Once Again, Arizona Leads the Way
“For those who want to dedicate their energies to this noble cause (teaching), we shouldn’t let outdated rules stand in the way of getting them to the front of the classroom.” — Governor Doug Ducey
“I think as a society we put money into pools for the benefit of the community…and that when we start allowing it to be divvied up by personal choice, we’re eroding potential.” — Representative Todd Clodfeller
Once again, Arizona is leading the nation. And once again, it is in a direction that is not the best interests of the state’s or country’s future. It is in the best interest of the special interest groups, the wealthy, private schools, and apparently some of the state legislators. It seems the governor and state legislature are attempting to appear fiscally responsible, but are only pushing their misguided agenda for the privatization of public education. It also seems they are in panic mode, defending a long series of mistakes (from before they were in office) that they have expanded.
Governor Doug Ducey is expected to sign a bill that will allow teachers without teaching certification, but who have industry and business, teach our students. (AP, 2017). In a state that does not respect teachers as professionals or provide appropriate funding for schools and students, it is laughable to think that many people would want to change careers for a dramatic pay cut and all of the extra time, work and effort expended by teachers that goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Senator Steve Farley believes this bill only lowers teaching standards and avoids addressing the real problem. He recognizes the real problem is Arizona’s excessively low funding of schools and teacher wages, causing teachers to look for work where they can earn a livable wage (AP, 2017).
Governor Ducey’s budget includes a $38 million dollar program to boost high achieving schools, giving more money to charter schools and the richest schools. According to the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, this money will be disproportionally provided to schools and charters that have less than ten percent of their student’s qualifying for free or reduced lunch (Rau, 2017); in other words, the schools that do not need the funding as badly as lower income schools. It is true that all schools, not just those in low-income areas, are need of more funding; but the funding allocations are based on student achievement test results. Every school needs to have the infrastructure, equipment, materials and teachers who are able to help students score well on these tests; the problem is that the wealthier schools tend to perform better, and charter schools can be waived from taking the tests.
The proposals for unqualified teachers in the classroom and achievement funding follows the expansion of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which allows students to use tax dollars to pay for private school tuition. While Senator Debbie Lesko claims this provides more options “for parents to improve education for their child,” (Sanchez, Y.W., O’Dell, R. & Rau, A. B., 2017), it misses the reality it that helps the children of the wealthy and that attend charter schools. The parents of lower income students likely will have difficulty accessing or completing the application process. “The push to expand Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program comes in the wake of a state audit that found officials identified more than $102,000 in ESA fund were misspent during a six-month period, from August 2015 to January 2016” (Sanchez, Y. W. & O’Dell, R., 2017).
The question is who benefits most from these changes? The audit found that parents kept ESA money on unapproved items after enrolling their students in public schools. Some of the parents did not submit the required expense reports to the Arizona Department of Education. And the state seems unable or unwilling to collect the misspent funds. Senate President Steve Yarbrough says, “To us, $100,000 probably sounds like a quite a bit of money, but in the whole scheme of things, that frankly may not be an awful lot of money” (Sanchez, Y. W. & O’Dell, R., 2017). This brings up a couple of questions: How much of the tax-payers money is being ‘misspent’? What constitutes a lot money? How is this loss going to be made up? Senator Steve Farley states, “If you see these kinds of problems form a small program and open it up to 1.1 million kids and put debit cards in the hands of parent with very little oversight, you’re creating a program that’s ripe for fraud” (Sanchez, Y. W. & O’Dell, R., 2017).
Senate President Steve Yarbrough has profited as well from tax-credit program designed to help poor and disabled students attend private school. He has pushed to have this twenty year old legislation expanded, and recognizes it is mostly used by wealthy families who would likely send their children to private school anyway (Roberts, 2015). In the 2013–2014 school year, Yarbrough’s organization, the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, used $116 million in state money (in the form of tax-credit donations) to pay about $4,854 each for more than 24,000 students to attend private school; this is about $700 more than is spent per student in public school in Arizona (Roberts, 2015). In addition, the law allows his organization to keep ten percent of everything his organization collects. With the money collected, Yarbrough collects a six figure salary. In addition, Yarbrough is a part owner of the company that process scholarships and donations through this tax-credit program and collects the rent his organization pays to occupy space in the building he owns. As Yarbrough has served as the chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, “it isn’t considered a blatant conflict of interest for Yarbrough to make buckets of money from the legislation he drives into law” (Roberts, 2015). Something seems wrong here.
I fear the results of these efforts. It appears as if the wealthy legislators and their lobbyist are trying to dismantle public education. The results of these efforts are going to expand the gap between the wealthiest in Arizona and the rest of the population. The state populace is being duped into believing this will improve things, when in fact it will only guarantee public school graduates who are conforming and qualified to work minimum wage jobs rather than delivering on the promise of opportunity for rewarding careers and upward mobility.
Associated Press. (2017, Apr 27). Bill aimed at teacher shortage advances. Measure expands certification rules. Arizona Republic, pp. 1A, 4A.
Rau, A. B. (2017, Apr 24). Gov. Doug Ducey’s education plan helps Arizona’s welathiest. Retrieved from azcentral.com: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/04/24/gov-doug-duceys-education-plan-helps-arizonas-wealthiest/100652384/
Roberts, L. (2015, Jul 28). Sen. Steve Yarbrough makes oul like a…legislator…on tax-credit tuition program. Retrieved from azcentral.com: http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2015/07/28/steve-yarbrough-tax-credit-private-school-tuition/30760847/
Sanchez, Y. W. & O’Dell, R. (2017, Feb 1). Arizona school-voucher expansion afoot despite $102K of misspent funds in 6 months. Retrieved from azcentral.com: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/01/31/arizona-school-vouchers-expansion-audit/97163702/
Sanchez, Y.W., O’Dell, R. & Rau, A. B. (2017, Apr 7). Gov. Doug Ducey signs expansion of Arizona’s school-voucher program. Retrieved from azcentral.com: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/04/07/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-signs-school-voucher-expansion/100159192/
