Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey appointed a commission to fix school funding. The commission has decided that The schools don’t need more money, even though the state is one of the lowest spending in the nation. What’s needed is more funding for charters. The pie stays the same, but the underfunded public schools will lose money to the charters.
A large proportion of the students in Arizona are of Hispanic origin. I wonder if any of their parents served on Governor Ducey ‘s commission?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There won;t be any analysis of the effects on public schools, Diane. Public schools exist to serve the needs and wants of the “choice” schools. That’s their one and only role.
If there’s collateral damage to public schools, who cares? None of these lawmakers thought “government schools” had any value anyway. They’ll be relieved to be rid of them. Sink or swim, winners and losers, and the public system is the designated loser.
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We have an educated electorate in Mass. and still we can’t get the Republican Governor Charlie Baker nor the Democratic Mayor of Boston Marty Walsh to acknowledge that charter expansion will hurt good public schools.
We have good public schools. We also have public schools where kids do not score well on our statewide standardized test, MCAS. The kids that don’t score well are often poor. Many are ELL.
We haven’t funded pre-k but the state senate is working on it.
Superintendents know what charter expansion will do to their district school programs. A super from a town near Springfield recently wrote, the only thing worse that a charter school coming into the district is more than one.
The Governor wants to jam 50 new charters down our throats, and the Mayor is trying to open many of those in Boston without anyone noticing. At least he’ll fail to do it without lots of people noticing, and objecting.
Boston school parents are aware. We’ve had to cut $108,000,000 to close Boston Public Schools budget gaps over Marty Walsh’s two years in office. In addition he’s also closed 3 schools.
On the day he announced he wanted to close more public schools (yeah, Boston went in big for Gates small school initiative a decade ago) he showed up at a charter expansion ribbon-cutting ceremony.
I believe the Boston School district spends $150,000,000 a year on charter tuition. The charters have very few of the ELL students (Public 38%, Charters 3%) and very few of the special ed students. District to charter payment per student is average cost.
The good news is the Boston Public Schools has been outperforming Boston charters in college admission (50% ~42%) and college graduation rate. It remains to be seen whether that finds it way in to the debate.
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Chiara is channeling Arizona Republicans.
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This is, in practice, an example of what is a fundamental tenet of self-styled “education reform”:
It’s a zero-sum game. Forget about “charters are a rising tide that lifts all boats” and “we’ll show public schools how to do more with less” and “we are the kind of competitors that make public schools better.”
Nope. It’s all about winners and losers. Charters are in it to win it, so public schools are going to have to get more competitive while receiving less and less or wind up being displaced and replaced and eliminated.
Nothing 21st century about it. It’s the same old same old:
“For greed all nature is too little.” [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
😎
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Right forcing experienced teachers to take less or else have their school down a path where it will have even more trouble improving under the threat of losing more cash ( because the changes will take money away from non improving schools).
This is a voucher without calling it a voucher – they love funds portability in Arizona – anyway you can make more money follow the child.
Is there any doubt that the way this plan is set up the public schools can only be the losers?
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According to a Harvard study, AZ is one of the most corrupt states in America. The President of the State Bd of Ed is a charter operator. Basis Schools bubbled up from economic opportunists in Tucson taking advantage of lax state charter laws. One state legislator makes a million dollars a year skimming 10% off the top of Student Tuition money, which he money launders into tuition money for children to attend private schools. He voted on the expansion of the program.
The elected leadership in AZ is devoted to republican ideology, and the governor talks a good game, but doesn’t walk the walk. K-12 has been shorted by $1.3 billion dollars since 2008 and the court ordered the lege to pay $331 million ASAP. The state has the money, from unanticipated revenue that is higher than predicted, but they won’t pay.
I would not advise anyone to move to this state if you have children or care about education. It will make your blood pressure boil.
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This is misrepresentation of the facts. Schools are losing funding because they are losing students – to charter school, private schools, and homeschooling. Parents are upset about what is happening in the public schools and they are not listening so the parents are going elsewhere. Numbers are down, so funding is down.
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Jennifer,
That’s the plan. Defund the public schools. Increase class sizes. Cut programs. Lay off teachers. Grow charter schools.
Arizona has one of the worst funded public school systems in the nation.
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Jennifer, Per student funding is higher for charters than for public schools. That is the point and that is the problem. It has nothing to do with number of students. Per student funding is per student funding.
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Jennifer – that may be true in some schools, but it is not true for all. In my city in Arizona, there are several traditional public schools that have wait-lists. They are fabulous schools, with experienced teachers and amazing students. The parents are thrilled with the schools and furious with the state for seemingly choosing any and all charters over any and all traditional public schools. Every. Single. Time.
These highly successful and sought after schools, like all the other traditional public schools, are operating with less money per regular student every year adjusted for inflation. Some of these schools even tried to convert to charter status because the bias in favor of charters is so obvious, but the legislature does not want to acknowledge that any traditional public school can succeed and retroactively changed the law so that those schools could not convert to charter status.
Arizona is not funding the schools properly. The state is not meeting its obligations to pay for special education, transportation, building maintenance or building repairs. Every year the cost of educating increases (due to inflation, increase in cost of services like transportation and gas, increase in cost of special education services) but the amount of money allocated by the state does not increase, or does not increase at the same rate.
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