — Karen Caesar, Secretary of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board

People Mentioned:

Dustin Williams (Pima County School Superintendent): "We're about 20% under normal professions like nursing... They start from around 65 in that general area. You're going to see education starting somewhere in that low 40s."
Shelly Fishman (Financial Advisor): "That's what happens when you go back to this gilded age. You go back to 1890 and constant recessions, constant working conditions that were simply abhorrent."
Karen Caesar (Secretary of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board): "We are your elected representatives on the board. There's four of us from Pima County... We are one of the extreme downballot offices. But still very important."
Ken Scoville (Historian): "The arrival of the railroad was probably the most significant event in Tucson, as far as the change and all this modernism."
Donald Trump (U.S. President): Referenced throughout as driving the privatization agenda and Department of Education cuts.
Governor Katie Hobbs: Mentioned by Williams as proposing a referendum for Proposition 123 funding for education.
Esteban Ochoa: Historical figure mentioned by Scoville who knew "his business was going to be gone within six months or a year with the arrival of the railroad."
Mayor Leatherwood: Historical Tucson mayor mentioned by Scoville who was "running down Congress Street, tucking his shirt in" when the train arrived an hour early in 1880.

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