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March 1, 2015

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AZ Legislature, Education, Opportunity, Poverty

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Teach for America is NOT the Answer!

Arizona Legislators think spending $2 million on Teach for America (TFA) recruits is a solution for “supporting our teachers?” Get real. You don’t support teachers by bringing in “scabs” to take their jobs or, by claiming that young college graduates, with five weeks of training are “highly qualified teachers.” You support teachers by providing them what they need to do their jobs and paying them equitably.

I get that politicians want quick wins to show their constituents. But as the saying goes, politicians think of the next election, leaders think of the next generation. We need more leaders who understand sound bites don’t equal solutions. Using TFA corps members to supplant much more qualified teachers in an attempt to save long-term costs (such as earned retirement entitlements) is a short-term outlook that only hurts our children in the long run.

TFA recruits have shown some slightly higher gains on students’ assessments over comparable new teachers, but these “wunderkids” are far from the solution to our teacher shortage. Turnover, always a challenge with new teachers, is much higher with TFA recruits with 56% of them leaving after their initial commitment is up and a full 85% leaving by their fifth year.[i] TFA founder Wendy Kopp’s description of the organization as a “leadership development organization, not a teaching organization” is likely part of the problem.[ii] Corps members aren’t usually drawn to the program because they want to become teaching professionals. Their “gig” in the classroom is a jumping stone to more.

The real problem with using TFA corps members in place of teaching professionals though, is that it reinforces the thought that “if you can, you do…if you can’t, you teach.” Until we recognize that teaching is a critically important profession and invest in the education and retention of these valuable professionals, our country will never move the needle forward on education achievement. I wouldn’t consider five weeks of training sufficient for my doctor, lawyer, or accountant and I don’t consider it enough for our teachers.

Helping our schools succeed isn’t rocket science, but neither will it be easy. Money isn’t the total answer, but it is part of the equation. Yes, we have a teacher shortage in Arizona, but we can’t succumb to the quick fix. The solution lies in: 1) paying our teachers equitably so we can attract and retain the best, 2) keeping classroom sizes moderate so teachers can give each child the attention they deserve, 3) providing well-rounded curriculums that allow our children to explore their interests and fortify their strengths (since we never know where the next Einstein or Maya Angelou will come from) and 4) providing stability for our schools, staffs and students so they can focus on quality and growth, not churn and burn.

Diane Ravitch, our nations’ leading public education advocate, said recently at Lehigh University that: “public schools are the people’s schools, their doors are open to all…public education must be, as we once hoped, a bastion of equal opportunity. Public education is a public trust. It is not a business opportunity.”[iii] When a politician claims they support education, listen for the word “public” as part of their claim. If they don’t say it, they don’t mean it and don’t truly support quality education for everyone. It really is that simple.

[i] http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/04/kappan_donaldson.html

[ii] http://www.thenation.com/article/179363/teachers-are-losing-their-jobs-teach-americas-expanding-whats-wrong?page=0,1

[iii]https://www1.lehigh.edu/news/case-public-education

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February 19, 2015

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AZ Legislature, early childhood education, Education, Opportunity

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#AZEDSpring

When it comes to Arizona funding for public education, I just don’t get why the public body isn’t in the streets with pitchforks. Please walk down memory lane with me on the matter of voter mandated inflationary funding for school districts:

2000

  • AZ voters mandated (Proposition 301) the state sales tax be raised by 0.6 percent and that the money be spent on annual inflation increases for schools.

2009

  • Lawmakers quit providing the annual boosts for inflation.
  • The Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) and the Arizona Education Association (AEA) offered to “move on” if the Legislature would only begin to comply, but they refused.
  • Several school districts, ASBA and AEA filed a lawsuit to force compliance.

2011

  • A Superior Court Judge ruled Prop 301 did not require the Arizona legislature to annually inflate education funding for Arizona’s public schools.
  • The plaintiffs filed an appeal.

2013

  • AZ Court of Appeals reversed the lower court.
  • AZ Supreme Court ruled with the Court of Appeals that the inflationary increases must be paid.  The decision emphasized that the Voter Protection Act limits the legislature’s power to modify voter initiatives and referenda.
  • The legislature began paying the increases again in the 2013-2014 budget year.

2014

  • The trial court ordered the base level funding be reset to the level it would have been if it had been inflated properly over the last five years (estimated to be $1.6B over the next five years.)
  • The court also ordered an evidentiary hearing be held on whether the state should pay the $1.3 billion in inflationary funding not given the districts from 2010 to 2012.[i]
  • The parties in the lawsuit agreed to mediation in an attempt to resolve the matter.[ii]

So where are we now, seven months after the ruling the monies must be paid? Yep, that’s right, nowhere. Not only has the Legislature refused to comply with law and judicial order, but they continue to further cut the public education budget. This legislative session, three new expansions of voucher eligibility have passed their committees of origin as has a bill to make it even harder for Districts to pass bonds and overrides. In addition, Governor Ducey is proposing a five percent reduction to “non-classroom” expenses.

Then yesterday, the House Education Committee gave a “due pass” to basically dump the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards “common core.” This, after our school districts have spent huge amounts of financial and human capital since 2010 to implement these standards. Statewide, the costs are estimated to have been $156M just for the 2013-2014 school year, and that doesn’t consider the turmoil caused by changing course yet again.[iii]

Okay, so to recap, the Legislature has refused to comply with both the people’s mandate and with judiciary orders for the same. In addition, they are working on legislation to divert even more taxpayer dollars from public education to private providers and, the Governor’s budget looks to cut another $113.5M from district budgets across the board, as with a sequestration.[iv]

Are you kidding me? It is beyond time for us to demand our representatives listen to us. I’m calling for an Arizona Education (AZED) Spring . Yes, that’s a play on the Arab Spring. Of course, I’m not looking to start a real revolution; I’ll leave anything to do with guns to our legislature to obsess over. What I do hope for though, is for the public body to wake up after a very long hibernation that has allowed our representatives to continue to ignore the will of the people and the rule of law. I’d love to hear what you think.

[i] http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/11/arizona-school-funding-lawsuit-settlement-talks/21590417/

[ii] http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2015/01/23/schools-legislature-agree-to-use-appeals-court-to-resolve-inflation-funding-suit/

[iii] http://www.azsba.org/advocacy/resource-center/

[iv] http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2015/01/16/ducey-melts-tourism-education-budgets-proposes.html

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February 12, 2015

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Come on Governor Ducey…LEAD!

Now Governor Ducey has, through his office of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting, clarified his position on the proposed $113 million reduction in state funding to District Additional Assistance [DAA] (the five percent reduction to non-classroom dollars.) To get right to the point of what this is all about, we need only to look at the main message of his clarification: “it does not change the amount of the proposed cut, but makes it clear that district options to comply can’t impact classroom spending.”

I think the really critical words in this “clarification” are “district options to comply can’t impact classroom spending.” Please note that the Governor didn’t stipulate that the cuts must not impact the classroom, but rather, that the cuts must not impact classroom spending. Okay, so I guess Governor Ducey thinks that the classroom spending determines the quality of education in our state? If that’s the case, we’re already hosed. Well, Arizona is actually 47th in the state with regard to “administrative” costs, so we evidently don’t have a problem with classroom spending. What we do have a problem with, it spending on education per pupil. From 2008 to 2013, we had the highest cuts per pupil in the nation. Although the state leadership would like the public to think as “non-classroom” spending as high paid superintendents and principals, the truth is that it includes bus drivers, food servers, librarians, speech therapists, and maintenance workers. In many cases in fact, teachers absolutely can’t accomplish their missions in the classroom without the help of the “non-classroom” personnel that support their efforts.

The biggest “tell” for me is that the Governor is that Districts would have to certify to the state that no reductions were made to classroom spending to comply with the state’s new reduction to District Additional Assistance. This is actually a change from what originally was said which was that the Districts would have to certify there was no impact to the classroom by virtue of the cuts.

However the Governor wants to spin these proposed cuts, these cuts ARE to K-12 public education. In addition, although our legislature seems to abhor all things federal, this five percent cut to “non-classroom” dollars is a lot like the federal sequestration cuts. Across the board cuts may be easy to dictate, but they aren’t strategic and they don’t support improvement.

My school district has done much to cut non-classroom spending in an effort to become more efficient. This five percent reduction however, won’t recognize our efforts, but rather, will lump us in with every other district whether or not they’ve focused on becoming more efficient.

We need leadership from our state government, but this isn’t it. We need the school finance formula to be totally revised and we need a strategic approach to how to improve K-12 public education in our state. This can’t be political, it must be strategic. It won’t be easy, but it is the right thing to do. Come on Governor Ducey…LEAD!

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February 6, 2015

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AZ Legislature, early childhood education, Education, Poverty, wealth inequity

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A million here, a million there, pretty soon we’re talking real money…

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR and heard a story about how Arizona House Bill, HB2128 just passed the third read and was transmitted to the Senate. This bill allows those who lease land to churches to claim a tax exemption as a result. The law change will result in an additional $2.1 million from the state’s general fund ending up in private coffers instead. Yet another example of our representatives looking out for the privileged few versus the average Arizonan.

Okay, $2.1 million isn’t all that much compared to a state budget of about $9 billion, but it all adds up. I started thinking what our district schools could do with $2.1 million. Again, just a drop in the bucket compared to what has been shortchanged our schools over the last few years, but it would help us begin to make a dent in the need.

Although my primary focus tends to be early childhood education when discussing where to apply resources, $2.1 million wouldn’t even begin to address the need. Arizona does not fund full-day kindergarten, let alone preschool, so although I believe quality early childhood education is critical to improved outcomes, I also recognize it will take some real political courage and time to get us there.

When considering mission success in the Air Force, we were taught to consider what limiting factors (LIMFACS) could impact our chances. The fact that poor children start school having heard as many as 30 million fewer words than their wealthier counterparts is a significant LIMFAC that quality preschool can help address. Another LIMFAC in Arizona is our significant shortage of school counselors. Arizona does not mandate school counselors, but their benefit is well documented.[i] They work as a team with school staff, parents and the community to help all children achieve academic success by providing education, prevention, early identification and intervention.[ii] “Counselors generally spend 80 percent of their time with students, and the remainder of their time collaborating with teachers implementing Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards, supporting testing, and using test data to create, monitor and evaluate student academic interventions. Helping students develop strong interpersonal skills, and identify and cope with social, emotional and mental health issues is an equally important part of the job, at all grade levels, and one being felt more acutely in some parts of the state.”[iii] The downturn in the economy created significant stressors for families, especially in rural areas and a school counselor can really help bridge the gaps.

Sadly, Arizona leads the nation (only California has a higher ratio) in counselor to student ratio. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 1:250 counselor to student ratio. The national average in the 2010-2011 school year was 1:471 and the Arizona average was 1:861.[iv] Why is this important? To understand how significant this is, one needs only to look at the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s “Kids Count Databook” which ranks states in four categories (economic well-being, education, health, and family and community) to determine child well-being within each state. For 2014, Arizona ranked 46th in the nation overall and 44th in education. [v]

Obviously, Arizona’s children have significant stressors placed on them. Counselors in schools can do much to help identify and address these stressors before they manifest themselves in a variety of less than desirable ways. After the Sandy Hook shootings, there was much discussion in Arizona and around the nation about putting school resource officers (cops) back in schools or even more drastic, arming teachers. Under the guise of “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”, I believe our efforts and money would have been much better spent on ensuring every school had a counselor.

So, back to the $2.1 million the AZ Legislature just gave away to wealthy property owners. Assuming a counselor costs a school district about $60K (with benefits), the $2.1 million the legislators just voted to siphon out of the general fund could pay for 35 school counselors. Granted, that would only meet about 3.5 percent of the additional need, considering Arizona’s deficit just to meet the national average versus the idea. But, it is a start. In my small school district (about 450 students) our administrators, teachers and staff are stretched thin. Both the superintendent and the principal also teach advanced math classes, must provide coverage for student watch duties and, the principal is the grant writer for the district. It is hard for them to be everywhere at once and a counselor would go a long way to ensuring the health and well being of all students.

The Arizona Legislature is marching steadily on in their assault on public education. Their refusal to look for additional revenue, while also finding new ways to divert taxpayer dollars from the public sector to the private sector continues to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots and is not producing better outcomes for the majority of Arizonans. We, the public, really must wake up and demand better. Of the people, by the people, for the people. The common denominator in all that is “the people.” If we aren’t involved, we can’t complain. The bottom line is that we get the government we deserve.

[i] http://www.schoolcounselor.org/school-counselors-members/careers-roles/state-school-counseling-mandates-and-legislation

[ii] http://www.schoolcounselor.org/school-counselors-members/careers-roles/why-elementary-school-counselors

[iii] http://azednews.com/2014/03/31/arizona-students-access-to-school-counselors-decreases-while-need-increases/

[iv] http://www.schoolcounselor.org

[v] http://www.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2014kidscountdatabook-rankings-2014.pdf

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January 23, 2015

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And the beat goes on…

Yesterday, the Arizona House Education Committee moved the state one step closer to fully privatized K-12 education with their passage of HB 2174 (empowerment scholarship accounts; grandchildren) on a 4-3 vote. This bill expands eligibility of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) or “vouchers” to grandchildren being raised by their grandparents. An amendment was adopted that removed the requirement that the grandchild meets the free and reduced price lunch eligibility requirements.

This removal of the requirement for the grandchild to meet the free and reduced price lunch eligibility requirements is significant. Let’s face it. The overall intention of this American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promoted legislation is to provide for K-12 education via vouchers (taxpayer dollars intended for public education) given to parents to pay for private schools. The Arizona Legislature has been moving us down this road for several years.

In 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court found two similar school voucher programs violated the Arizona Constitution’s ban on aid for religious or private schools. The Goldwater Institute however, which had first proposed the idea in 2005, offered educational savings accounts as an alternative. In April 2011, Governor Brewer approved SB 15523 authorizing Arizona Empowerment Accounts (first state to do this) to give parents of eligible special-education students the opportunity to receive ESAs. Funds could be used for curriculum, testing, private school tuition, tutors, special needs services or therapies, or even seed money for college. According to the Arizona Department of Education, parents spent a total of $198,764 in scholarship funds in the first quarter of fiscal 2012. About 92 percent went to private schools.

The Arizona School Boards Association, the Arizona Education Association, and others filed a lawsuit, claiming the program unconstitutional. The Goldwater Institute, the Arizona Attorney General’s office, and the Institute for Justice defended the program. In January 2012, a Superior Court Judge ruled the savings accounts were constitutional. Her opinion was: “The exercise of parental choice among education options makes the program constitutional.” Education advocates continued to appeal this decision, but in October 2013, the Arizona Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of the accounts.”

In 2012, Gov. Jan Brewer signed HB 2622, expanding the program to include children from failing schools, children in active-duty military families, and children adopted from the state foster care system.2 These families began applying for accounts in 2013, and students began using the accounts in the 2013–14 school year. The legislature also expanded the program in 2013 to include incoming kindergarten students that meet the existing eligibility criteria, and increased the funding amount for each account award.3 More than 200,000 Arizona children are now eligible, or 1 in 5 public school students. New applicants must have attended a public school for at least 100 days in the prior school year.

The education profiteers won’t be happy until the public school districts are sucked dry of funding and private school and for-profit charter operators maximize profits on the backs of taxpayers. Shifting money from our public district schools to private schools and charters will not by and large pull disadvantaged children out of their situations and fix America’s education problems. Rather, it will continue to drive the highest level of segregation since the mid-1960s and ensure the advantaged continue to succeed and the disadvantaged fall further behind. Can’t help but wonder what the new Arizona College and Career Ready Standards and the accompanying AZ-Merits test will do to school performance grades and widening eligibility for these vouchers. Know this…I’ll be watching.

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January 21, 2015

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Disingenuous Ducey

Governor Ducey called for a 5 percent reduction in non-classroom spending for district schools and a 3.5 percent reduction in additional assistance for charters . He claims the goals of the reduction are to 1) reduce the size of school administration and 2) refocus on students and teachers.

Politicians know a call to “cut administration costs and ensure more money ends up in the classroom” sells to the masses because “administration costs” is often heard as “salaries for superintendents, principals and office staffs.” In reality, these “nonclassroom dollars” refer to administration, plant operations, food service, transportation, student support, and instruction support.

Ducey realizes these are critical functions and that’s why he recommends requiring superintendents (or CEOs) and the school finance officer to certify the reductions will not affect the classroom. I can’t imagine how a superintendent in good conscience could do this since counselors, transportation, librarians, food service, and speech therapists are critical to a teacher’s ability to teach. One in four children in Arizona live in poverty and they bring a host of challenges with them to school. Challenges teachers can’t deal with on their own, especially with larger classes.

As a 22-year Air Force (AF) veteran, I know that flying operations are generally considered the premier “mission essential” functions. But, AF leaders recognized flying operations couldn’t happen without support functions like food service, personnel, security, transportation, etc. Ultimately, the airman fueling the plane is just as critical to mission accomplishment as the pilot flying it. Yes, classrooms are where the main learning occurs, but classroom teachers can’t do their magic without the right kind of support. When the Governor talks about cutting non-classroom funds by five percent, no mater how he spins it, that equates to cutting K-12 education by five percent.

The Governor’s also wants to take $23.9M from the Student Success Fund to create the “Access Our Best Public Schools Fund” to expand existing charter facilities/construct new ones. He claims this is because of the high waiting lists at best performing charters. Unfortunately these waiting lists are virtually impossible to validate because their for-profit corporations refuse to provide the transparency required of district schools.

Is there a correlation between Arizona’s bottom ten in funding for K-12 education , and 47th in performance ? I am of the thought that to a certain extent, you get what you pay for. Close to 90 percent of Arizona’s students still attend community district schools and yet our state leadership continues to focus on creating more opportunities for profit on the backs of our children, to include making it easier and easier to funnel tax payer dollars to private schools. If Governor Ducey really cared about K-12 education, he would focus on the schools we already have versus building new ones and he’d provide our schools real funding versus just reallocation via a shell game. In the end, claiming charter and private schools do better (a stretch), while starving our district schools of funding, becomes a self-licking ice cream cone which serves those best who don’t need the help to begin with. Maybe that’s the plan.

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April 17, 2014

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AZ Legislature, Education, Privatization

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A Moment of Reason in the Arizona Legislature – Voucher Expansion Bill Defeated

Somewhat unbelievable, but reason prevailed today in Arizona. Against all odds, the latest grand attempt to expand vouchers failed 31 to 27. HB2291, as amended, would have expanded eligibility for vouchers to any student living within qualified zip codes (as defined by the average household income is below 185% of the federal poverty level for a family of four) regardless of family income.  If passed and signed into law by the Governor, this bill would have expanded eligibility to 112,000 and exponentially increased costs for the program.

I watched a live feed of the Arizona House Committee of the Whole discuss this bill, HB 2291, Empowerment Scholarships Accounts; Expansion, sponsored by Rep Debbie Lesko (R). Some great points were made on the part of those against the bill and the same Rep. Ontondo (D), a former teacher said that in her legislative district, there are people who earn $300,000 and others who make $15,000. If you average this out, she said, it probably is about 40,000 so those who don’t need the “vouchers” to afford the private schools will get taxpayer dollars anyway. She also expressed the concern about the lack of transparency and oversight and referred to the fact that 21% of the ESA funding has been banked by parents and therefore not used for the education of their children. She said that taxpayers deserve to know how their dollars are being spent. Another representative (D) said that if we want great outcomes, we need to keep money in public education and stop choking our public schools. Another (D) said we’ve had choice in Arizona since the early 1990s and what has it done to improve our public education. If we can’t get everyone a voucher, we shouldn’t be doing it.

Rep Hale (D), from the Navajo Nation, asked Rep Lesko (the AZ Chair for the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC) several questions to subtly make his points. The first was whether she was aware of the income levels on the Navajo Nation and whether she knows how many private schools there are on the Navajo Nation. She said she did not know the answer to his questions. He replied that there are no private schools. She said ESAs don’t only offer funding for private schools, but for on-line learning or tutoring as well. He then asked if she was aware of how few people had access to the Internet on the Navajo Nation and she said she was not. I was impressed with how he led her down the path to divulging how ignorant she was about some of the state’s most needy children.

Rep Wheeler (D) provided information about the funding issues of this bill. He said recent changes to ESAs ensure funding at 90% of charter versus public, to the amount of $1007 per pupil more. He said that under the current basic state funding, a non-disabled student gets $5,400 as opposed to $5,800 per student (90% of $6,400 for vouchers.) This alone, according to the AZ Joint Budget Legislative Committee (JBLC), will increase costs of this program by $950K this fiscal year. He also said that if there were 600K students on ESAs, it would cost $3.6B and if there were 800K, it would cost $4.8B. Currently he said, there are 150K students eligible. With this bill, and addition of free or reduced, the increase in 2017 would be by 485K and cost another $2.19B. He also said that the cap of 5,400 per year meant nothing as it could easily be raised.

In a surprise to me, Rep Goodale (R) said she voted no because 100K expansion is too much at this time for the ESA program to absorb.

Finally, I’m quickly becoming a fan of Rep Heather Carter. She is a Republican, but first of all, she is a rationale representative of the people and, a strong advocate for public education. She was an articulate advocate for public education today and made some great arguments. When Rep Kavanaugh (R) referred to the district charters as faux charters, she called him on it. She pointed out that the laws allowing districts to convert their schools to charters had been on the books for 20 years. If the districts followed the rules, why change the rules now? All Kavanaugh could say was that “the timing was suspect.” When the bill proponents praised charters, she pointed out it is the 20th anniversary of charters and how the AZ Legislature just voted to remove the option of charters from the toolbox of our school districts. She pointed out how this is entirely against the purported goal of offering competition to improve achievement. She also said that the choice policies not going to help rural districts if we don’t put local options of choice in place.

In explaining her vote, she said she supported ESA accounts the way they were originally marketed, which was to provide academic opportunities who had unmet needs in our public schools. She said there were good public policy reasons why certain students’ needs were not met and it was marketed that ESAs would save the state money. Recent changes to allow ESAs to get additional charter assistance however, changed all that and now, ESAs cost more. She eloquently discussed what choice means to her: the choice of whether to send her daughter to public, charter, or private school, or to home school her. What this bill was really talking about though, was putting the AZ public education budget on a debit card. She pointed out that we lead the country in choice policy and have had open enrollment since 1994. If parents really want to send their children to another school, they can do that. Choice is different than the funding issue. This bill confuses the dollars we spend in AZ with school choice. It is the job of the legislature to fund public schools and they need to do it!

The last speaker before the vote was Rep Lesko, the sponsor of the bill. She made one last-ditch effort to get her colleagues to support her bill, but her arguments just weren’t compelling. She said the bill gives low-income students the opportunity to improve their situation and yet, Rep Hale had already pointed out it won’t help those on the Navajo Nation. She pointed out that although the bill would make 112K students eligible, the current cap in only about 5,400 per year so what is everyone worried about? Rep Wheeler pointed out during the debate that the cap means nothing because it can always be raised. Lesko also claimed that the program will actually save over $3,000 per year per student, but as the AZ JLBC noted, costs are now higher for ESAs than for educating a student in public schools.

Yes, the bill was defeated today, but I’m not going to rest easy because it is crazy (okay, craziest) time at the AZ Legislature. In addition to Rep Mesnard (R) changing his vote for a likely reconsideration on HB2291, there are several other anti-public education bills working their way to the Governor’s office. Here’s a quick rundown:

  • HB2139 (sponsor: Rep. Petersen) – Expands the ESA program to any sibling of a student who has an ESA and any preschool special education student. This will significantly grow the ESA program, and the money to fund all of these students will be placed directly on the state’s General Fund. Money out the door with zero accountability.
  • HB2150 (sponsor: Borrelli) – Removes the 100 day requirement for students to attend a public school before getting an ESA for students who have parents in the military.  Thus, students with parents in the military will be eligible for ESA private school vouchers without ever having attended public school.
  • HB2328 (sponsor: Rep. Livingston) – This bill amends the eligibility for the corporate tax credit STO program for students with special needs and foster kids.  It eliminates the current requirement that these students must attend a public school for at least 90 days to be eligible for an STO. This means that students who are already in private schools will now be eligible to get STO monies under this corporate tax credit STO program.
  • SB1237 (sponsor: Sen. Yee) – This is the Arizona Department of Education’s ESA administrative bill.  One provision of the bill clarifies that all ESA students get 90% of the base support level funding + the charter school additional assistance.  This means that students who leave a traditional school district to attend private school using an ESA will actually be given more funding to go to a private school then the public school would receive to educate them.
  • SB1236 (sponsor: Yee) – This bill is identical to HB2291, expanding the ESA program to any student living in a zip code where the federal poverty rate is 185% (family of four making $46,000). Because this bill is identical to HB2291, the bills can be switched out during a third read vote in each chamber so they will not have to go to the other chamber.  If passed in the Senate, the bill gets transmitted to Governor Brewer.

People often ask me what the hell the AZ Legislature is thinking with regard to the actions they are taking against public education. I tell them they know exactly what they are thinking and doing. I believe they are out to destroy public education and turn over tax payer dollars for such to the privateers to expand their profits. We must remain vigilant and keep up the pressure. For our students, for our public schools, for our communities and for our future!

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March 18, 2014

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AZ Legislature, Education, General Arizona, Privatization

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Its Not About Sense, but Cents (and Dollars)

The Arizona House voted to expand Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (vouchers) again yesterday and just about every Representative felt compelled to explain their vote.  Wait, could there have been a television reporter in the house?  Why yes, there was.  The votes were along party lines, and predictably, the Democrats spoke to the damage the voucher movement will continue to do to our public schools, where 84 percent of Arizona’s student still attend.  Representative Hale, representing parts of the Navajo nation, spoke passionately about the unique challenges in educating children on the reservation and how taking educational funding away from them to give to areas where there are plenty of options is just wrong.  On the Republican side, it was all about parental choice and that parents know best, but no discussion about increased transparency and accountability.  Once again in fact, Representative Meyer’s amendment to HB2139 (a “strike everything bill”), was defeated although it merely would have ensured accountability for results when taxpayer dollars are diverted to private schools via the ESAs.  

I was up at the AZ Capitol yesterday with a group of pro-public education supporters who rode the Bus4Ed sponsored by the Holt for AZ Senate Campaign.  Several of the participants were dismayed at the arguments made by Republicans in support of the vouchers.  One, a teacher in an accommodation school, couldn’t believe the non-sensical, hypocritical justifications made in favor of the vouchers.  

Of course, the actions of the GOP in the AZ Legislature with regard to education don’t make sense only if you believe they are working to improve public education.  If you are more realistic and understand the ALEC and corporate reformer driven privatization agenda for public education.  One of the arguments for vouchers presented by a GOP representative was that “only 752 Arizona children were on ESAs at this time so what’s the big deal?”  Well, the big deal is that we know from experience and from what is currently on the table that the end game for the AZ GOP it to make every child eligible for the vouchers.  First, the expansion was for those students attending a school or district assigned a D or F grade, then all children who are eligible to attend kindergarten, then a child of a parent in the armed forces, a child who is a ward of the juvenile court, then a child who is the sibling of a current or previous voucher recipient.  Then, there was the attempt to expand to all first responder’s children which eventually turned into include all those who are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs and finally, to all students in a Title 1 school.  In Arizona, that number equals about 73% of our students, or about 900,000. 

Vouchers are not about school choice, that’s just the smokescreen. They are about the redistribution of our taxpayer dollars to transparent, accountable, locally-led community public schools to private schools that are not accountable to anyone. It is a zero-sum game. The vast majority of private schools cost more than what the vouchers will provide and only those with means will be able to take advantage of them. Yes, that’s right. Those who don’t need the help will get it and those who are desperate for the help will just get more desperate, stuck in public schools starved for resources.

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March 6, 2014

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AZ Legislature, Education, General Arizona, Privatization

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Time to Act Against Arizona’s Axis of Evil

Nope, not referring to North Korea or Iran, but the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), The Goldwater Institute and The Center for Arizona Policy led by Cathi Herrod. All of Arizona’s GOP legislators are or have recently been members of ALEC.  Led by Representative Debbie Lesko, ALEC’s Arizona Chair, they have introduced no less than 20 ALEC model bills including those that:

  • Criminalize undocumented workers, stripping native-born Americans of their citizenship rights and requiring that all materials disseminated by state agencies be written in English only;
  • Encourage the privatization of state prisons to the benefit of the private prison industry;
  • Disenfranchise tens of thousands of Arizonans via voter suppression bills
  • Attack workers by undermining unions and collective bargaining and eliminating public employment through outsourcing and privatizing of government functions;
  • Attack public education through private school voucher programs;
  • Attempt to prevent implementation of healthcare reform, and
  • Attack federal environmental regulation by attempting to deny the federal government the ability to supersede weak state environmental legislation.

SB1062, the so-called religious freedom (but really about state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and others) bill that Governor Brewer vetoed last week, was being pushed by Cathi Herrod and her Center for Arizona Policy.  The veto was a fairly significant setback for Herrod, but don’t worry, she has plenty of other tricks up her sleeve.  On next week’s House Education Committee agenda, is SB1237, which passed the Senate on a party line vote.  This bill expands the amount of this private school voucher to include the charter school additional assistance weight as well as 90% of the base support level funding the student would have otherwise received if they had attend a school district. This is a significant dollar increase as the additional assistance amount is $1,684 for K-8 and $1,962 for high school.

This bill is totally about increasing the diversion of public school funding to unaccountable private schools.  Not only is our GOP-led legislature taking orders from Cathi Herrod, but our State Superintendent of Public Instruction recently robocalled public school families to entice them to take state (taxpayer) funding to attend private schools.  When questioned about this, Huppenthal retorted that he is “the Superintendent of Public Instruction, not of Public Schools.”

Vouchers, by any other name, is model ALEC legislation.  “Wherever you see states expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization, wherever you see states lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession, wherever you see states opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, wherever you see the expansion of for-profit online charter schools, you are likely to find legislation that echoes the ALEC model.”

It is important for people to understand that one can’t be pro community public schools while also being pro vouchers and school choice.  Despite what the privatization advocates are touting, school choice, and the various methods for providing options (empowerment scholarship accounts [vouchers], student tuition organizations, etc.), do not generally produce better results, especially when comparing similar populations.  In addition, this is a zero sum game.  When money is taken from public schools and diverted to for-profit charters, private and parochial schools, it begins a downward spiral that is very difficult for public schools to recover from.  In addition, open enrollment promotes competition over collaboration not just between schools, but also on the part of parents who act in the interest of their child without concern for all children.

The bottom line is that community public schools perform a huge public good.  In many cases, they are the thread that binds communities together.  They helped put America on the path to greatness and they are still where 85 percent of Arizona students are educated.  We don’t talk about how fire and police departments should be run by like a business or compete with one another for their raw product.  Public community schools should be treated no differently.  They are entrusted with an awesome responsibility, staffed by dedicated professionals, take all children who come through their doors and work against all odds to achieve their mission.  They need you on-board advocating for their success.  Please contact the members of the House Education Committee prior to Monday, March 10th and tell them to fail SB1237.  It is not in the best interest of our students or our state and will only serve to enrich those who would make profit on our public education dollars.

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March 5, 2014

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AZ Legislature, Education, Privatization

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A rose by any other name…is just as thorny!

ImageIt is no surprise Arizona Legislators continue to seek expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts AKA, vouchers.  The concept is model legislation for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and has been introduced in numerous states around the country.  ALEC is the organization corporations pay big bucks to belong to so they can work together to develop model legislation to hand state legislators for introduction in their respective states.  ALEC claims it is non-partisan, but in 2012 it had only Democrat of 104 legislators in leadership positions.  In fact, every Republican legislator in Arizona is currently, or was recently, a member of ALEC.  The pipeline for the ALEC agenda in Arizona is the Goldwater Institute and Jonathan Butcher; Education Director from the Goldwater Institute is the “Private Chair” of ALEC’s Education Task Force.  Mr. Butcher has been collaborating with Rep Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, ALEC’s Arizona State Chairman to expand Education Savings Accounts in Arizona.   Even the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, has actively promoted this private voucher program with a robocall directing parents to a Goldwater Institute website to pull their kids out of public school and send them to private school on the taxpayer’s dime, with no accountability.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts were first introduced in Arizona in 2011 as a workaround to the state’s Supreme Court decision in 2009 that state school-voucher programs were unconstitutional because they violate a ban against appropriating public money for private or religious schools.  In Niehaus V. Huppenthal the Arizona Supreme Court determined ESAs were not the same as vouchers because the specified object of the ESA is the beneficiary families, not private or sectarian schools.  This decision is under appeal by the Arizona School Board Association and others.

ESA funds can be used for curriculum, testing, private school tuition, tutors, special needs services or therapies, or even seed money for college.  The program however, requires parents to waive their child’s right to a public education…a right that is guaranteed under the state constitution, in order to receive the benefits.

The original ESA bill, SB 1553, was signed into law April 12, 2011 and at that time, qualified students were only those eligible to received disability related services from a school district, or had been identified as disabled either by the school district or under federal guidelines.  Since then, we’ve seen expansions or at least attempted expansions, every year.  In 2012, the legislature attempted to expand the law with HB 2626, to include those attending a school or district that had been assigned a letter grade of D or F, previous recipient of a scholarship, child of a parent or guardian who is a member of the Armed Forces, child who is a ward of the court, or who has been identified as a gifted pupil.  Governor Brewer vetoed this bill on April 4, 2012.  In 2013, SB1363 was introduced to expand to all those categories above, and increased funding provided to 90% of the sum of the base support level and Additional Assistance if the student were attending a charter school.  Governor Brewer signed this bill into law on June 20, 2013.

Now, in its 51st Legislative Session, the Arizona Legislature is working fast and furious to further expand the state’s voucher program.  Here’s a list of what’s on the docket per the Arizona Legislature website:

Bill Purpose Status
HB 2291 & SB1236 Expands students eligible to those whose parents are police, fire, or EMT, as well as any child who has a sibling who is already receiving an ESA. Also extends eligibility to any student on free or reduced-price lunch programs and increases the household income threshold eligibility by 15% each year thereafter.  Would make a potential 881,000 students, or 73 percent of the total public-school population, qualified for the ESA program. The program is currently capped at 5,500 students until 2019 (per Legislative Report 2/26 AZ Capitol Reports.) House bill up for House vote 3/6/14.  Senate bill waiting to get on Senate Rules Cmte agenda.
HB2150 Allows children whose parents are an active-duty member of the armed forces to immediately enroll in a private school using vouchers and retain 25% of each voucher amount per student Ready for a floor vote
HB 2139 Expands eligibility to a sibling of a current or previous ESA recipient and those eligible to enroll in a program for preschool children with disabilities. Passed by House Approp Cmte
SB1237 Expands funding for ESAs to include the charter school additional assistance weight as well as 90% of the base support level funding the student would have otherwise received if they had attended a public school. Significant dollar increase, as the additional assistance amount is $1,684 for K-8 and $1,962 for high school. Passed the Senate along party lines
HB2036 Failed after Representative Eric Meyer added an amendment to the bill to require any student who uses the voucher to take the same assessment as public school students. Representatives Allen and Boyer specifically mentioned they were voting against the bill because the testing language was added to it. (per AEA) Defeated in House Education Committee

Pro-voucher folks argue that such programs level the playing field—low-income students can have the same educational options as their wealthier counterparts. In fact, they like to infer, if not outright state, that it is all about ensuring those low-income students are not stuck in bad schools. Really?  Only 362 students in Arizona had ESAs in 2012, but 92 percent of ESA funds went to private schools, in many cases for children whose parents could afford the schools without the assistance. For students without special needs, the program provides from $3,000 to $3,500 a year. As this is not nearly sufficient to cover the cost of tuition to a private school (which can be as much as $10,000), the program is unlikely to benefit students from low-income families.  Additionally, according to William J. Mathis, managing director at the National Education Policy Center, the best private schools often aren’t interested in participating in voucher programs, so voucher programs end up supporting lower quality alternatives. On top of all this, opponents of vouchers argue that the policy doesn’t improve educational outcomes or performance.

ESAs are really just another way for Arizona legislators to make the education of YOUR child, YOUR problem.  After all, under the Arizona constitution, “The legislature shall enact such laws as shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and uniform public school system.” This is one of the primary responsibilities of the state of Arizona.  When state funding for educating is passed on to parents however, so will be the responsibility for that education.  After all, when you make a choice where to send their children, it won’t be your legislator’s fault you made the wrong choice.  Of course, ESAs are also good for those desiring to profit from the privatization of public education.  For-profit companies now run most charter schools and the lack of transparency and public oversight of charters and private schools will ensure profits can be maximized without repercussion.

Make no mistake about it; this push for vouchers is not in the best interest of the majority of Arizonans.  Over 85 percent of Arizona’s school children still attend public community schools.  Each time a student leaves with a voucher, schools lose the funding they would otherwise have received. Yet their overhead costs—for things like salaries and infrastructure—don’t go decrease just because a handful of kids left.  Jeremy Calles, the Kyrene School District chief financial officer, said “the state continues to use tax dollars and tax credits to make private school more affordable for the approximately 5 percent of the Arizona student population that makes the choice to attend those schools, while causing significant damage to the education of the 95 percent of students who are choosing to attend public schools.” Representative Eric Meyer added that supporting public education should be a priority of anyone at the Legislature who is interested in investing in the economic security of the state. “Legislation that undermines the public school system in our state is incredibly detrimental to our economic future,” Meyer said. “These vouchers use tax dollars to subsidize schools that are not subject to state testing standards. We need our kids in schools that can be held accountable for preparing them for the workforce. By starving public schools of resources, we are affecting the very foundation of our economy.”