Tuesday, 4 January 2000



Schools a hot topic for lawmakers



Benjie Sanders,
The Arizona Daily Star
``I'm not willing to sit on the sidelines anymore,'' says Tucson parent Evie Conlon
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0104N3.html

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The Arizona Legislature opens Monday and will run at least 75 days. The Star this week examines key issues facing lawmakers.
TODAY: Schools face crowded classrooms and a teacher shortage.
TOMORROW: Building a state hospital is the easy part compared with fixing the mental health system.
THURSDAY: Lawmakers want health maintenance organizations to be more responsive to doctors and patients.
FRIDAY: Should tobacco money go for health insurance or tax cuts?
SATURDAY: Managing rapid growth and saving sensitive lands.
SUNDAY: How state government touches a Tucson family's daily life.

TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK

Dial 1-800-352-8404 or write to lawmakers at 1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007.
The Legislature's Web site, http://www.azleg.state.az.us , includes e-mail addresses.
By Rhonda Bodfield Sander
The Arizona Daily Star

On his first day of kindergarten, 6-year-old Garrett Conlon crowded with 31 other pupils into one 800-square-foot classroom at his eastside school.
It was intimidating enough that Garrett and four of his friends didn't want to go to school, said his mother, Evie.
``It never occurred to me that Arizona would be so low on per-pupil spending and achievement,'' said Conlon, an Air Force reservist who moved to Tucson 18 months ago for her husband's Air National Guard job.
``I'd go home and ask my husband: `Can you still get that job with the Vermont National Guard? It's not too late. We can still move, can't we?' ''
About a month into the session, her son's class at Collier Elementary School was split into two groups of 18 - the smallest class his teacher has ever had in 34 years of teaching.
The teacher recently wrote to lawmakers to say that her kids, halfway through the year, are at the same place her class would normally be at the end of the year.
But most of the first-grade classes have about 30 kids, and Conlon is worried about what will happen next year.
``How do they expect a teacher to reasonably educate that many children?'' she asks. ``Lawmakers have recognized the importance of having acceptable facilities, but isn't the learning the kids do in school as important as the four walls they learn in?''
In a state the National Education Association ranks 47th in the nation on per-pupil spending, lawmakers are expected to wrestle with that question more than any other this year.
Freed up from budget negotiations because of a two-year budget they approved last year, lawmakers are supposed to focus on policy issues.
There are proposals to reduce class sizes, to schedule more instruction days during the school year and to boost salaries to avert an anticipated teacher shortage.
Every plan would cost millions of dollars. Gov. Jane Hull, who launched her term by promising to be the education governor, has cautioned lawmakers to look at the budget before embarking on any pricey overhauls of the system.
Before any new bills are passed, lawmakers have to pump $53 million more into school operations because they underestimated student growth.

They also low-balled how much the Students FIRST school facilities plan needed in start-up money, so they're expected to pay another $128 million to construct new buildings and correct deficiencies at schools around the state.
Those two pieces alone eat up most of the state's expected $200 million budget surplus, before lawmakers even talk about other needs, from prisons to indigent health care.
Still, advocates of the plans are undaunted. Rep. Kathleen Dunbar, R-Tucson, is expected to sponsor a bill to cut classroom sizes to no more than 20 in grades one through three over three years. ``We just find the money,'' she said.
In Tucson Unified School District, the average kindergarten class size is 26 pupils. That number grows to 29 in grades one through three, and hits about 30 from there throughout high school.
The Tucson Education Association, the district's teachers union, estimates it would cost $1.3 million to lower class size by one pupil districtwide - both to pay more teachers and find more classrooms.
Some national studies indicate small class sizes help student learning.
In Tennessee, Project STAR followed 12,000 students from first grade through the end of high school. Researchers found the students in smaller classes, with 13 to 17 children, outperformed those in regular-sized classrooms on standardized achievement tests. They were also more likely to go on to college.
Researcher Helen Bain, a former teacher herself, said states aghast at spending that much money should think in terms of saving the cost of putting a failing child back through the same grade. High school graduates also make on average $5,000 a year more than dropouts, she said.
Teachers of smaller classes not only have fewer discipline problems, but they have more time for home visits and faster feedback on tests.
``We asked the teachers at the end of the year, if they could have a $2,000 raise or a small class next year, what would they want? About 98 percent said, `Give me the small class' - and they don't pay big money in Tennessee,'' Bain said.
Dunbar's bill will be competing with other big-money proposals.
Rep. Dan Schottel, a Tucson Republican who chairs the House Education Committee, will be carrying an Arizona Department of Education-backed bill to expand the school year. With the national average at 182 teaching days, Arizona is already seven days behind at 175. The new AIMS test that districts started giving last year takes away four days of that, on top of the other standardized tests districts already give.
Five more days, according to Education Department spokesman John Shilling, would cost $100 million. The department would also like $24 million for three more teacher training days and $30 million for summer school and after-school programs for students who fail the AIMS test, which the Class of 2002 will be required to pass to graduate.
It would cost more money still to guard against an anticipated teacher shortage.
The Arizona Education Association is supporting a three-pronged approach that would boost salaries, forgive student loans and provide an alternate route to teacher certification if districts experience shortages.
``Kids leaving high school are getting jobs in computers starting at $30,000 a year, and beginning teacher salaries are $24,000 after four years of college, and you have to wonder why anybody would make that choice anymore,'' lamented Mary Kay Havilland, the association lobbyist.
Just getting the state's 44,000 teachers to the nationwide average of $40,000 a year - $5,000 more than teachers here get paid - would cost $200 million.
Becky Montaño, TUSD's assistant superintendent for learning, said that with a large number of teachers retiring, the need for teachers is becoming a serious problem. The district has standing openings now for teachers in math, science, bilingual education and special education. The problem is, people with a knack for math and science are finding more lucrative jobs, she said.
Classes are being covered with substitutes in some cases, although the district reports problems getting substitutes as well. Last month the TUSD Governing Board approved a pay increase to lure more substitutes.
As for Evie Conlon, the mother of a kindergartner, she's planning to watch the Legislature closely this year. She's recently started taking it upon herself to go to TUSD board meetings and to attend legislative hearings on education issues, and she's got a lot to say:
Character education? That's the parents' job. Let teachers teach.
More classroom days? The money would be better spent lowering class sizes.
``I think parents haven't been doing their part. As aggressively as we watch out for our children's safety, we need to look at the education they're receiving. I'm not willing to sit on the sidelines anymore.''

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Links:
The Arizona State Legislature
Education in Arizona


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