School grades are in and they actually look pretty good.  The full story  HERE.

Looks like Sunnyside, TUSD, Flowing Wells and  Charter schools are all at performing levels but lagging Marana, Amphi, Sahuarita, Vail and Tanque Verde.

I expected the Sunnyside and TUSD results but the Charter schools was a surprise.  Vail and Tanque Verde are doing a great job.

I took the Pima County based schools, weighted their results and averaged the weight over the number of actual schools in each district and got the following results:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent considerable money and time trying to fix some of the worlds problems. Their work to impact the American education system has reached all the way to Tucson via the San Miguel High School.  San Miguel’s education model is to have students work one day per week and attend school the other 4 days. It’s based off the Cristo Rey model and there are now branches all over the country. Their students private education is subsidised or free of charge.  Below is Gates annual foundation recap letter telling us what he’s learned: 

How many kids don’t get the same chance to achieve their full potential? The number is very large. Every year, 1 million kids drop out of high school. Only 71 percent of kids graduate from high school within four years, and for minorities the numbers are even worse—58 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for African Americans. If the decline in childhood deaths I mentioned earlier is one of the most positive statistics ever, these are some of the most negative. The federal No Child Left Behind Act isn’t perfect, but it has forced us to look at each school’s results and realize how poorly we are doing overall. It surprises me that more parents are not upset about the education their own kids are receiving.

Nine years ago, the foundation decided to invest in helping to create better high schools, and we have made over $2 billion in grants. The goal was to give schools extra money for a period of time to make changes in the way they were organized (including reducing their size), in how the teachers worked, and in the curriculum. The hope was that after a few years they would operate at the same cost per student as before, but they would have become much more effective.

Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way. These tended to be the schools that did not take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the principal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum. We had less success trying to change an existing school than helping to create a new school.

Even so, many schools had higher attendance and graduation rates than their peers. While we were pleased with these improvements, we are trying to raise college-ready graduation rates, and in most cases, we fell short.

But a few of the schools that we funded achieved something amazing. They replaced schools with low expectations and low results with ones that have high expectations and high results. These schools are not selective in whom they admit, and they are overwhelmingly serving kids in poor areas, most of whose parents did not go to college. Almost all of these schools are charter schools that have significantly longer school days than other schools.

I have had a chance to spend time at a number of these schools, including High Tech High in San Diego and the Knowledge Is Power Program, or “KIPP,” in Houston. There is a wonderful new book out about KIPP called Work Hard. Be Nice., by the education reporter Jay Mathews. It’s an inspiring look at how KIPP has accomplished these amazing results and the barriers they faced.

It is invigorating and inspirational to meet with the students and teachers in these schools and hear about their aspirations. They talk about how the schools they were in before did not challenge them and how their new school engages all of their abilities. These schools aim to have all of their kids enter four-year colleges, and many of them achieve that goal with 90 percent to 100 percent of their students. Every visit energizes me to work to get most high schools to be like this.

These successes and failures have underscored the need to aim high and embrace change in America’s schools. Our goal as a nation should be to ensure that 80 percent of our students graduate from high school fully ready to attend college by 2025. This goal will probably be more difficult to achieve than anything else the foundation works on, because change comes so slowly and is so hard to measure. Unlike scientists developing a vaccine, it is hard to test with scientific certainty what works in schools. If one school’s students do better than another school’s, how do you determine the exact cause? But the difficulty of the problem does not make it any less important to solve. And as the successes show, some schools are making real progress.

Based on what the foundation has learned so far, we have refined our strategy. We will continue to invest in replicating the school models that worked the best. Almost all of these schools are charter schools. Many states have limits on charter schools, including giving them less funding than other schools. Educational innovation and overall improvement will go a lot faster if the charter school limits and funding rules are changed.

One of the key things these schools have done is help their teachers be more effective in the classroom. It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one. Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

Whenever I talk to teachers, it is clear that they want to be great, but they need better tools so they can measure their progress and keep improving. So our new strategy focuses on learning why some teachers are so much more effective than others and how best practices can be spread throughout the education system so that the average quality goes up. We will work with some of the best teachers to put their lectures online as a model for other teachers and as a resource for students.

Finally, our foundation has learned that graduating from high school is not enough anymore. To earn enough to raise a family, you need some kind of college degree, whether it’s a certificate or an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree. So last year we started making grants to help more students graduate from college. Our focus will be on helping improve community colleges and reducing the number of kids who start community college but don’t finish.

Reading May’s political tea leaves

By Emil Franzi, Special to The Explorer

We’ve had local elections, and some further away, along with enough positioning and posturing to give us some hints about our political futures.

Californians of all stripes overwhelmingly told their government “no” to higher taxes in the multiple forms they were presented. Those supporting a statewide election to raise the sales tax to bail out Arizona should note that if you can’t pass any tax increase in a lefty state with bigger budget troubles than ours, good luck here.

Early on, I called for a sales tax election combined with constitutional amendments repealing all the spending ballot props that voters suckered for that the legislature is banned from modifying. Give them an “either – or,” but it’s too late for that. Republicans should not have been afraid of the voters. They even figured it out in San Francisco.

Up the road in Casa Grande, voters rejected a sales tax hike for a new spring training stadium by 77 percent. I hope the local Sports Authority noticed and will quit lobbying the legislature to enable Pima County to waste money on an election that will get the same result here. File that Marana Stadium next to the Rainbow Bridge over the Santa Cruz.

Two local elections gave local Democrats mostly negative results, who are attempting to breed future partisan legislative candidates by electing them to non-partisan school boards and town councils. I find no fault with this — the GOP should quit being onlookers and do the same.

In Sahuarita, the Dem pick was Rosanna Gabaldon. This partisan activity created a backlash and partly motivated Republican Kara Egbert’s candidacy. Both Gabaldon and Egbert won the two seats, making it a push.

In Marana, Dems supported Kelle Maslyn, one of four finalists for two council seats including Republicans Jon Post and Larry Steckler and Democrat Carol McGorray.

Local GOP types were mostly onlookers in both towns with the exception of GOP National Committeeman Bruce Ash, who formed an independent committee whomping on Maslyn for raising almost all her funds from outside Marana. Post led the ticket followed by McGorray, with Maslyn third. Ash-GOP 1, D’s 0, even though some Dems have attempted to spin and claim McGorray, whom they didn’t support.

Spin will be high on the Dem agenda next year. You can tell by the almost insane rhetoric in the letters columns and elsewhere about education spending. With all the intellectual depth of the last Banzai Charge, the Democrat / public employees union coalition wants us to believe Republicans hate schools and teachers and keep our children ignorant so they won’t be smart and educated enough to vote for Democrats.

Is there anybody out there who actually believes this slop?

Typical is the recent letter about the GOP violating “teacher’s First Amendment rights” from Robert Cozad, who failed to note that he is the founder of the Oro Valley Democrat Club. Cozad claims a bill passed by the GOP legislature bans public school teachers from lobbying. No, it makes them reimburse taxpayers if done on school time.

As a former public employee, the husband of a retired one, the past vice-president of AFSCME local 449, and a former member of the Pima County Merit Commission, I realize public employees may apply for time off they have earned to do whatever they want. They have no constitutional right to lobby legislators on the taxpayer’s dime.

One final May item, the headline in the remaining daily informing us that the TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen was hiring seven new administrators while laying off teachers because they were needed for her “vision.” That exposes the real agenda and mindset of the Democrat / union / administrator coalition. It isn’t about the children, it’s about the power.

Arizona Public Schools Received $9,707 per student in 2007-08

By Matthew Ladner, Ph.D.

Arizona’s citizens have been subjected non-stop to the claim that Arizona’s public schools are desperately underfunded. The Superintendent of Public Instruction’s finance report says otherwise.

On page six of that document, you will find a figure for all revenues collected by Arizona school districts from all sources. That number is $9,232,916,095. If you divide that figure by the enrollment number for districts on page nine of the same document, you get $9,707.45 in total revenue per pupil.

For a bit of perspective, the average Arizona private school tuition in 2006 was $4,300 and the average total cost was $5,500. The same revenue per pupil calculation for Arizona charter schools is $7,800.

Some might be inclined (I’m not) to divide the revenue number by fall enrollment rather than average attendance. Doing so effectively gives credit for students that have since dropped out or moved away. Even doing the math this way, this figure is still near $9,000 per pupil.

Facing a catastrophic downturn in revenues, state lawmakers cut 3 percent from the 2009 K-12 budget. The various education associations whipped their members into a frenzy and directed them to send hate emails to legislators. I’ve been getting them myself.

If, however, you go to the JLBC website and look at the budget excel spreadsheet you’ll see a budget line for the Arizona Department of Education of $4,141,201,000 on line 135.

Even if you cut this number by 18 percent, to $3,395,784,820, it would keep state K-12 funding between where it was in 2005 and 2006. Yes there has been some inflation and enrollment growth since 2005, so tightening of belts would be necessary. Average revenue per pupil would remain well above what charter schools receive. 

Dr. Matthew Ladner is vice president for research at the Goldwater Institute.

Education is a hot potato right now in AZ. This press release came our way from the legislative leadership.  

A prior post regarding Antenori’s Op-Ed denial by the Az Star pointed out that;

Raise taxes you say and and cut less? Here’s an interesting fact I heard from another State legislator; it took Arizona 100 years to grow it’s budget to $6 billion. It took Napolitano only 4 years to grow it to $10.3 billion. Do you think we over spent a bit? 

 Google, Education Spending Arizona, and you’ll find a bunch of sources for yourself. Look at the issue and do some homework, then make up your own mind.

Why it is INACCURATE to say Arizona ranks 49^th in Education:

§         This is just ONE statistic, based solely on a “per pupil” spending calculation

§         The “per pupil” spending calculation does not take into account the following:

                     i.      uniformity as to what funding categories go into the calculation from state-to-state (for example, Arizona has consistently ranked at the top for capital expenditures per pupil, but none of those dollars are factored into Arizona’s per pupil calculations)

                   ii.      actual dollars spent in the classroom from district-to-district or state-to-state

                  iii.      cost of living adjustments

                 iv.      voter-established constitutional requirements/limitations for education funding

                   v.      estimates and redundancies in student counts

                 vi.      calculation variances that occur because of rapid growth issues faced by states like Arizona, versus states experiencing little, no or negative growth

§         It makes absolutely no sense for public policy to be driven by one isolated apples-to-oranges statistic, which looks at education spending in a vacuum

§         There are better gauges to education ranking that are outcome-based indicators, such as student achievement, test scores, etc.

§         The per-pupil expenditure is really a reflection of class size, excluding the idea of efficiency

§         A general state analysis by ALEC, as well as one by the RAND Corporation of California’s massive (and expensive) effort to reduce class sizes, has found no correlation between class sizes and test scores.

¹ JLBC: Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee; ALEC: American Legislative Exchange Council; NEA: National Education Association; BEA: Bureau of Economic Analysis; NSF: National Science Foundation; ATRA: Arizona Tax Research Association.

² “Instructional staff” includes teachers, as well as principals, supervisors of instruction, guidance personnel, etc.  It does NOT include administrative staff.

Top 10 Myths about Education Funding and Budget Reductions

Goldwater Institute separates budget myths from reality as lawmakers grapple with billion-dollar budget shortfall

Phoenix–Arizona faces one of the largest budget deficits in the nation and lawmakers are struggling to close the gap. Because half of all General Fund spending goes toward education, schools and universities will necessarily be affected by the state’s across-the-board belt tightening.

While some school administrators and special interest groups have referred to the potential budget cuts “slashing education” and “shortsighted and borderline malicious,” the Goldwater Institute would like to separate the reality of education funding in Arizona from several often publicized myths.

Myth #1: Schools simply cannot afford the budget reductions being proposed by the legislature.

Fact: The budget cuts proposed by the State House leadership amounts to a 2.5 percent reduction. Over the last five years, K-12 funding has increased by 40 percent. Reducing funding by 2.5 percent will still leave schools with more money than they had in 2008 adjusted for inflation.

Myth #2: Schools have tightened their belts as much as possible. There’s simply nothing left to cut.

Fact: Last year Tucson Unified School District lost track of millions of dollars in equipment. With similar highly publicized stories frequently surfacing, there’s room to tighten up. In addition to implementing better controls on equipment and supplies, the Goldwater Institute recommends three more ways schools and school districts can cut their budgets without eliminating teaching positions: 1.) Ban teachers from having non-classroom assignments; 2.) Ban teacher’s union employees from conducting union work on district payroll; 3.) Cut administrative bloat at the district level. Arizona has an unusually large share of non-teaching public school employees. Teachers make up slightly less than half of on-site staff in public schools, placing Arizona fourth worst among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in teachers as a share of on-site public school staff.

Myth #3: Arizona already ranks 49th in the nation in education funding and we don’t want to be number 50.

Fact: When all of Arizona’s funding streams are added up, Arizona school funding ranks in the middle of the states at more than $9,000 per student per year.

Myth #4: Suspending the tax credit for donations toward private school tuition will save money and mitigate the need for education budget cuts.

Fact: Getting children into private schools with $1,000 of foregone tax revenue costs less than the $9,000 spent on a child in the public school system. To save money, the legislature should expand the private school scholarship tax credit and move more children from public to private schools. Suspending it will disrupt these students’ educations and increase costs to the state as children return to public schools.

Myth #5: Student success will suffer if budget cuts lead to increased class size.

Fact: Research shows that students would be much better off if schools did let their most ineffective teachers go, and redistributed the students to more effective instructors. Teacher quality has been found to be 10- to 20-times more important than class size in achieving student learning gains. Schools could thereby cut their spending and improve student learning simultaneously.

Myth #6: All-day kindergarten is essential to successful child development and should not be eliminated by budget cuts.

Fact: Studies have consistently shown that any benefit from all-day kindergarten disappears by the time a child reaches the third grade, a phenomenon termed “fade out.” Also, all-day kindergarten was widespread in Arizona public schools before a specified state funding stream was created two years ago, districts can continue all-day kindergarten if it is a priority.

Myth #7: Individual districts and schools are reluctant to cut their own budgets, so the legislature should direct where cuts will be made.

Fact: Individual districts and schools will be far more effective in determining how to cut their budgets while protecting their students and employees and should be given the flexibility to set their own budget priorities.

To that point, Madison Elementary School District Superintendent Dr. Tim Ham said on January 26, 2009:

“The Madison School District understands the crisis the State of Arizona is in economically and knows reductions in education funding will be required. We would ask that districts be allowed to use any of their funding sources to meet their obligations. This would require a temporary suspension of current legal requirements. However, it would provide flexibility, local control, and equality among districts.”

Myth #8: Cuts in university funding will drive Arizona into “Third World” status.

Fact: Statewide, higher education budgets have increased by $332 million since 2004. If the full proposed FY 2009 cut of $80.5 million to ASU’s budget were enacted, it would still receive more state funding than in 2006. Northern Arizona University would lose $31 million in FY 2009, but still receive more state funds than in 2007. The University of Arizona faces a proposed $103 million cut in FY 2009, which would take it back to 2004 state funding levels.

Myth #9: Investment in higher education is critical to the future success of Arizona’s economy.

Fact: Comparing states’ higher-education appropriations and gross state products yields no evidence that spending drives economic growth. From 1991 to 2000, none of the top 10 states in greatest higher-education appropriations were among the top 10 in economic growth.

Myth #10: Cuts to university budgets will make it necessary to double tuition thereby violating the Arizona Constitution’s clause to make higher education “nearly as free as possible.”

Fact: Legal precedent has determined that “nearly as free as possible” means tuition for Arizona public universities must remain in the bottom-third of the nation. Any increase in university tuition is required to meet that standard. As it stands, tuition at Arizona public universities is very low compared to national averages.

The Goldwater Institute is a nonprofit public policy research and litigation organization whose work is made possible by the generosity of its supporters.

A new direction for Oregon

Eric Wilson

Issue date: 5/8/06 Section: Forum

It should be obvious to anyone living in the State of Oregon that we have traveled down a bumpy and often turbulent path recently in both state and local government. With high taxes, an often unfriendly business environment and a fledgling school/higher education system, it quickly becomes apparent to most people that the old way just isn’t working anymore.

So let’s go ahead and start at the beginning. One often hears the cries of legislators claiming we need more money for Oregon public schools in an attempt to build momentum for a tax increase. What these same legislators don’t tell you is that per capita, we are near the top of the 50 states in education spending. Monetarily, this means that state spending for education has almost doubled in approximately the last 50 years. Oregon teachers still earn more than the national average even while, according to the Cascade Policy Institute, other Oregonians earn less. Furthermore, we have one of the most lavish Public Employee Retirement Systems (PERS) in the country. While teachers often deserve a higher rate of pay, higher than the national average, in this case we simply can’t afford it.

And what has this done for the State of Oregon? In terms of national averages, not a whole lot. High school juniors and seniors only rank around average in comparison with their peers throughout the country.

And our problems don’t end here. Oregon, most notably Multnomah County, has often been seen as an anti-business and unfriendly place for companies to locate. Much of this is a direct result of our high taxes, especially Multnomah County’s Business Income Tax, which often creates incentives for business to locate in surrounding areas such as Clackamas or Washington County. According to a study done in 2003 by the Small Business Survival Index, Oregon ranked near the bottom while our neighbor to the north was ranked near the top.

The problem with this should be obvious. Where is the incentive for a small business to come to Portland when they can locate in Washington?

Oregon doesn’t have a monetary problem. On the contrary, what they have can be described as none other than a spending problem. Consequently, if Oregon continues on this path, it may not have much left. Businesses will have an incentive to relocate elsewhere around the country, and the economy will continue to decline as we have seen in recent years.

I think it’s time for not only a change but a big change in this state. We have had the leadership of Democratic governors for almost two decades. While some of our current woes may not be entirely their fault, like anything else, success or failure resides in the person in charge.

Likewise, it’s not just the Republicans who are becoming increasingly frustrated. In a poll recently published in the Oregonian, 48 percent of Democrats feel that Oregon is on the wrong track, compared with 41 percent who feel we are moving in the right direction. The margin for the Republicans was naturally higher, with 66 percent expressing their dissatisfaction versus 22 percent who feel we are moving in the right direction.

The democratic leadership in this state has failed to control spending and put caps on the PERS system. If we continue on this same path we may in fact be setting ourselves up for failure.

With a majority of both Democrats and Republicans in agreement with the direction our state is headed, it should seem obvious to anyone that we need a new voice in government. I think the best person for this job is Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton.

Apart from his fiscally conservative policies, Saxton has chosen to take on the tough issues that are currently affecting Oregonians head on. He pledges to reform the PERS and education system, lower taxes to encourage business and strengthen the economy as well as eliminating government waste.

With the current challenges that currently lie ahead of us, we have a choice to either continue with the status quo, which so far, has given dismal results, or enact a fresh change in leadership. Unless we make change now we are left with a system that is not only inefficient but ineffective.

Eric Wilson is a junior in political science. The opinions expressed in his columns, which appear every Monday, do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Barometer staff. Wilson can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Forbes recently ran their 10 best and 10 worst cities for education. You’ll never guess what the cities at the top of the rankings have in common?  They have a major university that graduates thousands of fresh minds each year and they have industries that require brain power located in these communities creating jobs for graduates.

On the flip side the least educated communities (two of the top 10 are located here in AZ) suffer from low wages and high unemployment.

I am all for university spending. The UofA is a major economic engine in our community.  We’ve had some great wins including the Phoenix Mars project (a recently completed mission with a budget of $452 million that trickled in to our community and put us on the astrological map.) The problem I have is that the tax payers of Arizona are making major commitments to higher education but we are loosing our students in droves because there is no future for them here in Tucson.

Read the Forbes article - HERE.

The most-educated city in America: Boulder, Colo., home to the University of Colorado with high-tech employers like IBM  and Sun Microsystems  to keep alumni in the area after they graduate.

Other college cities topping the list are Ann Arbor, Mich., home to the University of Michigan; Charlottesville, Va., with the University of Virginia; Durham, N.C., with Duke University; and Fort-Collins, Colo., home to Colorado State.

University jobs, research parks and tech companies pay solid salaries. The average income for the 10 best-educated cities is $35,000. In the 10 least-educated cities, by contrast, the average income is $19,000.

The best-educated cities are some of the wealthiest, like the southern Connecticut metropolitan area. While home to the troubled city of Bridgeport, the surrounding suburbs are home to hedge funds and the well-to-do from New York. San Jose and San Francisco, among the wealthiest cities in the country, are also the fourth and fifth best-educated on this list.

The absence of education can leave a troubled region in deeper trouble. In Yuma, Ariz.–the sixth least-educated area in America–unemployment has soared above 20%, one of only two metropolitan areas in the country with so many jobless.

Is it the graduates that create the jobs, or the jobs that create the graduates? Durham, N.C., yields some clues. In the 1950s, universities and the government invested heavily to build a large research park to attract better jobs to the region. Over decades, the investment paid off richly, with the Research Triangle Park employing some 40,000 workers, many of them well-educated and high-paid, according to the Durham Chamber of Commerce.

Now for the rankings of the 10 worst -

No. 1 Lake Havasu, Ariz.*

Lake Havasu City-Kingman, Ariz., MSA

Adult population: 137,401
Bachelor’s degrees: 10,577 (8%)
Master’s degrees: 3,282 (2%)
Professional degrees: 791 (.6%)
Doctorates: 1,167 (.8%)

Lake Havasu City is perhaps best known as the site where, in the 1970s, the London Bridge was relocated after being disassembled piece by piece and transported across the Atlantic. As brilliant as the idea was, it didn’t take many diplomas to pull off. Barely 10% of the adults in the Lake Havasu metro area have a bachelor’s degree or more.

* Least educated.

No. 6 Yuma, Ariz.

Yuma, Ariz., MSA

Adult population: 117,204
Bachelor’s degrees: 9,879 (8%)
Master’s degrees: 4,704 (4%)
Professional degrees: 1,141 (1%)
Doctorates: 399 (.3%)

Not many college graduates settle in the border town of Yuma. The city’s crippling job shortage can’t help. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that in September, Yuma and El Centro, Calif., were the only two cities in the country with unemployment rates of more than 20%.

Dave Hatfield over at Inside Tucson Business put out an editorial last week and finally came out and said it. TUSD was formed from 4 or 5 school districts back in the day where when it came to education, bigger was better.  In our current day and age that concept just won’t cut it. Students and parents demand more up close and personal experiences. The charter schools are flourishing because they are addressing the needs of the student/parent better than the one size fits all humongous school district model.

Our poor education system can most definately benefit from additional dollars. Voters lack confidence in the way their dollars are being spent so they refuse to vote for more money down the rabbit hole.

TUSD’s problems can’t be fixed

By David Hatfield, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Saturday, November 15, 2008 Click HERE to read the full article.

Tucson Unified School District lost another one when voters Nov. 4 once again rejected the district’s request to exceed a 10 percent override of its operations budget. A person in business might be tempted to shrug off the loss without much surprise. After all, any business that has operated as poorly as TUSD would have been out of business long ago.

But as a taxpayer-supported entity, TUSD’s bloated bureaucracy, mismanagement and arrogance survived.

Being the largest school district in Pima County, TUSD’s failures are hurting this region’s hopes of being able to develop an educated, competitive workforce for when we ever get ourselves out of the national economic mess we’re in right now.

TUSD officials need look no further than themselves for the reasons why the override failed. 

Yes, this was not the best year to ask taxpayers for more money but voters in Altar Valley, Catalina Foothills and Flowing Wells all approved school spending measures on Nov. 4.

Yes, teachers are underpaid but they’re notoriously underpaid throughout Arizona. Teacher salaries in TUSD are higher than most other local districts.

Yes, more children should have exposure to TUSD’s Opening Minds Through the Arts program but not everyone would have received it, even if the override had passed. Voters were left to figure out for themselves if their neighborhood school would have received it. Not a good position to be in with TUSD administrators’ history of not being forthright.

Yes, students stuck in TUSD’s academically underperforming schools should have the resources they need to get on pace. But TUSD’s decision-makers still don’t get it: A few weeks ago I drove by Duffy Elementary School, 5145 E. Fifth St., and the marquee carried this notice: “Yeah—We’re a performing plus school.” That’s it? That’s what you’re going to boast about? Getting an achievement profile from the Arizona Department of Education that is the equivalent of getting a C+ or B- on a report card. 

It took TUSD a long time to get as bad as it is. It could take longer to try to fix it. So let’s not fix it.

That’s right. Let’s do away with TUSD as we know it now. Break the district up into, say, three or four separate school districts. Some of the fringe areas could be moved into the neighboring districts of Flowing Wells, Tanque Verde, Catalina Foothills or Vail. They’re all districts that have better community support and more success in educating children.  

Studies disagree on the optimum size for a school district, but most generally agree smaller school districts allow for better student achievement because of the closer interaction between educators and families.

Further, virtually every study has found there are few efficiencies that come from very large school districts. Andrew Coulson, of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, studied optimal district size in five states (California, Florida, New York, Michigan and Texas) and concluded: “If (the) goal is to save tax revenues, then deconsolidation is a better option.”

Public schools aren’t broken. TUSD is broken. It’s time to get rid of it.

E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.

 We’ve reported in this blog before how quality education institutions and an educated population are critical competents of future economic success.  The TREO blueprint has identified education enrichment as one of our communities top 5 priorities. The recent Tucson Regional Town Hall listed education as a major area for requiring improvement. We all agree to be world class we must start with world class people.

T.U.S.D. continues to be our major school district with 59,000+ students enrolled in fiscal 2008.  The district continues to be under fire recently for how it educates, how much it spends on administration and results they have been getting. With an $381.2 million annual budget paid for by you and me via property taxes (among other taxing mechanisms), people are starting to ask questions and demand better results before more money will be allocated.

Growing Role of Charter Schools

Charter schools have exploded in our community and in the state. Parents are choosing to exercise their free market choice and take their kids out of the district. 

The charter schools receive $6600 per student from the the state. Those of us that send their kids to private schools pay out of pocket and don’t burden the state with having to educate our kids at all. Charter schools must pay for their facility, attract and train quality teachers and produce results. T.U.S.D. essentially collects close to $12k per student when you factor in the fact that they have no cost for building their schools and they can bond for capital improvements.

Proposition to increase TUSD funding failed at the ballot box

T.U.S.D was recently defeated on a proposition for increased school funding. This would have been a county only proposition and our way of telling the state that we believe spending more money is the answer. If the state won’t open the wallet we’ll  tax ourselves. The proposition lost. From talking to people about the issue it wasn’t that voters didn’t believe their was a need for a greater investment in our children it was that people have lost faith in T.U.S.D.’s effectiveness in spending our money and producing results.

Enter a new Superintendent, Elizabeth Celania-Fagen. If there was ever a time for a leader now is it. Fagen is inheriting an ingrained bureaucracy, a culture that isn’t too keen on change and internal bickering that has paralyzed the district for years. As a former teacher she’ll be forced to make hard decisions that will certainly anger the teachers union. She must walk the tigh rope of parents, teachers, administrators and a newly constituted school board that each have their own agenda.

During her brief honeymoon as our new top teacher, I for one wish her luck. Our region depends on a quality education for our kids.

Read the Weekly article HERE.

But according to Pedersen, an annual Kids Count report shows that TUSD spends about $7,410 a year per child, lower than the national average of $8,973 but higher than the state average of $6,232.

Pedersen says the other work ahead for TUSS involves spreading the word about what they see as great programs and schools that are already part of TUSD, in an effort to help the district better compete against charter and private schools that are currently luring an estimated 11,000 students from TUSD schools.

In the end, the fate of TUSD schools may come down to survival of the fittest. Celania-Fagen says she anticipates the district will have a better understanding of what schools are meant to stick around–and those that are not–based on enrollment. She has asked school administrators to ask themselves, “What’s it like to learn here, and can you explain that to parents? Does it mean something beyond reading, writing and arithmetic?”

“(It becomes) a consumer-driven thing where we have students and families choosing certain schools, and no one choosing others, and there are probably reasons why no one is choosing that school. That makes the conversation different,” she says.

We better get this right, we have the children depending on us.