- Image courtesy of shutterstock.com
Let’s move the focus off of Ed Supe-elect Diane Douglas and check out what’s happening education-wise with our Governor-elect Doug Ducey. He’s chosen his three education advisers for the transition period: Lisa Graham Keegan, Matthew Ladner and Erik Twist. It’s not exactly Lincoln’s Team of Rivals. No one from a school district on the team — teacher, administrator or superintendent — only people from the conservative privatization/”education reform” part of town. The three are cut out of pretty much the same cloth in terms of their educational priorities, which is pretty much the same cloth Ducey is cut from. If Ducey follows their advice, here’s the education agenda we’ll be hearing out of the governor’s office for the next four years: No more money for K-12 schools than is absolutely, legally necessary; a redistribution of education funds to favor charters and high-rent school districts; and a push for more vouchers. Most likely Ducey will advocate for Common Core as well, though it’s hard to say what form that will take.
Let’s take a look at the three advisers.
First, Lisa Graham Keegan. Two decades ago when Keegan was in the legislature, she sponsored a bill to create vouchers, and it had a good chance of passing. To head off the voucher bill, Democrats and teachers unions reluctantly decided to back a bill creating charter schools that made it easy to start a charter and assured that the new schools would be lightly regulated and have minimal oversight. Keegan became Ed Supe directly after and set up the system that guaranteed Arizona would be the Wild West of charter schools. When she left office, she became a mainstay of the national “school choice” movement. For the past few years, she’s been pushing for a new system of distributing public education funds here in Arizona which would result in moving money in the direction of charter schools as well as school districts that serve children from high income families. That would mean less money for schools with the hardest-to-reach students. Keegan supported David Garcia in the recent Ed Supe election, not because she’s become more progressive, but because she fears Diane Douglas’ Tea Party education agenda, and she felt she could trust Garcia to be a reasonable actor in the job, even though she doesn’t agree with him on many issues.
Next, Matthew Ladner. Ladner served as the Goldwater Institute’s education guy for a number of years, until he left to become the Senior Advisor of Policy and Research at Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. He’s a smart guy in general, but he’s a near genius when it comes to research that begins with the conclusion he wants and works its way backward to the facts and faux-facts that make the conclusions look good. Ladner supports education privatization in pretty much every form it can take and has pushed vouchers hard for years. He’s the co-author of ALEC’s yearly Report Card on American Education.
Finally, Erik Twist. Twist has the thinnest resume of the three. He was assistant principal at BASIS Scottsdale charter until he moved over to the Great Hearts charter chain, where he taught, was a headmaster and now oversees Great Hearts’ K-5 schools. That means he’s worked for two of the premier charter chains for high achieving students — though unlike BASIS, Great Hearts is willing to reach out to lower achieving students in less affluent areas with its “separate but equal” policy of setting up schools in low income neighborhoods specifically for those students, a policy that got them banned from opening schools in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the places they were looking to expand their charter network. Twist’s 15 minutes of fame came in 2012 when he sent an email to the parents of the Great Hearts school where he was headmaster advising them to vote against Proposition 204, which would have created a one cent sales tax for education. State law prohibits the use of school equipment for election advocacy. He complained in the email that Prop. 204 would “throw taxpayer money indiscriminately” at schools. However, Great Hearts pushes each parent to contribute $1,500 per student per year, saying it can’t run its schools on state funding alone.
There you have it, the three people helping Ducey set his education agenda. I imagine sometime or other, he’ll probably invite someone connected with school districts and a teachers union rep in for tea so he can say he’s listened to their ideas.
This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2014.
Looks to me like good things are coming. This is what happens when you win an election.
Maybe next time you should focus on ideas, moving forward rather than character assassinations and mud slinging.
What an outstanding team! Just what we need to break the union/NEA monopoly that has failed for generations to craft a workable public school system for low income students. Time to MoveOn to a new, more FORWARD thinking education model. Break the mold. Vouchers to parents create maximum flexibility for students and parents. I applaud Mr. Ducey’s flexible and dynamic strategy for moving our education system from a 19th century model into the 21st Century. Let’s teach our students American exceptional-ism and mold them into the amazing CITIZENS they are destined to be.
Not to mention that this directly benefits those in the poorest communities. Equal funding, equal opportunity.
You know the ones the Dems say they are fighting to represent.
With friends like Dems who needs enemies?
Wow, Rat, how much kool-aid did you drink?
Double standards are evident in both the column and the comments. The column chastises Mr. Twist for using school equipment for election advocacy. Where were the protests from Mr. Safier when supporters of the Grijalvas (both father and daughter) used TUSD’s equipment to campaign for their re-election? And the use of Great Heart schools communication network for campaigning was miniscule compared to the use by Grijalva supporters of TUSD’s resources for campaigning.
And then we have the far right folks who support the giveaway of taxpayer money in the form of vouchers with absolutely no accountability for how the voucher money is spent, whether students achieve or not, or how much of the money is misappropriated (or stolen) by the owners and managers of the private schools who get it. Are these the same people who complain about the misuse of taxpayer funds by members of the Pima County Board of Supervisors? Taxpayers deserve accountability for how their hard earned tax dollars are used. These tax dollars should not be used to make donations to the favorite charities of Pima County elected officials, nor should they be used to promote anyone’s religion.
The bottom line is that there is no research done by academics who have no dog in the voucher fight that proves vouchers increase student performance when you include the other variables that are known to have huge impacts on student performance such as poverty, having two parents instead of one, living in violent areas, etc…
I could agree Marty if you could show me a conviction for fraud, theft or other criminal activity in TUSD. Accountability for results? HS graduates that can’t read,spell, or make change?
Why does it matter which “criminals” get the money?
It must be agenda driven.
David, David, David. Quit being so catty, I didn’t get an invitation either.
” but he’s a near genius when it comes to research that begins with the conclusion he wants and works its way backward to the facts and faux-facts that make the conclusions look good. “
Competition should not scare you David. We watch you do this with great regularity….Every column.
Harold, Harold, Harold. Both Harold and David are beautiful names. I agree, they deserve to be written three times, every time.
You go Ducey! Get rid of that Common Core Crap ASAP!!!
Marty, I think that the accountability for how the money is spent rests firmly in the hands of the parent(s) of the student. Who in this world would have a stronger incentive to spend the money wisely? Marty clearly is a Tea Party member. He is not a hypocrite. Therefore, he is for either eliminating the use of Food stamp money, welfare money, and ADC money, or tighter accountability to prevent recipients from misappropriating these taxpayer dollars. Bravo Marty! Welcome to the dark side. Or, perhaps Marty is a big government progressive? Would you like to see government regulated stores established for these recipients to prevent misappropriation of taxpayer dollars?
No matter what the “benevolent” right-wingers claim, school choice is not for the “poor disadvantaged children.” Many of those kids will never have the opportunity to attend a BASIS charter school or private school because their parents can’t get them to the school that’s outside the community in which they live. In 2012, over 90% of the kids who got tuition help from “tax dollars”, didn’t really need the help, their parents could afford the school on their own. Bottom line is that parents shouldn’t have to make a choice! Every public community school should be a great school. The privatization of public education will only widen the gap between the haves and have nots, just as Ducey and his ilk have planned.
I was just reading through TW articles and thinking to myself that the right wing nut jobs were out in full force. Then I realized that there are only 3 of them basically just patting each other on the back scrutinizing every article.
Realpatriot-What is keeping anybody from opening a Charter or Private school wherever they would like?
…and then “parents shouldn’t have to make a choice?”
Every public community school is not a great school, and will never be.
Stop with the socio economic discrimination cries. It sounds just like a cousin to the race card.
Get to work on solutions, not defending the problems.
moyla 75 It may serve you better to try thinking about the majority of readers of the TW. Why would “right wing nut jobs” come here to be called names?
And then the left cries about bullies….WTH?
Is it any wonder that some say liberalism is a mental disorder?
Could we just comment and debate the facts without the name calling?
March to the bottom. Why I retired.
Privatization of education hasn’t improved education anywhere.
That is truest in public education. It’s rankings in the world continue to drop.
Well, Davey boy, my friends call me Harry. And for those who are not the least bit curious my middle name is Richard ;-}
Well, Real Patriot {can I call you “RP”?}, you are wrong. As a fiscal conservative taxpayer money should only be supporting the public school system an nothing else. Charter schools are an aberration and vouchers are simply another lie for those people who want the taxpayer to foot the bill for a private education. You may not want to agree but this is a point on which more conservatives agree than are given credit.
Harry, Harry, Harry, I will be very disappointed in you if you don’t realize how patronizing it is to begin a comment by repeating someone’s name three times. That’s why lately I just skim your comments quickly rather than taking the time to read them. Your opening tells me their main purpose is to demonstrate your disdain for me and your overblown estimation of the quality of your intellect. Harry m’boy, I’m simply not interested.
Davey, unlike you, I take nothing you write seriously. Well, not entirely because every once in a while you inadvertently drift back toward the center where the majority truly reside. My openings are intentionally patronizing as well as antagonistic. Also, and this may shock you but you are not the only person reading my comments. I may garner more dislikes than you but it is still someone besides you who reads my comments.
I could respect more what you write if it were truly representative of the centrists and the facts. When you post links that are intentionally skewed you prostitute yourself and besmirch the profession you claim a kinship to. You may choose to pander to the “easy” audience but if you want to truly make a difference you will offer more than plain ridicule.
Talk is cheap and here it couldn’t be cheaper.
I wish we could debate the issue instead of argue with the author.
Well, RatT, it is really the same. The chosen topics are usually an impetus for us to agree…or not.
Harold, thanks for your honesty. If you take little I write seriously, then it follows that I should treat your comments similarly.
Well Davey, you just do what you gotta do because I’m certainly not going to force you to read any of my comments or take anything seriously….even the one previous to this one. Why I’m even typing this one with my clown nose on.
Are you sure you aren’t one of those narrow minded conservatives?
The big difference, boys, is that for-profit Charter schools have NO elected boards. That means they are appointed. Given, that they are appointed, parents, students, nor teachers have any say in how it is run. That means if your kid has a bad day, they can kick him out for anything.
As long as we have public schools, we can still vote on who runs the school. (…except if you are TUSD, the exception to the rule, or other boards bought out by for-profit businessmen who paid for election campaigns.) Maybe we ought to rally around our public services before they go away. WAKE UP! This has been done already in other cities like New Orleans, Detroit, and etc. and the results are NOT good. You don’t hear about the mass lay offs and the lawsuits underway.
This is the next generation, who will put your ass in the grave early because they are ignorant of their history, and don’t know how to read because YOU didn’t fund it, but made money off the system, that in truth, wasn’t really that bad. (unless you believe all the propaganda).