David Safier

More on the new “charters surpass traditional public schools” study

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by David Safier

A few days ago I posted briefly about a study indicating that charters have improved relative to traditional public schools. I put it up quickly, before I had a chance to look over the study, because it’s by a reputable research organization at Stanford, and because I try to represent accurately what’s going on in education, not what I think should be going on. But I also said the average increase in achievement charters showed in the study — the equivalent of 8 days extra instruction in reading and no difference in math compared to traditional public schools — is relatively small. It’s much less than the variation from school to school.

I still haven’t had a chance to read over the study myself, but others have. Here’s a word of warning: if you’re a charter school supporter in Arizona, don’t go bragging about the study. Arizona is one of 8 states where charters underperformed traditional public schools (in 11 states charters outperformed traditional public schools, and the results were mixed in the remaining states). The average Arizona charter students scored as if they had 22 fewer days of instruction in reading and 29 fewer days of instruction in math than students at Arizona’s traditional public schools. That’s a significant difference.

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PR push for TUSD?

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by David Safier TUSD is looking at putting together a $300,000 marketing campaign. Though I hate to see money spent on advertising, it makes sense. In the old days when the neighborhood school was pretty much the only option, parents just needed basic information. Now with open enrollment in the District and the possibility of … Read more

Stegeman on Buckmaster Friday. Could get interesting.

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by David Safier Mark Stegeman is the Friday Focus newsmaker on the Bill Buckmaster show, 12-1pm, AM 1030 KVOI. The thing that could make this interview a bit unusual is that Tuesday when I was on Buckmaster's show, we talked about my views on Stegeman's leadership style on the TUSD Board. I wrote about it … Read more

More on my “Games Mark Stegeman plays” post

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by David Safier

Lots of people have opinions about the "Games Mark Stegeman plays" post I wrote yesterday and put comments at the end of the post and more comments on Facebook. Some agreed with me, others disagreed and a few staked out positions somewhere in the middle.

I received an interesting comment from Jana Happel — actually two comments — that I'm reproducing here. She expands on some of the points I made and adds one possibility that I know little about: that one reason Pedicone decided to leave early is because of concerns about the way Stegeman acted on the Board. That interests me, because the general feeling was, Pedicone felt he was no longer in sync with the Board when Cam Juarez and Kristel Foster were elected. That may not be the case, or it may not be the whole story.

Jana's comments:

[In his post, Dave is] saying that what you see on the surface is most likely only a fraction of what you need to know to truly understand what is going on and who is playing what kind of games. I wouldn't be surprised if even the three board members who put Sanchez forward as the lone candidate agree with you that putting only one candidate forward is not the best process. Don't assume that they did it because they are out of touch with people. They did it for a reason and I suspect it has less to do with their political games than with Stegeman's. He is a destructive force and wants to get his way no matter the cost to the district.

Why did Pedicone leave when he did? The only time I heard him deviate from his talking points, he talked about how difficult it is when a board member inserts himself into school- and district-level affairs, instead of passing on concerns and stepping back to see how the supe and staff will deal with it. Maybe he was referring to Stegeman, or maybe someone else.