by David Safier
Russell Pearce wants everyone to know he loves education and education loves him. So he put this yellow banner on top of his sign (h/t Phoenix New Times' Feathered Bastard.)
I guess they ran out of space, so they had to leave the "a" out of "education."
The award, by the way, is from AZ Parents for Education, a group committed to making sure online schools get as much money per student as other schools, even though they don't have actual school buildings or janitors or buses or things like that.
There's more. According to the Feathered Bastard post, other Pearce signs had other add-ons:
One add-on in red and white claims Pearce is "Supported by Arizona Teacher's [sic] Association."
Two wonderful things about that sign. First, unless there's only one teacher in the association, the apostrophe should go after the "s" in "teachers," not before. Second, so far as I can tell, there's no such group as the Arizona Teachers' Association (which sounds a lot like the teachers' union, the Arizona Education Association, but isn't), no matter where you put the apostrophe.
However, there once was such a group. I learned from the book, Statistics of land-grant colleges and universities, Volume 2 put out by the U.S. Office of Education, such a group was started in 1892.
"It was first organized at Phoenix during the administration of Supt. Netherton, and because of lack of members usually met with one of the county institutes, as their objects were substantially similar."
And in the Prescott Morning Courier, December 23, 1905, I learned,
"The territorial convention of the Arizona Teachers' Association will convene in this city [Prescott] Jan. 5, 1906."
I guess it's possible Pearce is going for the 19th-to-20th century fin de siècle vote, but I think they were way too liberal for him back then.
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