How to steal from school kids: First, get elected

Let's say you decided not to pay a bill that you were legally obligated to pay, just because you felt like it. And you continued not to pay it each time it came due. For years.

And then the person to whom you owed the money took you to court, and won. With a judge ordering you to satisfy your debt with interest.

And you ignored the court's decision.

And then, for some crazy or generous reason, the creditor you've been ripping off for years actually went out of his way to offer you a deal. A smoking deal. All you have to do is start making your regular payments, as you were legally obligated to do in the first place, and he'll forget about all the other unpaid bills you owe and the interest.

And you ignore that, too.

How do you figure that would end for a regular people like us?

Jail? If we're lucky.

Now, let's say you're the Arizona Legislature.

And let's say you've been ripping off Arizona school children for years.

Because that is what's happening. During the recession lawmakers chose not fund the annual inflation adjustments for schools that voters approved in 2000. Since even lawmakers simply cannot ignore the law, schools sued them and the state Supreme Court said legislators have to start ponying up the cash.

A ruling finalized by Maricopa Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper said public schools should get $317 million in new funding, and continue getting the inflation bump each year.

The question still lingers as to whether the state owes the schools as much as $1.6 billion more for all the time lawmakers have been ignoring their bills. The schools are willing to let that go if lawmakers start meeting their legal obligations.

And yet, so far, they've done nothing.

Gov. Jan Brewer has said she will continue to appeal in court, arguing that the judgment will wreck the state budget.

The Republican candidate for her job, Doug Ducey, goes along with that. Democrat Fred DuVal, wants the state to do what the rest of us in the real world must do – pay our bills.

A while back, Andrew Morrill of the Arizona Education Association, describe the situation to me this way, "If you talk to the attorney for our side the arguments the state intends to use include things, like, 'The voters back in 2000 could not possibly have wanted to subject the state to this kind of hardship because we don't have this revenue.' That touches on the classic excuse of, 'My gosh we just can't afford to do this.' I've love to tell my bank that. It would be like saying, "Of course I'd love to pay my mortgage but I'm a little short because I spent it elsewhere.'"

Timothy Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, told the Republic's Alia Beard Rau that the more than 500,000 children who have started school since 2009 have never attended a fully funded institution. Maybe that's why the annual Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count report ranked Arizona 44th in the nation.

We're at the bottom because of poor graduation rates and low scores in subjects like reading, which helps grown-ups (who aren't politicians) understand laws.

And also math, from which some of us learn how to pay bills.