by Daniel Stefanski | Nov 4, 2024 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Arizona’s most recent Republican governor is cheering on his state’s latest ranking in a key education report.
This week, Governor Doug Ducey shared a new report from the Reason Foundation on the “K-12 open enrollment laws of all 50 states.” Ducey said, “Another new report shows that Arizona’s education system is one of the best in the nation. Arizona ranks number 3 among all 50 states for our expansive open enrollment policies that ensure every Arizona family has access to a good, high-quality education.”
Jude Schwalbach, a Senior Policy Analyst for Reason, said, “K-12 open enrollment lets students transfer to public schools other than their residentially assigned one so long as space is available. School parents widely support this policy. Public polling from October 2023 by yes. every kid. and YouGov showed that 84% of school parents supported it, while EdChoice’s July 2024 polling showed that 73% of school parents supported open enrollment.”
Schwalbach added, “Students participating in Arizona’s, Colorado’s, and Florida’s open enrollment programs tended to transfer to school districts that were ranked higher by the state, according to Reason Foundation research… On average, 10% of students in Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin used open enrollment during the 2021-22 school year, totaling more than 450,000 students. Nearly 177,000 of these transferred to schools in other districts. In Wisconsin, open enrollment was the most popular form of school choice and the second most popular in Arizona and Florida during that time, according to data published by Education Next.”
State-specific analysis for Arizona revealed that “the Grand Canyon State also requires districts and schools to update their available capacity every 12 weeks by grade level on their website. The Arizona Department of Education must also provide an annual report to policymakers and the public that shows ‘the open enrollment participation rate by school district, school, and county, including the number of pupils, by student subgroup designation, in each school and school district that are open enrolled as resident pupils, resident transfer pupils, or nonresident pupils for each school district and the school districts and zip codes from which students are rejected.’”
The report gave three suggestions for Arizona to increase its standing with the open enrollment laws. Those ways were as follows:
- “Require the SEA to publish the number of rejected applicants and explain why they were denied in its annual report.
- “Clarify that school districts cannot reject transfer applicants based on their abilities.
- “Require school districts to inform parents of rejected transfer applicants in writing the reasons for rejection.”
In the 2022 report, which was the final one of Ducey’s administration, Reason wrote of the Arizona system and subsequent ranking, “Opponents to open enrollment often object to the policy because it could lower the value of homes inside the district or attendance zones, unfairly penalizing families that ‘bought into the system.’ However, the public school choice options available to families in Arizona should allay those fears. The state’s mandatory cross-district and within-district open enrollment program operates side by side with a robust charter school system. Despite the fact that nearly one in four students enrolled in affluent Scottsdale’s public schools is assigned to different school districts, home values have not decreased. In fact, Scottsdale home prices have steadily increased in recent years. This shows that open enrollment does not damage property values; instead a robust education marketplace can actually be an attractive component to home buyers.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Oct 21, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced the extension of free services through the Achievement Tutoring Program until the end of the 2024-25 school year. Horne hopes the move will allow a greater number of Arizona students to take advantage of the highly successful program.
In a statement released Wednesday, Horne said, “Studies show tutoring to be the best method for academic growth. A year ago, I announced that we would repurpose about $40 million in COVID relief funds that had been allocated by the previous administration, and were not being used for academic purposes, to create the Achievement Tutoring Program. The results have been excellent as students who get this tutoring have shown significant academic growth. Because we have received an extension that allows remaining funds to continue to be used, this program will continue through at least the end of the current school year.”
The program’s website lays out that it consists of “Six-week tutoring blocks with 60 minute sessions up to four days per week.” The students will also complete pre-and post-tutoring testing to determine their needs and gauge advancement during each tutoring block.
Due to Federal rules in the extension of COVID relief (ESSER) funds, the program is no longer available at public schools but can still be accessed by students in need through private providers and the Arizona Department of Education.
According to the Department, the Achievement Tutoring Program provides tutoring for K-12 students in reading, writing, and mathematics and since its inception, has instructed 30,400 students over a seven session period. Enrollment grew from November 2023 with 4,200 students to over 6,800 students, and the current session is accepting new enrollments through October.
The release noted that in terms of academic achievement, the students enrolled “experienced at least a half-year’s worth of academic growth in six weeks, which is excellent progress in a short period of time.”
Several parents participating in the program with their children sent testimonials to the Arizona Deparment of Education, and Horne highlighted five:
- Colleen, wrote to say, “I am incredibly grateful for the services and support provided by the program. I am confident that all three of my children will have increased confidence and improved report cards in the fall.”
- Heather wrote, “As a single mom raising six young men, I could never afford to get tutoring like this to help them get caught up and build the confidence they need to have in life.”
- From Jennifer, “The Achievement Tutoring program has helped tremendously to fill in the gaps in (my child’s) learning loss… He has improved immensely!”
- Alexandra said, “My son has grown so much in reading… He finally has the confidence in reading that he has lacked for so long! I was so proud I actually cried.”
- Catherine wrote, “My daughter had been struggling, but is now much more confident in her math skills… I truly hope the ATP program will continue, as it’s changing lives and helping so many. Especially some of us with limited financial resources.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Nov 3, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
K-12 schools in Arizona are currently flush with cash. Between billions in increased state spending from the legislature, COVID cash from the feds, and declining student populations, district school spending is at an all time high. But next week, voters across Arizona will decide the fate of 23 bond requests from schools that total a historic $3.5 billion.
This level of borrowing being sought by local school districts is both unwise and unnecessary, especially given the large amounts of money that have been pumped into the system. State funding has increased so quickly in the last 36 months that the legislature decided to override the constitutional spending limit the last two fiscal years. This is funding over and above the formulaic cap in the constitution that exists to protect taxpayers from runaway and unaccountable spending.
And contrary to what you probably hear from teachers’ unions and their sycophant friends in the media, lawmakers continue to increase school spending with every state budget. With all this new spending, district schools receive more money per student than ever before, and it’s not even close.
Not included in the state spending cap, however, are federal funds. And when schools were shut down during COVID, the federal government poured trillions of dollars into them. Many of the school districts asking their taxpayers to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds next week are still sitting on a pile of unspent COVID cash…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 14, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For the last two years, Republicans have been winning the education debate, and Democrats are not happy. Public education has long been their baby, using it to indoctrinate children with their radical ideas all while deceiving voters into outrageous tax increases.
But after watching Republican Tom Horne win the race for Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction this November—while 19 conservatives picked up school board seats—Democrats went into a tailspin. That’s why it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Governor Katie Hobbs is willing to do whatever it takes to change the narrative, including lying to voters about K-12 education spending…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by John Huppenthal | May 17, 2022 | Opinion
By John Huppenthal |
In 2008, I introduced and passed legislation to grade schools in Arizona on the A through F letter grading system. The system was to be based on the test scores and academic gains of students.
If I were king, I would abolish the system which I established. I believe that it has inhibited innovation, damaged great schools, and shifted the focus in education away from the critical areas most fruitful for getting better outcomes in Arizona.
Letter grading, in part, has resulted in Arizona not achieving the full dividend we might have received from our tremendously advanced school choice environment. We are doing very well, but we should have done even better.
These detrimental effects particularly affect D and F rated schools.
I’ve worked inside such schools daily as a volunteer since leaving as Superintendent in 2014, so I have been able to directly observe the effects. Tremendously skilled and dedicated principals and teachers apply to work in such schools because they have a passion for the students. Then, a few years later, they are “all burned out”—as one father described his daughter, a teacher, during a recent fundraiser. These schools burn through principals and teachers at a horrifying rate with teachers, particularly excellent ones, leaving for more satisfying work environments.
Certainly, such schools have always been high pressure environments, but the letter grading just increases the pressure, already unhealthy, to an absolutely toxic level.
As Superintendent of Public Instruction, I had the ultimate test score database: every student’s testing results for six consecutive years. I could tell you the academic gains of Basis students when they were in Basis schools and when they were in other schools. Bottom line? The academic scale score gains of the top schools were 20% higher than the academic gains of the D and F schools. That’s all. That’s it.
Being a volunteer as former Superintendent, I was immune to all that pressure. I ran my math class exactly the way I wanted to run it. When the thought police showed up and demanded to know if I was teaching to the standards, I assured them absolutely. The students who didn’t know how to count were counting. The students who didn’t know how to add were adding. The students who didn’t know how to multiply were multiplying. They were all on their way toward the fractions, decimal, and proportion standards of fourth grade. They weren’t there yet because none of my fourth-grade students had achieved third grade standards, and few had achieved second grade standards. But we were on our way.
My scale score gains were double the statewide average. But not the best. One other teacher bested me by a point, a particularly inspirational sixth grade teacher. One year, one class in a school with 27 classes was not enough to rescue the school’s letter grade.
That teacher still haunts me. He should have received great accolades for his accomplishment. He should have been featured on TV. His students loved him. He was saving students from jail. He was saving students from drug addiction. He was saving students from prison. Instead, he soon left the school.
This year, I am working in kindergarten. Why? Because as I did my work, I came to understand that the initial years in school are, by far, the most critical years. In these years, students establish their personal identity, their habits, and their foundational skills.
How does this relate to letter grading? Letter grades can only take into account academic gains from fourth grade to eighth grade. Our first test is at the end of third grade, establishing the baseline for measuring academic gains in fourth grade.
The academic gains from fourth grade to eighth grade are less than the academic gains from the start of kindergarten to the end of third grade.
So, the entire letter grade system is based on the least important half of the pie. As a result, the attention of the entire system is shifted away from where it should be focused—the early years.
Education culture is the foundation of our entire society. How we think, how we interact. Our degree of interconnectedness. We can do better. We should be the state the goes full free market. Get rid of letter grades. Instead publish customer satisfaction scores. And let’s find out what percentage of parents believe their child is getting an INCREDIBLY GREAT education when given a choice between that and very good, good, or poor.
