Everyone’s in a flutter over Governor Ducey’s plan to increase education funding without raising taxes. How marvelous that the Governor, after working tirelessly to defund schools and defeat ballot initiatives for additional funding, now sees the need to pull Arizona schools up from the very bottom of the funding pile. What a coincidence (wink, wink) …
Read MoreI’d love to have a frank discussion with Arizona voters about education funding. I’d like to know if they really believe more of the same is going to change things or if they just don’t care that we’re in a battle for last place with states like Mississippi. For decades, Republicans have told us that …
Read MoreLet me start by making a confession. My oldest son attends a BASIS school. BASIS schools are some of those “highly performing charters” that reformers love to use an example of everything that’s right with charter schools, while traditional school advocates use as an example of everything that’s wrong. I suspect the majority of folks …
Read MoreArizona’s first school accountability bill is working its way through the state legislature. SB1444 would base a portion of schools’ state funding on performance, starting at 1 percent the first year and incrementally increasing to a total of 5 percent after five years. The ‘performance funding’ as it’s called, is based on two factors: overall …
Read MoreRepublican legislators do not like it when Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts calls them kooks. They want us to believe they are serious lawmakers. But who, in her right mind, would call these bills anything other than kookery? We have a bill that tells the federal government to “go fly a kite.” Another one that …
Read MoreLast week I wrote about an email blast sent to the parents of students at Veritas’ Archway Classical Academy by Headmaster Erik Twist, encouraging them to vote No on Prop 204. Arizona law prohibits public schools, which includes charter schools, from using public resources to try and influence an election. The email was a last …
Read MoreErik Twist, Headmaster of Veritas Archway Classical Academy in Phoenix, recently sent an email blast to the school’s parents explaining his opposition to Proposition 204. Prop 204 seeks to permanently extend the one-cent sales tax to fund public education, which includes charter schools like Veritas. In the email Mr. Twist rattled off a number of …
Read MoreMost of this year’s ballot propositions are easy NO votes, mainly because all but two of them were referred to the ballot by the state legislature. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m no fan of our current state legislature. I intend to vote NO on all of the legislature’s propositions, with the …
Read MoreI join Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic and former candidate for Phoenix mayor, Jennifer Wright, on 12 News Sunday Square Off. This week’s topics include Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s moderate immigration plan, the lack of state funding for education, and the end of the criminal investigation of Sheriff Arpaio.
Read MoreWe all know it’s better to invest in prisons than in education, right? I mean, why not throw millions at a declining prison population instead of spending it in the classroom? Last week, buried among the headlines of the Republican National Convention, sandwiched between Clint Eastwood’s conversation with a chair and Governor Brewer’s accidental endorsement …
Read MoreCollege athletes have earned their way into college, but veterans have not. Those aren’t my words but rather the sentiment of House Republicans such as John Kavanagh who refused to give military vets an exemption to the minimum tuition bill that recently made its way out of committee. Mr. Kavanagh said, “I’m a veteran and …
Read MoreArizona’s legislators have certainly made education reform a top priority at the Capitol. Unfortunately, their “fixes” do more harm than good. Let’s start with Senator Ron Gould’s guns on campus bill. Here’s a classic example of a legislator determined to fix something that isn’t broken. I speak about this bill in detail in an earlier …
Read MoreFundamental to American life is the idea that if one works hard, studies hard, he/she can overcome a life of poverty and realize the American Dream. But these days, the American Dream is virtually impossible without a college degree, and while President Obama works to make college tuition more affordable, Arizona’s Republican legislators take the …
Read MoreFor the last decade, many Arizonans have come to believe “charter” is synonymous with “better.” Our public education system has consistently ranked among the worst in the nation, while media reports have highlighted some successful Arizona charter schools bucking the trends. But now we learn that a large percentage of Arizona’s charter schools aren’t so …
Read MoreIn 2012, we should “expect the unexpected.” How do I know that? Well, according to numerologists, 2012 is a number five year (this is based on the sum total of the numbers: 2+0+1+2=5). And the only thing one can predict in a number five year is that it is unpredictable. Taking that into consideration, I …
Read MoreThere’s a lot of talk these days about school reform. President Obama has addressed it in his Race to the Top initiative, challenging states to find creative ways to turn around failing schools and advance top-notch teachers. Hollywood has addressed it in the highly acclaimed documentary, Waiting for Superman, by portraying the struggles of ordinary …
Read MoreThe state with a Governor famous for saying “we have did” now wants to clamp down on a serious English problem in our schools: accents, as in Spanish accents. In order to avoid a probable federal lawsuit for civil rights violations, the state agreed to end its articulation monitoring of teachers in English language immersion …
Read MoreThat’s the question many are asking and some groups are proposing in order to force the state of Arizona to meet the needs of its students. We now have possible lawsuits against the state to try and force repairs for crumbling school facilities in poor neighborhoods as well as a lawsuit aimed at equalizing the …
Read MoreAmerican schools spend an awful lot of time focusing on student deficiencies. In our zeal to leave no child behind, we concentrate our resources on those who have lower than average test scores in reading, math or science, while doing little to advance students’ average or above average abilities. This lopsided take on a one-size-fits-all …
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