Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/543920
6 Summer 2015 | AEA Advocate weighing the Good and Bad from the 2015 Legislative Session ne positive for students, educators and those working in our schools is there was some stability in the fact that Arizona is continuing with the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards. State leaders did not yank the rug out from under educators as they have often done. Legislators resisted the ideology and the campaign of misinformation which still dominates conversations about the standards. I think legislators took a balanced approach in wanting to review those. In the past our state had academic standards and we certainly have reviewed them after a period of time. That's good. As long as the review that takes place is practitioner-centered, student-centered, and devoid of a reactionary agenda, it could be a very good approach. We saw again some bipartisan efforts to control the drain of funding away from public schools and into this debit card voucher scheme that is devoid of accountability and rife with problems. At least the most egregious efforts to take money from our public schools—which are accountable and are transparent—and divert them into corporate and private schemes were I would say minimized. It wasn't controlled completely. This is a double-edged sword. We saw some really mean-spirited, dishonest attempts to gag educators from speaking to their own communities about the impact of political issues. Thankfully, those went nowhere. On the downside, the bills were proposed and they went pretty far through the session. In fact, if the Senate had not sine died early, one wonders what would have become of Shooter's gag bill. It's good that there was a lot of resistance that it didn't go through, but it's just a sad commentary on politics in Arizona that it was even proposed and went as far as it did. Unfortunately, the budget that was passed A) does represent a cut to education funding, B) did not receive an honest accounting from our governor and C) even The Arizona Republic and several prominent media sources close to the capital used terms like shell game, spin game to describe how the governor was trying to conceal a funding cut and take credit for an increase that was formula driven and just tied to enrollment. In fact, the only funding increases put into K-12 was either court-ordered or formula driven and reflected no political will on the governor's part or leadership's part whatsoever. We still see a policy preference to shift money and support away from the choice that parents overwhelmingly make and that's our district, neighborhood public schools – the choice of over 80 percent of parents. But the governor is enacting policies that he hasn't even outlined yet with budget appropriations to charter schools. The problem with that is the very charter schools he's celebrating are among the most selective, exclusive, and have the biggest departure rates of students. They are clearly not a system that you can scale up. But nevertheless, he and the legislative leadership seem to think that parents are making the wrong choice by choosing district public schools. Despite our efforts, there was a loss of public funds to failed voucher schemes that represent waste, redundancy and certainly point to some corrupt practices with one bill passing that will expand eligibility by 70,000 students. That was a strong-arm move where legislators who were not supportive of it were harassed by legislative leadership in the final hours to vote on something they really didn't support. Thank you for your activism, members. Your emails and calls to legislators ensure our elected officials hear concerns and stories from Arizona educators on policy and budget decisions. Your visits to the Capitol ensure there is an educator presence in the Arizona Legislature. As you look over the many bills we successfully defeated this session, be proud of your efforts. You made a difference! n Andrew F. Morrill President, AEA At tHE cAPitOL Photo Credit: Arrazola T. (Photographer). 2012, July 8, 2015 from commons.wikimedia.org.