Derek Black, law professor, writes that Arizona is a state that funds its schools poorly and inequitably. It is one of the lowest-spending states in the nation on education. Worse, the kids who need the most get the least. So, instead of fixing its funding system, it has passed an expansive voucher system, which will be most helpful to students in the most affluent districts to underwrite the cost of their private and religious schools. Once again, Arizona stabs its neediest students in the back with underfunded schools. Think Arizona: Think white retirees who don’t want to pay to educate poor Latino and Native American children. Vouchers are the fix for white retirees. But not for the kids.
He writes:
The “program allows parents to take between 90 percent and 100 percent of the state money a local public school would receive to pay for private or religious education. The average student who isn’t disabled will get about $4,400 a year, but some get much more.” The funding mechanism and its expected cost to the state is murky. “The original Arizona plan was estimated to cost the state general fund at least $24 million.” Now, a revised plan and estimate are supposed to save the state $3.4 million by 2022.
What is clear, however, is that Arizona’s per pupil funding for public schools currently ranks 47 out of 50 states. To make matters worse, it distributes those meager funds unequally. The Education Law Center’s 2017 School Funding Fairness Report grades Arizona’s funding distribution as an “F.” Schools with moderate levels of student poverty receive only 88 cents on the dollar in comparison to schools with no student poverty. The comparison is even worse between high poverty school districts and low poverty school districts. In other words, Arizona spends the least on students who need the most.
That same report also shows that Arizona is doing almost nothing to fix its low funding levels or unequal distribution. Arizona ranks 49th in the nation in terms of the level of fiscal effort it exerts to fund its schools.
These background facts place Arizona’s new voucher program in a troubling light. These cold hard facts show that the state is not really interested in supporting adequate and equal education for its students. Thus, it is no surprise the state would double down and make matters worse. If gross inequity and inadequacy in public schools does not bother the state as a general principle, why would robbing those schools of more money be a problem? Why not just cap the state investment in a students’ education, send that student to private school, and tell the family and or the private school that they need to make up the difference? If things do not work out in the future, that is on the family and the private school.
These background facts also mean that the rhetoric of political leaders lacks credibility. Speaking of the voucher program, the Governor tweeted: “When parents have more choices, kids win.” If one understands the facts, one understands that this voucher program is not about helping kids in Arizona “win.” It is about raw politics and continuing the longstanding trend of depriving public schools of the resources they need to succeed. If parents in Arizona want vouchers (or charters), it is not because those policies are normatively appealing. It is because the state has been robbing them of the public education they deserve. Many families now surely believe they have no other realistic option. In short, the state has created the factual predicate of failing public schools to create the justification for its own pet project of privatizing education. The kids caught up in the mess simply do not matter.
Unfortunately, ed reform politicians will continue to take pubic school supporters for granted as long as public school supporters keep re-electing them.
Unless and until they’re held accountable politically they won’t feel any pressure to do anything at all for public schools.
There is a maxim in law called ” Qui tacet consentire ” which translates to “Silence gives consent”. As long as people who are supportive of a single-payer public school system, do not inform their political servants of their wishes, the politicians will listen to those who speak up.
The great patriot and revolutionary, Samuel Adams, said “It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
It should be obvious to people on both sides of the issue, that even though 90+% of USA children are enrolled in public institutions of learning, that a tireless minority can effect change.
Charles,
I agree. That’s why the government is controlled by the 1%.
If everyone voted,Trump would still be in Trump Tower, and DeVos would be in Michigan.
Q If everyone voted,Trump would still be in Trump Tower, and DeVos would be in Michigan. END Q
Precisely. Many people stayed home, and sat out the last election.
“The opposite of civilization is indifference” – Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner, holocaust survivor.
We must live with the results of their indifference.
After years and years of messy invasions and abuses in our district, the school “reformers” continue to be lauded in all of our media. One of the most destructive on the DFER team, an ex-TFAer who joined our legislature and set up our state’s all-teachers-must-be-test-score-evaluated VAM law which has viciously decimated teacher ranks, has thrown his hat into the ring for governor and is openly receiving big donations….from guess who? The “liberal” party.
See also
Arizona’s Neo-Vouchers: The Camel is in the Tent
Posted: 07 Apr 2017 12:05 PM PDT
by Gene V. Glass
Well, here is some money that would be better spent being paid out to Arizona Public Schools.
“Federal marshals are protecting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos at a cost to her agency of nearly $8 million over nearly eight months, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Education Department has agreed to reimburse the marshals $7.78 million for their services from mid-February to the end of September, said a marshals spokeswoman — an average of about $1 million per month.
Marshals will continue providing security for the education secretary for the next four years, or until either agency decides to terminate the arrangement, under an agreement signed last week.
Previous education secretaries have been protected by a team of department employees, many of whom were Secret Service veterans. That team was replaced by marshals on Feb. 13, a few days after DeVos encountered protesters who briefly blocked her from entering a D.C. middle school.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-cost-of-betsy-devoss-security-detail-1-million-per-month/2017/04/07/efa01488-1ade-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.d6d077031362
She doesn’t speak to reporters either.
Apparently we’re not permitted to ask any questions about her plans for our public schools.
Anyone who isn’t 100% in agreement with the DC ed reform echo chamber will be designated “labor unions members” or “supporters of the status quo” and ignored.
The dishonesty is amazing. Public school kids and parents “won” absolutely nothing in this deal. They got nothing.
Here’s Betsy DeVos celebrating the fact that Arizona does absolutely nothing to benefit kids in public schools:
“Betsy DeVosVerified account @BetsyDeVosED Apr 6
More
A big win for students & parents in Arizona tonight with the passage of ed savings accts. I applaud Gov. @DougDucey for putting kids first.”
Can someone ask her how this benefits kids in public schools, who are the majority of kids in the state? It’s a ridiculous thing to say. Blatantly untrue.
They’ll continue to mislead public school kids, parents and supporters until they’re held accountable politically. The reason they do is they get away with it.
Q Can someone ask her how this [voucher program] benefits kids in public schools, who are the majority of kids in the state? END Q
Easy question. Vouchers and school choice benefit all parents/children, whether enrolled in public schools or not. School choice forces all schools, public/private/parochial, to face the discipline of the marketplace. The market place is a cruel taskmaster.
If public school teachers and administrators truly wish to keep children enrolled in their schools, they will have to offer a service, which parents will choose to accept, instead of being forced to accept.
Just like when people choose to send their packages by UPS or FedEx, instead of the government postal service.
Schools which cannot “cut the mustard”, will fail. With a single-payer system, there is no possibility of failure. The government keeps shoveling the tax money into the school, whether parents are satisfied or not.
You don’t understand the purpose of public schools.
Choice benefits no one–particularly the community. If I don’t currently have kids in schools, why should I pay for someone’s private education?
By the way, FedEx and UPS send their packages by postal service all the time, particularly in rural areas where it doesn’t financially pay for them to deliver. That’s the point: when it’s all private, they are most concerned about profit, not people. MANY students will be left behind in a privatized education system, just as rural people would be left behind if all deliveries were only done by private companies.
But you have no desire to really listen.
Q Choice benefits no one–particularly the community. If I don’t currently have kids in schools, why should I pay for someone’s private education?
By the way, FedEx and UPS send their packages by postal service all the time, particularly in rural areas where it doesn’t financially pay for them to deliver. That’s the point: when it’s all private, they are most concerned about profit, not people. MANY students will be left behind in a privatized education system, just as rural people would be left behind if all deliveries were only done by private companies.
But you have no desire to really listen. END Q
Choice in university-level education benefits the students who choose one college over another. Choice in K-12 similarly benefits the parents/students who choose one school over another. There have been “magnet schools”, for many years. In Illinois, gifted/talented students can choose the Illinois Math and Science Academy. See
https://www.imsa.edu/
Would you like to close down this academy, and send all of the gifted/talented kids, back to their own community?
I have never had children in any school. But, I pay school taxes, just as if I had 12 children. I want to live in an educated society.
When you pay federal taxes, and a student gets a BEOG, and redeems it at a private college like Middlebury University, your taxes are paying for a private education.
True, not all locations in the USA have FedEx/UPS service. But people still choose to use their services when available.
Home delivery of mail, did not start in the USA, until the Civil War. And Rural Free Delivery was initiated in the 1930’s. So what?
I am always willing to listen, to any one.
Charles: I’m glad to see that you also agree that a community benefits by providing all of its students with a good education.
I strenuously disagree that private school vouchers are the way to do it. Milwaukee has had private school vouchers for 27 years now. If private education was such a wonderful solution, then Milwaukee would be beating everyone in educational outcomes (not test scores, but in number of students finishing college or trade school, etc). It hasn’t happened. There is no evidence whatsoever that private schools are any better than public schools. Sure, there are a few schools here and there, but anecdotes are not data.
And most of the public supports public education. Vouchers have died everywhere that the public has been able to vote on them (TWICE in my state).
Many years ago, I worked in corporate childcare. Parents, deciding whether or not to enroll their children, were given a tour and shown an impressive comprehensive curriculum that was supposedly implemented at the childcare facility. I called it then and continue to call it, selling a product to parents who don’t know what they’re buying. Most parents do not have the skills and knowledge to evaluate an educational program, whether at the preschool or elementary level, for effectiveness. Marketplace pressures don’t necessarily improve the product, they do improve the marketing techniques.
I thought this was interesting:
“Far too often, we run into situations where stakeholders believe a portfolio strategy is nothing more than a charter school growth strategy. We encourage city leaders to think beyond the obvious. While we ultimately aim for a system of autonomous and accountable schools, we know there may be more than one path to get there.”
The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation are making an effort to change their image from a lobbying group that promotes exclusively charter schools to a lobbying group that promotes “great schools”. I wonder about the switch in tone and rhetoric, why they feel it’s politically necessary to distance themselves from the singular focus on charters and vouchers in ed reform.
These groups are very sophisticated politically – they’re changing the rhetoric for some reason and it isn’t because they suddenly started supporting public schools. I wonder if they’re starting to meet resistance to privatization in the communities they parachute into.
https://www.msdf.org/blog/2016/06/way-grow-great-schools/
Unfortunately, Arizona will continue to be a stupid state led by stupid leaders! Jeff Flake is the worst with Ducey following behind him. Remember them when it’s election time or will voters just turn a blind eye?
If teachers voted, it would help a lot
Teacher’s voted for Prop. 123 that “appeared” to prioritize education even though what money it gets is minuscule compared to what is needed to bring Arizona up to par. In addition, Arizona citizens and teachers were duped into believing that the money would fund teacher’s salaries. The public, including teachers, need to educate themselves about our state’s representatives and congressional delegation.
If the communities affected would vote, it would help a lot. I am sure at this point that many parents see no alternative but to send their kids to charter and private schools. The narrative is controlled by those who want to privatize the schools.
Cross posted at Oped News https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Law-Professor-Arizona-s-N-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Disabled_Funding_Law_Neediest-170408-231.html#comment653698
with this LINK which has many,many embedded links at the site!
If you read my education posts regularly you know that I follow the war on public education, by the deep state which needs an ignorant public, (shared knowledge is essential for democracy)and by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX which is making a fortune by privatizing our schools.
If you are tired of fake news about the schools then for goodness sakes, follow the Diane Ravitch blog. Put vouchers, or charter school fraud , or privatization, into the search at the bottom of each post. Here is a great one about A Slick Campaign for Privatization, and one about the cost of all thetesting
Dr. Ravitch has published an article for the Chronicle of Philanthropy about how the big foundations paved the way for Betsy DeVos’ nihilistic campaign to privatize public education. “Trump has promised to reallocate $20 billion in federal funds to promote charter schools and private-school vouchers and now has given us this billionaire who has long devoted her philanthropic efforts to advocating for charters and vouchers!. ”
The Ravitch blog features the top education writers in America, like, this one Mercedes Schneider on Trump’s Budget: Our First Anti-Education President. Count on Mercedes to review Trump’s budget proposal. She says, ” It is as bad as you heard.At least he doesn’t call himself an ‘education president.'”True, he is the anti-education president.He is the first who wants to tear down public education, not improve it.He does not want to invest in our children or our future.He is an enemy of the people.”
Or, put ‘legislatures’ into the field and discover the lightening speed at which the GOP legislatures are taking control local schools with NARY AN EDUCATOR ON THE BOARD. Here is one about Georgia’s fraud.
Or enter anything FOR which you wish to get FACTS, and you will be sent to her best reports .
DIANE RAVITCH, was former Asst-Secretary of State, and is the author of How Not to Fix Our Public Schools and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Listen friends, I personally know Diane Ravitch for over a decade. She informs my series here, like this one on the 15,880 separate school systems in 50 states!. Imagine how easy it is to scam us, with a fractured system of schools. Here is my series on Privatization.
Her recent posts tell the tale:
Quicklink: How the Billionaire Boys Club Paved the Way for Betsy DeVos; by Diane Ravitch | OpEdNew
Keep abreast at Ravitch Blogand for more about what YOU can DO, go to the fabulous NPEsite and learn what parents and citizens can accomplish when the KNOW THE FACTS and RESIST!
The Network For Public Education | We are many. There is power in our numbers.
And here at Easter time some of us recall Jesus loved the underdogs of society. I wonder if those AZ leaders are Christian? Actions seem to suggest they belong to some other group.