Ed Superintendent Douglas Talking in Tucson Tuesday, Wednesday

1. If you get invited can you ask her when they will expand tax credits for private education? These parents are saving AZ lots of education money and are trying to pay tuition. They need to double the allowable credit.

2. Don’t think she will be longer than 8 p.m. at Main library tonight, as it closes then.

3. The fact is Douglas is a basically a non-entity when it comes to education policy in Arizona. Goldwater/ALEC, run the Governor’s office and the legislative majority, and they make education policy, generate lawsuits, and ignore her. She will say a few reasonable things, and focus, as usual, on how we killed common core, by rearranging a few chairs on the deck of the Titanic (most remain the same) , renaming it and voila, OUR standards. What Arizona really needs is to ABOLISH all those tax credits, which drain funds away from public schools, and cap and actually reduce the number of charter schools, and make them accountable. The legislature is hot on accountability for public schools, but not charters or private schools receiving public money. The legislature and the Gov., are hot on regulatory reform (which really means giving away the farm) except for public schools. Douglas is ignored in all this policy making. If she accidentally says something useful, the rest of the State doesn’t care.

4. Well Frances, you don’t get to say things that are not true without a response. In the 2015 National Assessment of Education progress, Arizona African Americans finished first in the nation in 8th grade math, Hispanics finished 11th and our white students finished 6th. My point is that school choice works.

5. When it comes to choice they would rather kill kids than educate them. Real progressive.

   Truth is public schools are losing their stranglehold on money. It makes them say and do crazy things.

6. John cherry picks data, then joins this cherry picking with non-sequiturs. There is absolutely no data that show there is any relationship. We can the thank the voters for their wisdom in this one case.

7. Eighty three % of AZ students attend public schools, JohnH, so your assessment that school choice works, has actually no bearing on the statistics you posted. And Frances nailed ed policy in AZ.

8. What’s cherry picked about the data? NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is the gold standard of education measurement, measuring results nationwide at 4th and 8th grade. Comparing our demographic groups with groups nationwide is the most scientific way of looking at the data. People are shocked at the results because they haven’t seen them. Let me repeat them: Arizona’s African Americans had the highest math scores in the nation at 8th grade. Our Hispanics ranked 11th and our white students ranked 6th. And, you’ve never seen this data before because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

9. That is not what they want to hear John. They just won’t admit it. 83% of Arizona children still attend public schools? That is disgusting.

   By the way, what they really want is 100% of the money.

10. What in the world is disgusting about sending children to public schools? What an odd choice of words. If you want to send your child to a private school, have at it — but use your own money, not my tax money.

11. Right John, No one’s ever looked at NAEP data before you. African Americans are probably one of the smallest sub groups in AZ. Let’s replicate it. Give us the methodology.

    Anyone can see the state report card for 2015 NAEP scores
    https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subj…

    Here’s a small part.”
    “In 2015, students who were eligible for free/reduced-price school lunch,
    an indicator of low family income, had an average score that was 33
    points lower than that for students who were not eligible. This
    performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998 (32
    points).

    That doesn’t fit your narrative either, does it. John? You have been a huge part of the problem in AZ education.

12. What’s your point? Is the Arizona gap larger than other states? I’ve had a records request in for the scores by free and reduced and by demographic group. But, we are likely to look even better under that analysis because we have a much larger free and reduced population than all but a few states.

13. Part of the probkem? In 1992, the year before school choice started in Arizona, juveniles committed 70 murders, in 2012, the most recent year of fbi stats, juveniles committed 7 murders despite a population that had more than doubled. Great things are clearly happening in our student population.

14. “It makes them say and do crazy things.”

    Yeah, crazy things, like progressives “would rather kill kids than educate them”.

    At least you’re consistent with your ignorance. Please keep up with your uninformative and untruthful posts, at least they’re good for a laugh! Believe me, that’s all they’re good for.

15. How are they “saving lots of education money” when we are paying them with tax credits and other state money? They’re not saving us anything and they’re failing to educate and socialize children well.

    Remove a few layers of administration from the public schools, pay teachers well enough to attract and retain more talented people, maybe even make school year-round (shown to very effective), provide up-to-date technology and materials to every school, and feed the children who come to school hungry (I think it’s 25% here). Then, watch the students shine!
    (fyi, I have no kids in schools here; I just think all kids, everyone’s kids, should have a good education and enough to eat)

16. We have the lowest administrative costs, $/student, in the nation. How much more administration can you remove? We are showing the way. Also, there is not one bit of evidence that given any student, take for example an Hispanic 4th grader from a two parent household earning $30,000 per year, that the academic gains of that student are lower than in any other state in the nation.

    In fact, the evidence is that our academic gains might be the highest in the nation. The combined math and reading NAEP gains from 2011 fourth graders to 2015 8th graders (2015 8th graders would have been in 4th grade in 2011) were the highest in the nation.

    If measuring test scores gives you a sense of school quality, our claim to number one is as good as any other state without an extensive regression analysis which has not been done, or if it has been done has not been published because saying Arizona is number one is politically incorrect.

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