Brewer’s education policy is A-Wreck

by David Safier

Note to the governor's people who name boards: If you don't want the Arizona Ready Education Council called "A-Wreck," don't make its initials AREC.

(I considered noting, Brewer & Co. think ALEC is too liberal/socialist, so they changed the L-Left in its initials to R-Right to come up with AREC — but that takes too long to explain.)

A-Wreck replaces Brewer's P-20 task force on education. There must be a reason for creating a new board, but I don't know for sure what it is (maybe to stack it with a bunch of new appointees?).

The board will be headed by Craig Barrett, which tells you a lot. Barrett, ex-CEO/Chair of Intel, made waves when he said he wouldn't place Intel in Arizona in its current education situation. He sounds like a firebrand. But he's actually a garden variety conservative "education reformer." He's deep in the "school choice" camp. He hangs around with Lisa Graham Keegan — the ex-State Senator who created our charter schools laws, then became the Ed Supe who put them into practice, then became a player in the national "School Choice" movement (and got herself mixed up in some financial shenanigans), then was McCain's education advisor during his presidential run, and now is one of the major forces in Arizona's charter/voucher scene.

"Firebrand" Barrett is right in Brewer's, Huppenthal's and the Goldwater Institute's comfort zones.

Don't expect Barrett to be pushing for increased ed funding.

"Charter schools in this state operate at a lower budget than public schools," said Barrett, who is president and chairman of BASIS Schools Inc., a network of nationally acclaimed charter schools operating in the state. "You can still succeed, if you can change the way you do business."

I don't know if BASIS gets outside funding beyond its state allocations, but lots of charters do. Nationally, most successful charters spend significantly more per student than neighboring district schools. And charters don't "succeed" any better than district schools, based on the data. Give BASIS the same student body as a middle achieving Tucson high school, then talk to me about educational success.

Barrett also noted Arizona's per student funding "is not terribly high." The man is a master of understatement. No, 49th or 50th (or 51st, counting D.C.) in per student funding is not terribly high.

[Barrett] rejected the idea that more money is at least part of the answer.

Barrett said he does not even believe that the state needs to pay teachers more to attract the best and the brightest into education. The key is paying each teacher not only according to his or her performance, but according to the business practices of supply and demand, he said.

Keep Arizona at the bottom of the funding ladder, and lower the salaries of some teachers to pay for others (He actually said, if there are too many teachers in one subject wanting jobs, cut the salaries for teachers in that subject. Supply and demand).

I have a suggestion for Mr. Barrett, who has no experience as a classroom teacher. Take six weeks, preferably at the beginning of the school year, and teach at a school with students achieving at the state average, 30-40 students per class. You don't have to teach six classes a day like our underpaid, overworked teachers. Three classes will do. At the end of those six weeks, I'll take your "education reform" ideas more seriously.