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Arizona: Parent Learns That “School Choice” Means “Schools Choose”

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2024 //
35

Pamela Lang, a journalist and graduate student in Arizona, wrote for The Hechinger Report about her futile search for a school that would enroll her son, who has special needs. Despite Arizona’s budget-busting voucher program, she and he were turned away again and again. It’s time for her to check out her local public school, where her son would get the services he needs and he could not be rejected.

Please read her account.

If you live in Arizona, school choice may be coming to your neighborhood soon. As someone who has had more school choice than I know what to do with, I can tell you what may feel like a shocking surprise: Private schools have the power to choose, not parents.

I live in Phoenix, where the nearby town of Paradise Valley is getting ready to offer the privatization movement’s brand of choice to families. The district has indicated that it will likely vote to close four public schools due to insufficient funds. If this happens, other districts will probably follow: The state’s recent universal voucher expansion has predictably accelerated the diversion of money from public to private schools.

Arizona approved use of school choice vouchers, called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs, in 2011 on the promise that they were strictly for children with special needs who were not being adequately served in the public school system. The amount of funds awarded to qualified students was based on a tiered system, according to type of disability.

Over the years, the state incrementally made more students eligible, until full expansion was finally achieved in 2022. For some students, the amount of voucher money they qualify for is only a few thousand dollars, nowhere near enough to cover tuition at a private school. Often, their parents can’t afford to supplement the balance. However, my son, who is autistic, qualified for enough to cover full tuition.

I took him out of public school in 4th grade. Every school I applied to seemed to have the capability to accommodate his intellectual disability needs but lacked the willingness. Eventually, I found a special education school willing to accept him. It was over an hour from our home, but I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, it ultimately was not a good fit.

I then thought Catholic schools would welcome my son, but none of them did. One Catholic school principal who did admit him quickly rescinded the offer after a teacher objected to having him in her class.

The long list of general, special-ed, Catholic and charter schools that turned my son away indicate how little choice actually exists, despite the marketing of ESA proponents.

There was a two-year period where I gave up and he was home without social opportunities. I was not able to homeschool, so a reading tutor and his iPad became his only access to education.

I then tried to enroll him in private schools for students with disabilities.

These schools were almost always located in former office suites in strip malls with no outdoor access. My son’s current school shares space with a dialysis center in a medical building, while a former school was located in a small second-floor suite in a Target plaza.

Once a private school admits your child, they can rescind admission without cause. Private schools are at leisure to act as virtual dictatorships, and special-ed schools in particular are notorious for keeping parents at a distance…

Education is a human right, and public schools, open to all, are the guardians of this right. What privatizers call choice does not really exist.

Please open the link and read the article in full.

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Hoax, Parents, School Choice, Special Education, Students, Vouchers

Heather Cox Richardson: Biden Speaks Out for Democracy in Arizona

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2023 //
24

Heather Cox Richardson wrote about President Biden’s homage to democracy and his tribute to the Late Senator John McCain. Biden traveled to Arizona to speak at a librarian named in honor of the Senator McCain. Biden took the opportunity to praise democracy and warn about the threats we are with facing.

Biden recalled that when McCain was dying, he wrote a farewell letter to the nation that he had served in both war and peace. “We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil,” McCain wrote. “Americans never quit…. We never hide from history. We make history.”

In Tempe, Arizona, today, President Joe Biden spoke at the dedication ceremony for a new library, named for the late Arizona senator John McCain, who died in 2018. Biden used the opportunity not only to honor his friend, but to emphasize the themes of democracy and to call out those who are threatening to overturn it. While Biden has made the defense of American democracy central to his presidency, he has never been clearer or more impassioned than he was today.

Biden reiterated the point he makes often: that the United States is the only nation founded on an idea, articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that we are all created equal and have the right to be treated equally before the law. While “[w]e’ve never fully lived up to that idea,” he said, “we’ve never walked away from it.” Now, though, our faith in that principle is in doubt.

“[H]istory has brought us to a new time of testing,” Biden said. “[A]ll of us are being asked right now: What will we do to maintain our democracy? Will we, as John wrote, never quit? Will we not hide from history, but make history? Will we put partisanship aside and put country first? I say we must and we will. We will. But it’s not easy.”

Biden laid out exactly what democracy means: “Democracy means rule of the people, not rule of monarchs, not rule of the monied, not rule of the mighty. Regardless of party, that means respecting free and fair elections; accepting the outcome, win or lose. It means you can’t love your country only when you win.”

“Democracy means rejecting and repudiating political violence,” he said. “Regardless of party, such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It’s undemocratic, and it must never be normalized to advance political power.”

“Today,” he warned, “democracy is…at risk.” Our political institutions, our Constitution, and “the very character of our nation” are threatened. “Democracy is maintained by adhering to the Constitution and the march to perfecting our union…by protecting and expanding rights with each successive generation.” “For centuries, the American Constitution has been a model for the world,” but in the past few years, he noted, the institutions of our democracy—the judiciary, the legislature, the executive” have been damaged in the eyes of the American people, and even the eyes of the world, by attacks from within.

“I’m here to tell you,” Biden said: “We lose these institutions of our government at our own peril…. Democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue.”

“[T]here is something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA Movement.” After high praise for his Republican friend McCain, and recollections of working with Republicans to pass bipartisan legislation throughout his career, Biden made it clear that he does not believe “every Republican,” or even “a majority of Republicans” adheres to the MAGA extremist ideology. But, he said”

“[T]here is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”

The MAGA Republicans, Biden said, are openly “attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter suppression and election subversion.” They are “banning books and burying history.” “Extremists in Congress [are] more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down than to let the people’s business be done.” They are attacking the military—the strongest military in the history of the world—as being “weak and ‘woke’.”

They are “pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him: This president is above the law, with no limits on power. Trump says the Constitution gave him…’the right to do whatever he wants as President.’ I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Biden accurately recounted the plans Trump has announced for a second term: expand presidential power, put federal agencies under the president’s thumb, get rid of the nonpartisan civil service and fill positions with loyalists. Biden quoted MAGA Republicans: “I am your retribution,” “slitting throats” of civil servants, “We must destroy the FBI,” calling the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a “traitor” and suggesting he should be executed. These extremists, he said, are “the controlling element of the House Republican Party.”

“This is the United States of America,” Biden said. “Did you ever think you’d hear leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that? Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.”

“The MAGA extremists across the country have made it clear where they stand,” Biden said. “So, the challenge for the rest of America—for the majority of Americans—is to make clear where we stand. Do we still believe in the Constitution? Do we believe in…basic decency and respect? The whole country should honestly ask itself…what it wants and understand the threats to our democracy.”

Biden knew his own answers:

“I believe very strongly that the defining feature of our democracy is our Constitution.

“I believe in the separation of powers and checks and balances, that debate and disagreement do not lead to disunion.

“I believe in free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.

“I believe there is no place in America…for political violence. We have to denounce hate, not embolden it.

“Across the aisle, across the country, I see fellow Americans, not mortal enemies. We’re a great nation because we’re a good people who believe in honor, decency, and respect.”

Pointing to the fact that the majority of the money appropriated for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has gone to Republican-dominated states, he added: “I believe every president should be a president for all Americans” and should “use the Office of the President to unite the nation.”

The job of a president, he said, is to “deliver light, not heat; to make sure democracy delivers for everyone; to know we’re a nation of unlimited possibilities, of wisdom and decency—a nation focused on the future.”

“We’ve faced some tough times in recent years, and I am proud of the progress we made as a country,” Biden said, “But the real credit doesn’t go to me and my administration…. The real heroes of the story are you, the American people.” Now, he said, “I’m asking you that regardless whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, put the preservation of our democracy before everything else. Put our country first…. We can’t take democracy for granted.”

“Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle,” Biden said. “They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn the threats to democracy, when people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated.”

“I get it,” Biden said. But “[f]or all its faults…, American democracy remains the best…[path] forward to prosperity, possibilities, progress, fair play, equality.” He urged people not to sit on the sidelines, but “to build coalitions and community, to remind ourselves there is a clear majority of us who believe in our democracy and are ready to protect it.”

“So,” he said, “let’s never quit. Let’s never hide from history. Let’s make history.” If we do that, he said, “[w]e’ll have proved, through all its imperfections, America is still a place of possibilities, a beacon for the world, a promise realized—where the power forever resides with ‘We the People.’”

“That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. That’s who we must always be.”

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Biden, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Read

Arizona: New Private Schools Open to Take Advantage of Universal Vouchers

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2023 //
8

The Arizona Republic reported an increase in new private schools that opened in response to the state’s expanded voucher program. All children, regardless of family income, can now get vouchers to spend for religious schools, private schools, online schools, or home schooling. The voucher funding will decrease funding for public schools, which enroll the vast majority of students in the state. The voucher program in Arizona was expanded despite a state referendum in 2018 in which 65% of voters opposed voucher expansion.

The story focuses on Majestic Grace Christian Academy, which opened with an enrollment of 10 or 12 students. It hopes to double its enrollment next year. Christian values infuse the teaching in every subject.

As a small private school that sprang up just this past school year, Majestic Grace exemplifies the private school revolution stemming from the universal expansion of school vouchers. It is one of many recently launched private schools taking advantage of newly available public money. But while Majestic Grace and other private schools accept public funds in the form of school vouchers, there is little public oversight of what students are learning, whether they are achieving at their grade level and the training their instructors receive…

All the students attending Majestic Grace last year were school voucher recipients, said school founder Jed Harris, the retired banker. Majestic Grace is not the first school Harris has helped open in Arizona. He also worked to launch Tipping Point Academy, a private school in Scottsdale that promises to integrate a Biblical worldview into every lesson….

Grand Canyon Private Academy, an online school for students in grades K-10 that opened this past school year, notes prominently on its website that the Arizona school voucher program will cover all of the school’s tuition, which is up to $6,500 for the full year. …

Before the 2022-23 school year began, the Empowerment Scholarship Account program served about 12,000 students. Now, more than 60,000 students receive funding through the program for private school tuition, tutors or educational materials.

While it is unclear how many of those students receive funding for private school tuition rather than special therapies or at-home learning supplies, the voucher vendor list includes many private schools.

As the school voucher program has grown so have concerns about public money supporting private schools that are poorly understood beyond their physical or virtual walls. Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office released a memo in July estimating the school voucher program will cost more than $950 million in the current budget year, leading to a budget shortfall of nearly $320 million.

Voucher opponent Beth Lewis, who heads the public school advocacy group Save Our Schools, wonders whether private schools serve students better or are just shielded from the scrutiny of public schools, which are legally bound to provide information for accountability’s sake.

“Arizona’s ESA program is the least accountable in the entire country,” said Lewis. “Public dollars are going to strip mall private schools, popping up with zero accreditation and no requirements that they adhere to curriculum or state standards. In a public school, you need to have all of those things.”

State law requires the Arizona Department of Education to give every public school — district and charter — an A through F letter grade. It is based on factors including statewide assessment tests and graduation rate.

In contrast, Arizona law’s academic requirement for a family’s acceptance of a school voucher is that “a portion of the ESA must be used in at least the subjects of reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies and science,” according to the 2023-24 school voucher parent handbook. Those subjects must also be taught in private schools under Arizona law.

Those demands do little to alleviate Lewis’ concerns about academic accountability for private schools accepting taxpayer dollars.

“If you spend five minutes writing a sentence about grammar, that is not putting together a robust education,” Lewis said.

Furthermore, students lose legal protections when they leave public schools to accept a school voucher. For instance, private school students are not protected under a federal law that governs special education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, like public school students.

Private schools also have less rigorous legal requirements for staff.

Most public school employees are required by law to undergo a form of background check to ensure they don’t have a criminal history that would disqualify them from working with children. That’s not required for private schools or vendors accepting voucher dollars.

In addition, full-time, permanent classroom teachers in public schools must have at least a bachelor’s degree. There’s no similar requirement for private schools, and the voucher program only requires vendors, like tutors, to have a high school diploma when it’s related to the service they’re providing.

With school vouchers, private schools and other educational vendors are answerable to the parents, according to the head of the program, who recently resigned. While the state provides a list of vendors and schools approved to receive voucher money, it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure a provider has satisfactory credentials and provides adequate services.

The voucher schools are exempt from state testing requirements. They are not accountable to the state.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state

Arizona: Expanded Voucher Program Blows a Hole in State Budget

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2023 //
10

Despite the public’s overwhelming rejection of vouchers in a state referendum in 2018 (by a margin of 65-35%), the Republican Legislature and then-Governor Doug Ducey ignored the vote and passed a program of universal vouchers. This meant that the state would pay for every student, regardless of family income, to attend a private or religious school or homeschool or whatever the family considered an educational expense.

The claim that vouchers would “save poor kids from failing public schools” was exposed as phony, since most students who claimed vouchers never attended public schools. Quite simply, the voucher program was a transfer of public money from public schools to students in non-public schools.

The cost of the voucher program soared to nearly $1 billion. It’s two top administrators resigned. The new Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said that the voucher program was unsustainable.

Two of the top administrators in charge of a controversial school program in Arizona that has seen cost estimates swell to well beyond expectations have abruptly resigned, leading to more questions about the program and how it is being operated.

The program, known at the ESA Program, was expanded last year by the Republican-backed legislature and has seen its costs swell to enormous heights as students around the state quickly applied for the $7,000 vouchers made available by the program.

ESA Leaders Abruptly Resign

Two of the top administrators with the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program in Arizona abruptly resigned on Monday, with the remaining members of the program giving few details as to why the two may have left.

An Arizona Department of Education spokesman acknowledged Tuesday that Empowerment Scholarship Account Director Christine Accurso and operations director Linda Rizzo had resigned from the ESA program, according to KPNX-TV.

“Christine Accurso has explained to the department that she took the ESA position to clean up the program and having successfully done that she has chosen to move on,” according to the statement…

ESA Causing Huge Deficit to State Budget

The ESA program has now cost the State of Arizona approximately $943 million, prompting what Governor Katie Hobbs says will be a $319 million budget deficit for the state, largely caused by the bloated spending of the program.

Categories Arizona, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

Curt Cardine: Arizona Takes Steps to Eliminate Local Control of Schools

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2023 //
9

Curt Cardine, a veteran school administrator and researcher, has written frequently about Arizona Republicans’ efforts to privatize education.

Pathway Making Community Connections (MC2) Asset Management and Educational Consulting

Curtis J. Cardine MS Organizational Management, Leadership and Change

3873 E Cavalry Ct.

Gilbert, AZ 85297

603-209-0009 cjcardine@yahoo.com

 

Legislative Alert:

Recently the legislature requested the data on in-district “choices” and open enrollment data from districts other than the one that the child resides in.

The current way these placements from outside of your districts are “paid for” is that the child’s state dollars follow the child to their new district. This, of course, is not what it cost the receiving district to take on the out of district placement. This new “look” at how many parents take advantage of district choices is the prelude to an attempt to change how “choices” are funded.

I have been involved with the concept of school choice since my undergraduate days at University of Massachusetts at Salem. At that time I had the privilege of attending presentations by Dr. Ray Budd, the originator of the term, “Charter School” (UMass Amherst in 1973). Dr. Budd’s vision was locally controlled charters started by certified teachers with financial oversight by local school boards.

My district in NH was one of the ten school districts chosen to receive federal funding for five years for Public School Choice. At that time the federal government put up $180 M to fund “choice” of which $20 M went to school districts. The Department of Education managed this program for 5 years. The bias built into the first level of funding in 1999 was toward “Public privately owned, charter schools”.

Modifications of Dr. Budd’s vision by the charter industry and state legislatures have included:

• Private firms finances monitored by the school district, (California is an example)

• State Boards for Charter Schools or University oversight of finances and academic performance (Arizona Model)

In order to accommodate the ‘choice” of parents the first step in establishing “choice” was to create Open Enrollment. Arizona did this prior to initiating choice. The other first step was to declare the state to be a “Right to Work” state (first enacted in 1946 during the height of the effort by the federal government to fund other types of schools with federal funding).

As you know these steps preceded the establishment of privately owned charter schools in 1994. The antithesis of Dr. Budd’s model.

Through the efforts of “the Conservative Caucus” (state and national level) and ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and locally by the AZ Chamber of Commerce, The Goldwater Institute, and the Charter School Association charters, (followed by various scholarships, and now universal vouchers) have grown exponentially in this state.

Critical Analysis of this latest move by the “Conservative Caucus” and AZ Legislature

Why gather this data now?

This latest request for data on district choice is the next step in attempting to declare that district borders are not relevant. The data, which was recently shared in an AZ Administrator’s Association online presentation by Dr. Anabel, will show how many parents are choosing different schools than the one within their local schools’ boundaries and out of their district.

The “backpacks full of cash” theory of financing the myth of “choice” has always thought of local taxes as a method of funding ‘choice’. There has always been pushback to allowing this funding to “follow the child” whether it was to a charter or a private school.

It is the considered opinion of this researcher and experienced administrator that the next funding that the “choice” advocates will go after is through a state property tax replacing local and county taxes for education. This will be another blow for local control of education.

This new form of taxation for “all choices” needs to be fought from day one, i.e. before the legislature attempts to change things.

The lesson from the latest round of “universal vouchers” is indicative of the high cost to the state for this ‘choice” for people who were in private school already and paying, as they should, for their child’s education. The addition of home schooling to the voucher program and de-facto always in place at charter schools with online programs is creating an economic issue that this change in taxes will claim it is compensating for.

The state’s self-induced economic issue will be used to advocate for this change in taxation for “all choices”.

If you are receiving this notice it is because you have dealt with Pathway MC2 currently or in the recent past. Please feel free to share this with your colleagues.

Thank you for your time.

Curtis J. Cardine

Please feel free to contact me using the address and phone data in the header.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Data, Education Industry, School Choice

Arizona: Vouchers Might Bankrupt the State

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2023 //
45

Arizona is a typical voucher state. The program started small, then grew almost every year. Vouchers for the students with special needs, vouchers for the poor, vouchers for children of the military, on and on.

Parents and teachers put a referendum on the ballot in 2019, much to the consternation of the Koch machine; the public overwhelmingly rejected vouchers. The vote was 65-35 against vouchers.

The legislature, buoyed by money from DeVos and Koch, ignored the referendum and expanded vouchers to the ultimate. Now Arizona has a universal voucher program. Every student in the state, whatever their family income, can claim a voucher. But the state is now worrying whether the cost of vouchers will plunge Arizona into bankruptcy. The Staye Superintendent, a hard-right Republican, says there’s no problem.

Public school advocates predict that the voucher program will eventually cost $1 billion a year.

Currently, 75% of those who claimed vouchers never attended public school. They are the biggest drain on the budget.

Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic writes:

Backers of Arizona’s universal school voucher program have widely touted it as a money saver for the state. But for most potential participants, the program adds to the state’s costs, a new analysis shows.

The finding comes as legislative budget officials reported a surprising and steep decline in tax collections in May, raising questions about whether the state can sustain the booming price of the voucher program in coming years.

The analysis from the Arizona Association of School Business Officials broke down the different categories of students eligible for the Empowerment Scholarship Account program and showed savings come only when charter school students transfer into the program.

In every other situation — whether the student comes from a public school district, a private school, a homeschool or micro school environment — there is an extra cost to taxpayers for the ESA voucher, the analysis shows. The costs can range from $425 if a student leaves a district public school to $7,148 if the student already attends a private school or home school.

The idea that vouchers save the state money is based on a law that makes each universal voucher worth 90% of what the state pays for a child in a public school, presumably resulting in a 10% savings. The more children who leave the public school system for a voucher, the theory goes, the greater the savings to the education budget.

But the 90% equation isn’t so simple. That percentage is pegged to what the state pays for students in public charter schools, which is higher than for students in public district schools. For example, the basic state aid for a K-8 student in a district public school is $6,339, while it’s $7,515 in the charter system.

At 90% of the charter rate, the average ESA scholarship for an elementary-aged student this past year was $6,764. That saves the state $751 for charter students, but it adds $325 in costs for the state for each public school student who moves to the voucher program.

For high school students, the figures are higher: A $1,380 savings to the budget if a charter student transfers, but a $543 loss per each student who leaves a district public school.

Charter schools account for a minority of students in Arizona’s public school system: 19% in the last school year, according to figures from the Arizona Department of Education.

Voucher expenses are markedly more if a student was never in the public school system, or if a student transfers from one of the two dozen public school districts that get no basic state education aid, such as the Scottsdale Unified School District or Cave Creek Unified School District, because they have wealthy property-tax bases.

In both those cases, the $6,764 for an elementary school voucher (or $7,532 for a high-school voucher) is drawn entirely from the state’s general fund, creating a new education expense…

In the ESA program’s first year, those in private schools or from home-schooling environments are widely believed to have fueled most of the program’s four-fold growth to more than 61,000 students. With the families of these students eligible for state aid when previously they were paying out of pocket, lawmakers had to allocate an extra $376 million from the general fund to cover the higher-than-expected growth of the universal voucher program in its inaugural year.

In late May, state schools superintendent Tom Horne released a report estimating enrollment would climb much higher, hitting 100,000 students by June 2024, at an overall cost of $900 million.

Most of that enrollment growth will come from the district public schools, he predicted at the May news conference, arguing it will save the state money because of the 90% formula….

As the universal voucher program enters its second year, supporters and critics alike are watching to see what enrollment trends emerge and how they will affect state spending….

Some see the state barreling toward a budget crisis, given the onset of the flat income tax, which caused state revenues to drop dramatically in May. Others are less concerned, noting the ESA program takes only a fraction of the state’s K-12 budget.

Lawmakers have repeatedly noted they are obligated by the Constitution to fund education. But if there isn’t enough money to do that and keep the rest of state government running, hard choices could lay ahead.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

Arizona: Teachers at BASIS Charter School in Tucson Vote to Unionize

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2023 //
9

Now here is a surprising turn of events. The billionaire funders of charter schools see them as a way to crush teachers’ unions. More than 90% of charters nationwide are non-union. Teachers in them have no rights and there is high teacher attrition.

But teachers at BASIS in Tucson voted to unionize, the first to do so in Arizona. BASIS is owned by its founders, Michael and Olga Block, and operates for profit. Anyone may apply but all students must pass multiple AP exams to graduate. The BASIS schools do not reflect the demography of the state. They have small numbers of Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, and large proportions of whites and Asian Americans. They are regularly ranked among the “best” high schools by US News.

Tucson charter school becomes first to unionize in Arizona

Channel 12, KPNX IN Tucson reported:

A Tucson charter school recently voted to become the first unionized charter school in the state.

Author: William Pitts

TUCSON, Ariz. — A Tucson charter school has become the first charter school in Arizona to unionize.

BASIS Tucson North teachers voted Wednesday to form a teacher’s union.

The union will be represented by the American Federation of Teachers.

It’s the first time a charter school in Arizona has voted to form a union to negotiate with the owners of the school.

“We are managed by a private company with opaque finances,” teacher and union organizer Trudi Connolly said. “We completely believe that they have the ability to make more money available to the individual schools that they, in theory, manage.”

BASIS is a multistate charter school company that began in Arizona. It’s privately owned and for-profit. Connolly said she believes the company could do better by its teachers.

As for whether other Arizona charter schools could follow their lead, Connolly said she believes others, including other BASIS schools, might organize.

“We feel that if we can do this, others will see that they can too,” Connolly added.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Courage, Education Industry, Privatization, Teachers, Unions

Arizona: GOP Goes to the Far Right, Expecting Vetoes from Governor Hobbs

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
0

Arizona has a Democratic Governor, Katie Hobbs, who beat election denier Kari Lake, by a small margin. Each house of the legislature has a small Republican majority, by one vote only. Yet the Republicans have decided to copy the zany extremist initiatives of Ron DeSantis of Florida. Some Republicans think it’s a risky bet.

From criminalizing drag shows to legalizing guns on college campuses, Republican lawmakers at the Arizona Capitol are proceeding like it’s a normal year for them, pushing forward with proposals that appeal to the furthest-right voters in the state.

They’re advancing election bills based on conspiracy theories and pushing back at critics, even silencing speakers for using the phrase “conspiracy theory.” Some proposed laws that were rejected in past years due to Republican opposition have made it further this year, even as they have less chance of becoming law.

Republicans expect Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to veto what they believe are good bills, hoping their commitment to far-right conservative values will help them in next year’s election.

It’s a risky strategy if they want to avoid seeing the Legislature flip to Democrats next year, according to some observers on both sides of the aisle.

“The party right now is tone-deaf,” said former Sen. Paul Boyer, a Republican from Glendale who served in the Legislature for five terms but didn’t run for reelection last year after some constituents and GOP peers pilloried him for failing to embrace election denialism. “They haven’t figured out that if they keep this up, we’re going to get massacred.”

Categories Arizona, Democrats, Elections, Florida, Republicans

Arizona: Republican Legislators File Bills to Micromanage Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2023 //
23

The Arizona Republic reported that Republican legislators are focused on imposing new demands on the public schools, reflecting the rightwing cultural agenda. This is somewhat ironic since they previously used their power, when the Governor was Republican, to create a universal voucher program so that students can use public money to attend private schools that are entirely unregulated by the state.

Arizona lawmakers are seeking to reach deep into classroom operations with proposals to require the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, to designate which students can use which bathrooms and, once again, to limit how race and ethnicity are taught.

Those are in addition to proposals that would require gun safety training at schools and mandate that instructional materials and teacher lesson plans get posted online. Another bill would have the state Department of Education create a list of books banned from classroom use.

To some, these bills, among others, are a replay of recent legislative sessions, where the public school system became the turf for battles over hot-button cultural issues.

That ignores the changed political reality at the Capitol, with the arrival of a Democratic governor after more than a decade of unified GOP control, said Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association.

If the GOP actually cares about these issues, why don’t they put the same requirements on voucher schools? It appears that if you want to escape the GOP mandates, the way to do it to open a private school, where you are free to teach about race and gender, free of testing, free of any accountability.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Censorship, Education Industry, Republicans, Vouchers

Texas: Don’t Make the Same Mistake as Arizona: Vouchers Are a Fraud!

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2023 //
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The Texas Observer published a warning to the Texas legislature: Take a close look at the Arizona voucher programs. Don’t go there. Vouchers subsidize private school students while defunding the public schools that still enroll the vast majority of the state’s students.

Like many other typical teenagers, James’ favorite periods in school are P.E. and lunch. During our phone call, he turned the tables on me, politely asking about my children and work. A 15-year-old student who was born with a tumor and has autism, James actively seeks engagement with others, especially his peers. But for two years, he learned at home in isolation. Arizona’s voucher educational savings account program, called the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA), granted him $40,000 of public funds to pay private school tuition. But even with that money, private school after private school denied him admission.

“They first demanded all his files, his IEPs [Individualized Education Plan for students with special needs], but before they would grant an interview, they would give some excuse why his needs could not be met there,” James’ mom Pamela Lang said. “Some gave interviews and tours, and James would get excited. But then they would decline admittance saying they could not accommodate him.”

After every single Phoenix, Arizona Catholic school and a slew of secular private schools rejected James, Lang was finally able to find a school to address his needs. But now, she fears there won’t be enough state funds in the future to afford its costly tuition.

What started in Arizona in 2011 as a $2.5 million state voucher program for students with special needs has now ballooned to a universal voucher program for all of the state’s students, public or private.

“The state said the voucher was for kids with disabilities but it was just a way in to open the door,” Lang said. “Every single year since the state got the ESA, they just kept expanding it to more and more people, and now, it’s for everybody. We’re just hoping kids with disabilities aren’t going to have nothing left for them.”

In the first quarter of this school year, Arizona already blew through $300 million, awarding 80 percent of the funds predominantly to wealthy students already enrolled in private schools. This will leave a projected $4 million debt in the state’s education budget at the end of the 2022-2023 school year, a debt that public school advocates fear will deplete public school funds further.

Critics say Arizona used vouchers for special needs students as a trojan horse for school privateers to divest, divert, and dismantle the state’s public education system, which now ranks in the bottom three among all U.S. states for per-pupil spending, teacher retention, and teacher pay.

Texas lawmakers are now poised to follow Arizona’s lead. But parents in Arizona are warning Texans to take heed. Their stories are a cautionary tale for our state, which plans during this legislative session to use special needs students to usher in multiple voucher programs.

Arizona’s voucher programs—and the Texas proposals—include both a universal education savings account and a tax-credit scholarship program, both of which would divert public education money from state coffers to enrich private schools, corporations, and wealthy families.

DIVEST

The country’s first public school education savings account started in Arizona in 2011. The ESA directly appropriates public education money and deposits it into an individual savings account or debit card for parents to use for private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling, or therapy.

In its first year, $2.5 million of Arizona’s ESA money was directed toward students with special needs. But in subsequent years, expenditures and eligibility for the ESA program expanded to include children attending public schools that received a D or F rating, children in military families, in foster care, and on Native American reservations. Then in 2017, legislators attempted to pass universal vouchers for all students. The proposal was beaten back twice by public school advocates but passed in 2022.

Since its inception, Arizona’s ESA program has stripped more than $963 million from public school funds.

Texas House Bill 557, filed by Representative Cody Vasut, is a universal voucher program from the get-go. It would enable an unlimited number of students to receive reimbursements for up to $10,000 in private school tuition, the full per-pupil allotment in Texas. If all 309,000 private school students in Texas decided to apply for a voucher under this bill, public schools could lose $3 billion in state funding after one year alone. The impact could bankrupt a system in Texas which already ranks in the bottom 10 states in per-pupil funding.

Beth Lewis, director of Save our Schools Arizona, warns Texans that such a voucher program never gives back as much as it robs from public education.

“They sell it under the guise that the money’s following the child,” Lewis said. “But if you were already in a private school or a homeschool situation, that money’s not following you. It’s never been allocated to you. So in reality, it’s a subtraction from a student in the public school. Then, you’re never going to have an equitable system where every kid can access quality education.”

Besides the education savings account program, Arizona has a second type of voucher program that directly funnels public money to private schools—the tax credit scholarship program.

Open the link and read the rest of this important article. Vouchers are a reverse Robin Hood program: they take from everyone to pay the tuition of students already enrolled in private schools. As Professor Josh Cowennof Michigan State University has shown, kids who leave public schools to use vouchers fall behind their peers who remained in public school.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Industry, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Special Education, Texas, Vouchers
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