There is a (no pun intended) school of thought that educational institutions that are performing poorly in the D or F range would do better if outside sources like major charter school chains swooped in (for a large per student fee,) took over the management of the school, and attempted to turn around the poor student achievement levels.
That is the gist of Arizona State Representative Michelle Udall’s HB2808, a measure to take the 180 Arizona D and F schools that, according to the original draft legislation, performed poorly in the middle of the Coronavirus Pandemic (newsflash: not the best time to measure achievement) and assign the management of these educational institutions to a qualifying (and willing) charter schools for a $2,000 per student management fee.
Can readers say Republicans are using the Shock Doctrine to further cripple poor schools.
According to reporting by Gloria Gomez at AZ Mirror, a similar idea was tried in Tennessee.
It failed.
Leave it to Republicans to continually try zombie ideas (remember trickle-down economics) that have little to no success rates.
Local School Superintendents Discuss HB2808 at a SOS Arizona Townhall.
Save Our Schools Arizona hosted a virtual town hall moderated by its leader, Beth Lewis, on HB2808 on March 1, 2022.
The guest panelists (Superintendent Dr. Kristi Wilson of Buckeye Elementary, Superintendent Dr. Gabrielle Trujillo of Tucson Unified, Superintendent Dr. Dan Streeter of Marana Unified, and Kayenta Board Member Joe Bia) all voiced strong opposition to this bill.
Please click on the below link to see the whole presentation.
Dr. Trujillo said that the failure of this similar program in Tennessee will likely occur in Arizona. Calling it a “running like a business bill,” Trujillo said that while Doug Ducey is not anti-education, he did say that the Arizona Governor is too business oriented. “Schools are not a factory,” Trujillo added.
Schools, even most successful charter schools, put student (“where every single child is different”) achievement and teacher satisfaction first, not the bottom line.
Trujillo accurately asserted that other factors weigh in on the performance of a school including:
- Child Poverty Levels. Dr. Wilson would point out later that “Arizona is one of nine states that does not provide additional dollars for students who live in poverty.”
- Learning Gaps (more pronounced now due to COVID 19 the last two years.)
- Access to superior resources at the school or at home.
- The zip code the student lives in.
- The percentage of highly qualified staff in the school.
Dr. Wilson pointed out the student letter grades “are incumbent on one test.”
She said that the key to success was “equitable and excellent teaching learning environments for every student.”
This is a problem when the Grand Canyon state is 50th in instructor salaries and there is a current teacher shortage in part because the profession is often ridiculed by the same supporters of bills like HB2808.
Wilson also said:
- Teachers need to utilize rigorous curriculum. They need to be effective and need to have time to collaborate in order to be successful.
- Children need access to mental health services.
- Pre School programs should be available to give children a head start.
She said “we know that with extra supports and dollars, graduation rates can be increased from 6.8 to 11.5 percent.”
Wilson also pointed out that there is already a Ducey supported program (with accountability and performance metrics) called Project Momentum, where there is a $150.00 per impoverished student add-on schools could use to help improve performance.
While that $150.00 is helpful, that is not the $2000 per student fee Udall is proposing to give qualifying charter schools (with no major strings attached in the original draft legislation) in HB2808.
How about giving Project Momentum the $2000 per student fee in the Udall bill and see what results develop over the next three to five years.
Wilson said Project Momentum has already started to show some levels of success.
Dr. Streeter pointed out that is too soon to start a new letter grade system just when schools are trying to get back to normal after the pandemic (where learning gaps have only intensified) and are now having to endure planning for a new statewide assessment.
He also chastised the legislators that want to emphasize test scores more than growth (how much a student improves) on the new assessment. He rightly called growth “the ultimate measure of any type of school effectiveness.”
Streeter said that, although several rural schools (where getting to the local grocery store could be a half hour drive) faced large learning gaps, high mobility rates, high Title One rates, and large crime rates, “access to opportunity” coupled with “great teachers and principals” was the key factor in determining student and school success.
On the possibility that up to a quarter Navajo Nation schools might get taken over by outside charter schools, Mr. Bia said that bringing in outsiders to take over and administer the largely rural and isolated schools whose members cherish their own unique culture can be “catastrophic in many ways” because “big changes don’t always go the way we want them to.”
House Education Democratic Committee Members Pawlik and Schwiebert relay their displeasure to HB2808.
Two of the leading education specialists on the House Education Committee (Ranking Member Jennifer Pawlik and Judy Schwiebert) voiced their opposition to any of the versions of HB2808.
Representative Pawlik wrote:
“180+ D and F ranked schools is far too great a number; we can agree on that point. However, we have chronically underfunded these schools which tend to be located in communities struggling with poverty. In fact, Arizona is but one of seven states that doesn’t have an opportunity/poverty weight. Our class sizes are among the highest in the country and we have 3364 classrooms with an under-qualified teacher and 1699 classrooms teacher vacancies.
Instead of allowing Arizona’s schools to be taken over by out of state entities (that will be given an additional $2000 per student), let’s address the issues at hand. Let’s fund the poverty weight Let’s staff the schools with strong, qualified, and experienced teachers who use science-based interventions. Let’s have small class sizes and let’s provide the students with the supports they need to be successful.
I sincerely hope that our colleagues across the aisle can see the sense of solving the issue of failing schools using the leadership of ARIZONA people like Mr. Quincy Natay of Chinle, and programs like Project Momentum rather than looking to out-of-state charters to help Arizona’s students.”
Representative Schwiebert stated:
“I fully agree that it is UNACCEPTABLE that so many students are in D & F schools where they are not receiving the quality education they deserve; but the answer is NOT as HB2808 proposes, to turn over our schools to out of state corporations. Rather than pointing a finger at local school boards, administrators and teachers, we must recognize our own failures as a legislature.”
“We should be investing in
- a poverty/opportunity weight for children who come from low-income homes. It costs more to educate children from poverty, yet Arizona is one of only seven states that does not provide extra funds to account for those needs
- ways to incentivize teachers to stay in the classroom. Over 20% of Arizona’s children have no permanent, qualified teacher largely because of the way they are treated in this state
- quality universal pre-school
- full-day kindergarten
- outreach to parents in programs like All In Education, A Stepping Stone Foundation and others that educate the parents as well as their children and provide other wrap-around services for children in poverty.
- a funding formula that allows poor school districts without the property tax base they need to approve bond or override elections to build and better maintain their classrooms and resources.
- local leadership. The superintendent and board in Chinle have brought failing schools up to achieving schools through local leadership that inspired community buy-in. In the Washington School District, Superintendent Stanton has been successfully leading the charge to lift up schools in high-poverty areas. “
“However, HB2808’s overhaul of our system would eliminate the local control that has made those improvements possible. Our Governor likes to say we do things “The Arizona Way”. How does turning our schools over to out of state corporations fit with that?”
Currently, HB2808, after having passed the House Education Committee on a party line vote, is stalled in the full House of Representatives.
The panelists in the SOS Arizona Townhall along with Representatives Pawlik and Schwiebert are right.
The answer is not to war on public schools and look for ways to inflict pain on them.
The answer is not to give $2000 to an out of state charter school chain to come in and take over these troubled schools as Ms. Udall has proposed.
The answer is to directly attack the perennial cycles of poverty, poor morale, and highly qualified teacher shortages that are plaguing these schools by providing increased funding (including higher teacher salaries) and better resources.
It would be better for all educator stakeholders in the 180 to 200 D and F schools to take the $2000 fee that HB2808 would have given the qualifying (and interested) charter school and give it directly to the school in need and measure student growth and improvement over a three to five year period starting from the 2022/23 school year (when hopefully COVID 19 is in the education rear view mirror.)
That alone should lift up the culture, morale, and collaborative spirit in those schools.
Actually, while they are at it, give all public schools (traditional and charter) an extra $2000 per student, solve the teacher shortage crisis, and watch school performance skyrocket across the entire Grand Canyon state.
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Excellent information, David! Parents need to make their voices clearly heard that our public schools are not a going-out-of-business fire sale for profiteers to pick up for a song, but communities that must be protected, nurtured and invested in!