Archives for category: Arizona
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Peter Greene: Why Is Arizona Proud to Be Last in the Nation on Everything But School Choice?

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2015 //
9

Peter Greene reports here on the doleful state of public education in Arizona, which has been underfunded for years. It is very likely the lowest funded state school system in the nation. Teacher salaries may be the lowest in the nation. There have been no raises for teachers since 2008. Teachers are leaving for other states, and the state faces a major teacher shortage. Average per-pupil spending, he writes is $3,400.

 

He summarizes:

 

Low pay, poor workplace resources, no job security, difficult work conditions, and no respect from state leaders. How could Arizona possibly have a teacher shortage?

 

Not to worry, Arizonans! The reformsters at the Center for Education Reform have recognized Arizona as a national leader in the school choice movement! Lots of A grades for its bold support of free-market charters, which proliferate like bunnies and are free to act without state interference or supervision and without pesky regulations barring nepotism and conflicts of interest.

 

Is Arizona the future of American education? Perish the thought!

Categories Arizona, Teachers

A Closer Look at Arizona Teacher Exodus

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2015 //
42

Reader Jack Covey read the report on teacher attrition in Arizona. Conclusion: Arizona better start thinking about the future of its schools. Too many teachers are leaving:

He writes:

“I’m looking at the survey questions / data from this study on teacher attrition in Arizona:

Click to access err-initial-report-final.pdf

“Here’s a shocker (on p. 29 of the Appendix):

———————————————————

“Question 14: In general, educators who were recruited out of Arizona typically remain in a district / charter school…

“ANSWER

…………………………………RESPONSES

CHOICES

“A) 0 – 2 years ……………………………. 40.94 %

“B) 3 – 5 years ……………………………. 48.32 %

“C) more than 5 years ………………….. 10.74 %

————————————————————–

“Holy sh%& !

“That’s an attrition rate of 41% leaving at 2 years or less. (i.e. more than 4-out-of-ten, more than 40-out-of-100)

“and

“an attrition rate of 89.26 % (9-out-of-10, or 90-out-of-100) leaving at 5 years or less … i.e. combined number of those leaving 0 – 2 years AND 3-5 years;

“That’s just staggering.

“It must just flat out suck to work as a teacher in that state.

“Also, keep in mind that 31 schools surveyed refused to answer this question, with 149 answering. One can presume that many or all of those schools among the “31” did not have promising answers to that question that they wished to share.”

Categories Arizona, Teachers

Arizona: Teacher Exodus Grows, Due to Low Salaries and Mandates

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
50

Teachers are leaving Arizona in record numbers due to low salaries and persistent legislative intrusion in their classrooms.

In the Phoenix area alone, there are more than 1,000 open teaching positions.

“”We think this is the largest documented teacher shortage that Arizona has faced in decades,” said Andrew Morrill, who is the president of the Arizona Education Association and a former high school English teacher.

“Morrill points to three factors that are affecting the shortage. He says the state’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the country, the state requires so many exams and guidelines that seasoned teachers feel limited in their ability to be creative, and according to a recent Census report, the state is dead last in dollars spent in the classroom.

“Teachers are leaving the profession. They’re leaving in debt and they’re leaving in tears,” said Morrill.

This is a predictable result of the test-and-punish policies of the Bush-Obama administrations, as well as the corporate-media assaults on the teaching profession in recent years.

Categories Arizona, Teachers

Arizona Supreme Court Rejects Charter Appeal for Equal Funding

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2015 //
16

Long ago, in the late 1980s, charter advocates said they could get better results at less cost. They said, give us autonomy and hold us accountable. Part of the apeal of the charter idea was the cost savings that would certainly occur by eliminating bureaucracy.

Now, however, charters say they need the same funding as public schools. There apparently are no cost savings.

The Arizona Supreme Court turned down a request by charter schools for equal funding.

“The Arizona Supreme Court has dismissed a request to review a lower court’s previous opinion that the state’s education funding formula is constitutional despite the fact that charter schools do not get the same amount of funding as traditional school districts…

“The court of appeals ruling in Novemeber stated that the fact that charter schools provide students with free, adequate education is enough to satisfy the law regardless of whether their funding is equal to traditional public school districts.”

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Funding

Gene V. Glass: Education Reformers and the “Shoe Button Complex”

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2015 //
36

Gene V. Glass, emeritus professor at Arizona State University and an associate of the National Education Policy Center, ponders the ubiquity of the “Shoe Button Complex” among leading “reformers” of education.

In this essay, he recalls a story of a man who became the nation’s leading vendor of “shoe buttons” a century ago. He cornered the market on shoe buttons. He knew everything there was to know about shoe buttons, and he became a very rich man. His great success persuaded him that he was an expert on everything. The essay then refers to the “reformers” who think that their fabulous wealth entitles them to opine on how to re-engineer schools. They don’t listen to people who work in schools or people who are researchers and scholars of education, because those people are not fabulously wealthy; in the eyes of those who have cornered the market on shoe buttons or computers, the opinion of mere educators counts for nothing. Educators, in the eyes of “reformers,” are the status quo because they are educators. Better to trust someone who has never taught or studied the subject in depth.

Glass suggests that Bill Gates and his wife Melinda may be prime examples of the Shoe Button Complex. And then there is Arizona, where he finds this scenario:

Jan Brewer, Republican governor of Arizona and famous for issuing a tongue wagging to President Obama, appointed Intel ex-CEO Craig Barrett to chair a council—Ready Arizona–to study and recommend public education reform for the state. It is unclear what Barrett knows about education. One suspects that we are encountering another case of the Shoe Button Complex. Barrett is urging businesses to push school reform. His public utterances strike familiar chords: the future of the entire state rests on the test scores of little kids; more science and math majors will attract businesses to the state; it’s a global economy. After all, the public schools are “suppliers” of labor for businesses. And at Intel, “if a supplier didn’t meet our specifications, we would call the supplier and say, ‘Meet our specifications or we will fire you.’” Apparently, Barrett shares his fellow Republican Mitt Romney’s pleasure in firing people.

Of course, what Barrett is actually and unknowingly talking about is crony capitalism: Linking government and business in relationships that favor the economy. Whether the intellectual, moral, physical, and aesthetic well-being of young people is benefited by their education probably never occurs to Barrett and his ilk. Or perhaps “well-being” to Barrett means having acquired a taste for consumerism and a job to support it. In fact, most industry leaders would like to see specialized training pushed down as early in the curriculum as possible so that high school graduates appear in their HR departments job-ready, trained at public expense. And if training kids for Intel just happens to involve piping a bunch of online courses into Arizona public schools, well so much the better since Barrett also serves on the board of K-12 Inc., the nation’s #1 supplier of cyber-courses. Whether the former CEO of Intel knows everything there is to know about selling microprocessors AND education, or whether this is merely another manifestation of the Shoe Button Complex remains to be seen.

Categories Arizona, Economy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Jobs

When the Free Market Fails, Try Crony Capitalism.

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2015 //
10

Gene V. Glass of Arizona State University is one of the nation’s top education researchers. He has recently watched the proliferation of charter schools in Arizona, which is often called “the Wild West” of the charter movement. Deregulation means that laws prohibiting nepotism and conflicts of interest don’t apply to charter schools. Self-dealing is okay. For-profit charters can’t be audited because they are “private corporations.”

Now Glass finds a new phenomenon: when a private school couldn’t attract enrollment, and its finances were in bad shape, it converted to being a charter. No tuition. All paid by the public. The free market failed, says Professor Glass,and crony capitalism came to the rescue.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Funding

Heavens to Betsy: Arizona Charters Face Possible Budget Cuts!

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2015 //
12

Arizona loves its charters. It is generally known as “the Wild West of charters,” a state where charters may engage in nepotism and conflicts of interest without sanction because they are not covered by those laws (remember, they are deregulated from such mundane regulations as self-dealing).

But what have we here? The Arizona legislature actually cut millions of dollars from small schools, a bonus many charters were accustomed to receiving. The charters with fewer than 600 students could lose a total of $15 million by some estimate. Some charters kept their enrollment below 600 to get the bonus. The Arizona State Attorney General has been asked to issue a ruling on the legislation and its impact on charters.

The Arizona Charter Schools Association believes the department did not calculate the formula as the Legislature intended.
“The association is exploring every option to lessen these devastating cuts. The total impact is more than double what legislators had been told when they voted for the state budget,” association CEO and President Eileen Sigmund said in a statement.
“The impacts will be real and immediate, as some of our smallest schools stand to lose nearly $1,000 per pupil on July 1. We are engaged with the governor’s office, lawmakers and ADE to resolve this crisis.”
The change in the formula also would affect the amount that the charters receive under the Proposition 301 program, which provides money for teachers through a sales tax. Douglas’ letter asks Brnovich to rule on that as well.
According to a spreadsheet used by the Department of Education to calculate the cuts, 207 schools will face cuts affecting about 85,000 students. About 15 percent of Arizona’s public-school students attend charters.
Many charters cap their enrollment to take advantage of the extra funding for small schools — a model that is now threatened.
Peter Bezanson, CEO of the Basis Schools charters, said that the total cut to his network could be almost $4 million.
“I can say without qualification that Basis will not grow any more in Arizona with this new funding reality,” he said. “We won’t add any more schools.
“We had wanted to give fairly significant increases in teacher salaries this year and those increases are not possible,” he said. Basis has 15 schools in Arizona.

In a state where charters have gotten more or less whatever they wanted, and public schools are underfunded, this comes as a shocker.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools

Arizona: Reformster Revolving Door

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2015 //
8

From a reader in Arizona. Being a reformster means never being accountable when your promises don’t pan out:

“What does private/public partnership really mean?

“Well, in Arizona it means alliances that enable seamless, chameleon–like, transitions from one high profile, high-paying, private or public policy position, to the other.

“Here are a few examples:

“THEN: Rebecca Gau, Director of the Office of Education Innovation for Governor Jan Brewer was responsible for implementing the Education Reform Agenda, after work at the Morrison Institute of Public Policy and AZ Charter Schools Association.

“NOW: Rebecca Gau is the Executive Director of Arizona’s Stand For Children, and organization that advocates for school leaders, quality teachers and excellent schools for every child and high academic standards. Stand For Children is currently involving itself in a local public school board matter in the title one, Alhambra Unified School District. Curious? Indeed, because Stand For Children featured a former Alhambra superintendent, Dr. Karen Williams, on their website two years ago.

“The organization offers a Stand University for Parents, advocates for children and features blog pieces on why OPTING-IN for testing, is the way to go. But, whose children is Stand For Children, standing for?

“THEN: Pearl Chang Esau served as the Executive Director of Teach For America, Phoenix and was responsible for growing the number of corps member leaders who teach for two years in hard-to-staff public and charter schools before launching their own careers.

“NOW: Pearl Esau is the Executive Director of Expect More Arizona, “The movement (Where did I hear that word? Ah, yes,TFA promos) dedicated to building the collective public will needed to achieve a world-class education for all Arizona students.”

“THEN: Greg Miller founder of Challenge Schools (charter group) was appointed to the Arizona Board of Education and served on the Charter School Board.

“NOW: Greg Miller is the President of the Arizona State Board of Education, and a charter millionaire (see Glass: http://ed2worlds.blogspot.ca/2015/02/arizona-has-no-concept-of-conflict-of.html?m=1
challenging an elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“THEN: Eileen Klein, formerly with state government in Florida, was paid to serve as Chief of Staff for Governor Brewer, and Director of Policy for the Arizona House of Representatives and chief advisor to the majority leadership. During her tenure in the administration of the governor, the Arizona Commerce Authority, the state’s leading public/private economic development organization and launching Arizona Ready, an education reform plan to align statewide education goals across the P-20 spectrum, began. She worked with the Arizona Board of Regents to develop a performance-based funding model for the university system. She is a former Arizona Board of Education member.

“NOW: Eileen Klein is finishing out a three year contract (2013-2016) as President of the Arizona Board of Regents and the Arizona Higher Education Enterprise (AHEE) at a time when state funding cuts to the three public universities amounts to $99 million dollars and several community college funding is eliminated entirely.”

Categories Arizona, Corporate Reformers

Arizona: This Teacher Won’t Be Bullied, Refuses to Resign

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
21

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley writes about a veteran teacher who refused to bow to the Great Data God.

Lisa Elliott is a champion of public education. She says in the accompanying video, which you must watch, “This is my home. These are the children I teach.” Her refusal to resign after 18 years of exemplary service, her going public with her courageous resistance, is exemplary. I am happy to place her on the blog honor roll.

Lisa Elliott, a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) and 18-year veteran teacher who has devoted her 18-year professional career to the Alhambra Elementary School District — a Title I school district (i.e., having at least 40% of the student population from low-income families) located in the Phoenix/Glendale area — expresses in this video how she refuses to be bullied by her district’s misuse of standardized test scores.

Approximately nine months ago she was asked to resign her teaching position by the district’s interim superintendent – Dr. Michael Rivera – due to her students’ low test scores for the 2013-2014 school year, and despite her students exceeding expectations on other indicators of learning and achievement. She “respectfully declined” submitting her resignation letter because, for a number of reasons, including that her “children are more than a test score.”

The post includes a video of Lisa Elliott, standing up to the VAMinsanity.

Categories Arizona, Data and Data Mining, Honor Roll, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

Who Deleted Gene Glass’s Post About Conflicts of Interest in Arizona?

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2015 //
2

Last February, Professor Gene Glass posted a hard-hitting post about conflicts of interest in Arizona. I reposted it on this blog.

Recently, Glass went looking for his post, and strange to say, it had disappeared! Gone!

Here is the post. Enjoy!

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »