Three points about Goldwater Institute’s Jonathan Butcher’s column on education funding in Arizona:
First, Butcher would like his readers to believe his framing of the sales tax supporters as the “education union,” knowing full well that supporters for the initiative cut across the spectrum of our state.
This is the same tired tactic that Goldwater used when the tax was first up for a vote in 2010, which means pretty soon they’ll trot out their scare tactic, that the sales tax will result in a loss of jobs in Arizona. That’s what they told us last time, but in the two years of the sales tax existence, the number of jobs has actually increased in Arizona.
Second, if Butcher were honest, he’d tell you that in the last 30 years, inflation-adjusted funding for education in Arizona has actually dropped. And he’d tell you that since 2008, more than a billion dollars has been cut from the K-12 budget.
Finally, since Butcher mentioned “competition,” one of his mantras to improve education in our state, he should note that since we’ve adopted the Butcher/Goldwater plan to have schools compete, education achievement continues to flat-lined.
He will, of course, say that the answer is even more competition, a pure voucher system. Which suggests that if we do more of what isn’t working now it will somehow work later.
Arizona Willie posted at 7:36 am on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
The Goldwater Institute seems to be very biased in the actions it takes against various government bodies.
It sued Glendale claiming the Constitution ( State ) prevents giving public money to private enterprises ... but ... the other day there was an article in the Arizona Republican that Phoenix was going to give the Biltmore Resort $200,000 to put in new windows and not a peep was heard from the Goldwater Institute.
So giving money to the hockey team is bad but giving money to a local resort is just fine.
Surely it doesn't depend on who owns the business getting the government largess ... does it?
Nahhh.
chatmandu002 posted at 9:33 am on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
A voter initiative (Quality Education and Jobs) to add a 1% sales tax for more money to education is a flawed process. Results of voter initiative are proving to cause more problems than helping. There is to much other stuff in this so-called "education tax" initiative that will make it a bitter pill down the road. Education should be funded though the state education fund. More money does not equate to better education.
Arizona Willie posted at 10:39 am on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
chatmandu002: the funding of education by the State of Arizona is 2 notches from the bottom of all 50 states.
Our students test near the bottom of all 50 states.
And you don't see any correlation in that?
More money may not GUARANTEE a better result --- but LITTLE MONEY does GUARANTEE a bad result.
Almost every week it seems there is another news story of a teacher / coach ( why do we have athletic coaches on the education payroll? ) molesting kids.
And we see articles like the one a few days ago that pointed out that Fountain Hills teachers have a starting salary of only $28,000 / year --- after having spend thousands to get their bachelors degree.
But you claim there is nor relation between poorly paid teachers and the results we get in the classroom, eh?
mnjcpa posted at 1:00 pm on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
Wow AZ Willie - what you've really done a great job pointing out is how flawed a system is when Big Government gets involved.
While states are the primary source of revenue, the federal share of spending for public education has risen sharply from 5.7 - 8.3% in the last 15 years even when you consider inflation and enrollment. So no, money thrown at something doesn't make the problem go away. And it's not the wonderful, creative teachers that benefit from this - it's the administrators and education unions that get the windfall.
VofReason posted at 1:42 pm on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
Ding ding ding. Right on mnjcpa. Parent involvement does more then money for education. I would make the additional case that how much discipline can be doled out also improves the outcome. My guess is that kids who went to a on room schoolhouse with teachers that could slap hands and parents that cared learned more then the 9K a head funded student do today. And fo Mike MCC, I think he answered his own question "Which suggests that if we do more of what isn’t working now it will somehow work later." Don't they come looking for more money every few years? How has that worked historically?
Cerulean posted at 2:03 pm on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
I would be for the Quality Education and Jobs Initiative, if I knew for certain that legislators could never get their grubby hands on 1 cent of it. Arizona Republicans are as corrupt as a long, hot June day in Phoenix. Every time voters initiate higher taxes for education, our legislators find ways to spend it elsewhere.
Arizona Willie posted at 2:11 pm on Mon, Jun 25, 2012.
VofReason you ask " Don't they come looking for more money every few years? How has that worked historically? "
Who knows? The Arizona Legislature has done nothing but CUT funding for education year after year.
They haven't increased funding for a long time.
Sure the school districts are always asking for more -- because the Legislature keeps cutting the funding.
So who knows what would have happened if they got increased funding? IT HASN'T HAPPENED.
pd posted at 7:42 am on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
Being a conservative who also values a strong democratic school system, I must say that Mike is right. Arizona has been going down the choice/charter road now for about 20 years. The test scores and student achievement for the charters is the same as the public schools, all "flat". Choice is great, but there is obviously some other problem with the schools.
Also, the idea that somehow the unions are taking and wasting massive amounts of public money is just not grounded in fact -- AZ is a right to work state. I doubt if most teachers are even members of the union, and the AEA gets its money from voluntary teacher donations. Back East there may be a problem with unions, but not here. And if the numbers are examined honestly, administration takes a very modest % of the budget -- In Gilbert Public Schools it's about 6%. Although "throwing money at the problem isn't the answer" is a favorite justification for not funding our schools adequately, common sense also tells us that at a certain point, not providing needed resources will have a negative effect. Arizona's school system is there now.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 7:44 am on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
Wow....who lifted up the rock..........time for the "V.O.R." to step in (Voice of Reason.....lol).
Most of the younger, half of the middle-aged and almost to a Man (Woman too...LOL)...teachers of Today are products of the .....DRUG-TOLERANT, TREE-HUGGING, BAMBI-LOVING, FLOWER-CHILD, ANTI-WAR, ANTI-CAPITALISM, ANTI-AMERICANISM, ANTI-WHITE FOUNDING FATHERS...GENERATION.
YOU HAVE PROBABLY SEEN MANY OF THE OLDER DEPARTMENT HEADS, PRINICIPALS, COLLEGE PRESIDENTS AND FACULTY DEANS........RUNNING AROUND WITH/WITHOUT CLOTHES ON YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF THE 1960'S AND 1970'S....................THE ...."I AM NOT A TEACHER.....I AM A MENTOR...A FRIEND TO OUR YOUTH OF TODAY. I WASN'T HIRED TO TEACH A SUBJECT, I WAS HIRED TO BE A PLEASANT MEMORY....A SHOULDER TO CRY ON....A "MR KOTTER"...A "MISS JEAN BRODIE".........I WAS HIRED TO ...."MAKE A DIFFERENCE"......NOT JUST HELP THE STUDENTS GET GOOD GRADES AND PASS THEIR TESTS......YOU KNOW...THE KIND THAT WANT A "HAPPY" STUDENT....NOT ONE THAT DOES WELL ON HIS/HER ..S.A.T. TESTS AND GETS INTO A GOOD UNIVERSITY.
JUST LOOK AT ALL THE TEACHER STRIKES AND WALK-OFF's AND LABOR TROUBLE IN NEW YORK CITY, WASHINGTON DC, CHICAGO, DETROIT, ATLANTA...ETC..................ALL CAUSED BY TEACHER'S UNIONS TO GET MORE AND MORE AND MORE MONEY COMING THEIR WAY.
HERE IN ARIZONA....WHICH IS A NO-STRIKE STATE...THEY HAVE USED A DIFFERENT TACT.......THEY WANT BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF MORE MONEY TO GO TO THE ......SCHOOL DISTRICTS......SO THEY CAN FINAGLE THE SCHOOL BOARDS TO .......RAISE THEIR SALARIES....RAISE THEIR ..."CADILLAC" PENSIONS AND ......"CAVIAR" HEALTH PLANS.
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO GOES ON ALL THESE.......TOURS AND CRUISES ALL OVER THE WORLD.............IT'S NOT THE HARD-WORKING TAX PAYING MIDDLE CLASS ARIZONIAN.............IT'S THE ......RETIRED TEACHERS...RETIRED FIREMAN....RETIRED POLICEMEN....RETIRED CITY HALL WORKERS...................THAT'S WHO.
MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION DOESN'T BUY ....BETTER TEACHERS....JUST..."BETTER-PAID"....TEACHERS.
mnjcpa posted at 9:43 am on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
Yeah you're on to something that the unions don't have impact. Clearly you haven't visited the Dept. of Education budget at $17 billion per year. In my world, that ain't pocket change.
If the Department of Education was eliminated, there's tons of progress that could be made with that money where all you see is failure now. And I believe the `teachers` should be paid similarly to what it takes to succeed in the private sector with incentive to succeed rather than some `half baked` government regulation that removes their creativity and genius at what they do best - teaching our kids.
VofReason posted at 12:34 pm on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
AZ Willie, I'll bite. You speak in relative terms. The logic of we currently pay X and it isn't working so we need to pay more is what we call in Business (aka The Real World) as bad logic. This is the process to get yourself out of business. To my knowledge, AZ still is spending 9K plus per student. If this is too little, what is the right amount to pay per student? Then, compare that against the Private school tuition and then their outcomes. This is the proper way to determine if you are getting what your paying for. My guess is we all know the answer to that. Oh by the way, I have a kid that just graduated from public HS with 3.8 and got a scholarship to college. Hmmm, maybe if you pay attention as a parent it works. But go ahead, ask for more money- I will vote no.
Arizona Willie posted at 1:57 pm on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
VofReason, our Republican legislature has been cutting funding for education year after year claiming that " throwing money at the problem " doesn't help.
So now, the fact is, Arizona's spending on education is very near the bottom of all 50 states. Only 2 states spend less than Arizona does.
Has cutting the education budget resulted in more efficient education? Have the test scores improved?
NO they have not.
Our students test near the bottom of students in all 50 states.
So, obviously, cutting the budgets of our education department has NOT improved results.
It does not seem that " starving the beast " is working.
Our Republican legislature has diverted money from public schools to charter schools ( via tax credits for giving money to charter schools ) claiming they do a better job.
But, in fact, the charter schools are not doing any better than the public schools ( most of them ). The only " advantage " of charter schools is being able to inculcate the kids in the religious cults associated with the charter school and keeping the " riff raff " out so kids don't have to associate with the " trashy " kids whose parents can't afford to send them to charter schools.
When you have public school teachers being paid $28,000 / year, how well motivated do you think they are? Do you really expect to hire experts in math / chemistry / physics for that kind of salaries?
They can make more working at a convenience store.
It is absurd that Phoenix has 52 school districts. I wonder how many schools there are and how many in each district.
I would agree that much money is wasted on duplicated administrations in all the different districts.
So there is a lot of waste in administration and also all athletic programs should be done away with.
If parents want their kid to try to be an athlete, they should pay for them to join some after school program run by private enterprise. An excellent business opportunity for retired pro-athletes.
Taxpayers should not be paying for all the athletic programs. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TEACHING JOHNNY TO READ.
Less than 1/10th of 1% of all kids will ever have a career as a pro athlete but 100% of taxpayers are paying to foster the unlikely dream in kids.
Mike McClellan posted at 3:21 pm on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
VofReason writes, "To my knowledge, AZ still is spending 9K plus per student. If this is too little, what is the right amount to pay per student? Then, compare that against the Private school tuition and then their outcomes."
I'd ask you to find a quality private school -- one with a solid reputation -- that charges less than what public schools receive. Brophy Prep? $14,000 a year. Seton Catholic here in the East Valley? Over $10,000. And when you look at purely private schools like Rancho Solano? Over $10,000 for kindergarten, over $17,000 for high school.
Arizona Willie posted at 4:35 pm on Tue, Jun 26, 2012.
Mr. McClellan -- I suspect that people who complain about $7K or $9K being spent per student are somewhat stuck back in the 70's and 80's when things didn't cost what they do today.
But if you take that $9K per student and divide it by the number of hours of class time in the average school year --- how much would it be per hour?
Not very much would be my guess.
When I went to a private boys high school run by the Jesuits the tuition was something in the neighborhood of $400 per semester.
I was stunned a year or two ago when the school looked me up for our 50th reunion and I found out tuition now was over $10 K!!!!
To most people that seems like a lot of money. To the people who can afford to send their kids there ( doctors, lawyers, and other thieves ) it's no big deal.
But, I bet that on a per hour basis, we spend less on having a kid in school than on a babysitter.
Things could be improved. We need to cut school districts by at least 2/3 and get rid of all in school athletic programs and double teacher pay.
But none of those things are likely to happen.
VofReason posted at 1:07 pm on Wed, Jun 27, 2012.
Hmmm, yes let's use the example of some of the more expensive private schools out there. I am pretty sure you can find private schools in the Valley for 9K a year or less. And there is that nettlesome thing called economy of scale that should make educating thousands more students much more cost efficient then any private school. Willie gives the right facts but makes the wrong reasoning. It is beacuase they have bloated administration and overpay for everything that they contantly ask for more money. Sports are a part of education. Are you saying that only kids who pay mobney should get exercise? Don't kids that participate in sports gain benefits that help in the classroom?
VofReason posted at 1:09 pm on Wed, Jun 27, 2012.
Oh and College tuition at Mesa Community college- about 3K a year with books. Does the fact that the feed the kids and bus some in add the additional 4K in cost per year? Doubt it. Maybe it has something to do with having to pay every teacher who retired and still alive since 1970 that has something to do with it? Oh I know I know, that comes from a different pot of money that has nothing to do with education- though all of it comes from the taxpayer. Oops
Arizona Willie posted at 4:15 pm on Wed, Jun 27, 2012.
VofReason, i have agreed that the administrative offices should be drastically cut. By about 2/3.
I don't know WHAT they pay for things and I doubt you do either, so I can't declare that they overpay. It's possible I just have no evidence to make that claim.
Do you?
As for the retirement benefits ... usually the worker makes a contribution to his retirement funds out of every paycheck and so does the employer.
Those fund go to a Pension Fund Adminstration where in investment gurus ( hopefully ) manage the money and invest in stocks and real estate and many things.
The retirement checks are paid out of earnings from those funds. The taxpayer is NOT paying Joe Teacher his monthly pension check. It is paid by the Pension Fund. Those fund are guaranteed by a special Government fund that steps in when a pension fund goes bankrupt -- and if that happens ( rare ) you could claim they were paid by the taxpayer -- but they also only get about 40% of their normal pension.
If the teacher's union has been suckered into abandoning defined benefit pensions and putting money into 401 K's and other investment frauds ( my opinion ) then the individual more or less manages his own money that was put into the fund.
Again the TAXPAYER is not paying the monthly pension checks.
Mike McClellan posted at 5:54 pm on Wed, Jun 27, 2012.
VofReason writes, "I am pretty sure you can find private schools in the Valley for 9K a year or less. "
Go ahead and find a few that have a good reputation for quality education.
And while I agree that some districts have bloated administrations, does VofReason have any idea what the average percentage of a district's budget goes to administration? He can find out every district in the state by going to azauditor.gov.
samkat posted at 7:32 pm on Wed, Jun 27, 2012.
It would be interesting to see if the charter/private schools would fare the same or better as public schools if their progress was actually measured the same as public schools. Furthermore since my tax dollars are being diverted to fund private schools I would like to see their financial books audited.
Arizona Willie posted at 7:40 am on Thu, Jun 28, 2012.
Can any of the teachers / ex-teachers tell me how many hours kids attend classes these days? It is probably different for grade school and high school. But it would be interesting to know how many hours of teaching time we get for the $7k - $9K that are spent per pupil.
How much we spend per hour on educating kids.
I'm betting it's less than the price of a Whopper at Burger King on a per hour basis.
If you look at education on a per hour basis I think you would probably have to declare it one hell of a bargain.
Mike McClellan posted at 8:54 am on Thu, Jun 28, 2012.
Two things:
As samkat implies above, we have no way of judging the effectiveness of private shcools beyond anecdotal evidence, since here in AZ, like most states, private schools are not tested as public schools are.
Arizona Willie, in AZ today, kids are required to be in school for 180 days, though some districts go to 185. You can do the math on the per day cost -- I'm an English teacher, after all.
davidflucier posted at 8:53 am on Mon, Jul 9, 2012.
Take any metric and by any and every measure, Arizona schools are failing and the failure is even greater when you start to compare Arizona students to students across the globe.
Almost 50% of students graduating from an Arizona high school don't qualify for a college or university.
About 30% of Arizona students drop out of high school before completing their studies.
Over $2 billion has been cut out of the educational budget by our legislature and Governor here in Arizona (K- University) in the last two years.
We have more Veterans in Arizona who are homeless and in our prison and jail system than we do in our university system.
The per student funding levels have been rolled back to 1960's inflation adjusted levels and we rank 48 out of 50 in that funding category.
20% of the entire population of Arizona lives at or below the federal poverty level.
50% of all advanced degrees in the STEM areas are awarded to non US citizens, and once those non US students are done with their studies, they are promptly required to leave the country (brain drain). We are educating our future competition.
Two thirds of all jobs that will be created in Arizona will require a post secondary education, training or certification.
In the meantime, our Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, the person who is supposed to be advocating for public education in Arizona, hides in his little bunker near the Capitol trying to figure out how to keep the DoEd's computers from imploding because the computers are so ancient, the original suppliers don't support any of the hardware or software any more. And his predecessor, Tom Horne, colluded with the Legislature to help dismantle the Arizona public school system on every level.
The disdain for public education in Arizona has reached an all time high with the rise of the extremist, fundamentalist politicians at a time when the basic American value for education is needed now more than ever.