Tag: Charter Schools
Arizona’s Summer Camps Adjusting To COVID-19 Requirements. See more state education and legislative news here
Many Arizona parents are trying to figure out how their kids are going to spend the summer.
Lots of those kids would normally be going to summer camp — and they may still, but with the pandemic, several of those programs have changed.
To learn what this summer might look like, The Show spoke with Karen Barr, publisher, editor and founder of Raising Arizona Kids Magazine, which puts together an annual list of summer camp options.
Local Education Spotlight — K-12 Education Year in Review: Remote learning, traditions and new developments in Flagstaff. See more local education news here
Following an executive order from Gov. Doug Ducey in March to slow the spread of COVID-19, Arizona schools postponed the return of their students after spring break. Locally, however, that delay only increased as Flagstaff Unified School District, public charters and private schools worked to protect students while also continuing their education and traditions as one school year became another. Here are Flagstaff’s top K-12 education stories from 2020:
As public schools grow more diverse, school board elections are largely determined by white voters. See more national education news here
It’s well known that America’s teachers don’t look much like the country’s students. It turns out that the voters who elect America’s school boards don’t, either.
A new study appears to be the first of its kind to quantify the demographic mismatch, and it’s sizable. Across four states, including California, researchers estimate that school board voters are much whiter and more affluent than the public school student body.
In districts serving mostly students of color, like San Diego and San Francisco, the disparities are particularly striking, nearly 50 percentage points.
Education alliance completes statewide tour to raise attainment. See more state education news here
Achieve60AZ has reached its goal of meeting with community leaders from every county to find tangible solutions to close the achievement gap in Arizona.
The grassroots alliance, dedicated to meeting our state goal of 60 percent educational attainment among Arizona adults by the year 2030, wrapped up its year-long statewide tour on November 7, meeting with leaders in Cochise County.
“Our goal will not be reached by simply talking to people in Maricopa County,” said Achieve60AZ Executive Director Rachel Yanof. “This is a goal for the entire state, so we wanted to make sure leaders across the state were aware and all in. We know Mohave County’s problems are not the same as Pima’s or as Yavapai’s. We wanted to get people all across our great state thinking about what they and their community can do to best reach our 60 percent attainment goal.”
Opinion: To lift children’s score and prospects, teaching must start earlier. See more national education news here
Many of us — teachers, parents, policymakers, business leaders — have been wringing our hands at the Oct. 30th release of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores —also known as “the nation’s report card.” And rightfully so.
The NAEP report reveals not only a stagnation in average reading and math scores over the past decade, but “a growing divergence in achievement between the highest and lowest achieving students.”
Arizona School Resource Officers to undergo voluntary mental health training. See more state education news here
School resource officers across Arizona are getting new training starting next week.
The idea came from a state lawmaker who didn’t agree with Governor Doug Ducey’s plan just to add more SROs. She says the issue is training them.
Representative Alma Hernandez tweeted the governor during his state of the state address earlier this year, saying Arizona needs counselors, not cops. Hernandez believes SROs need the training to identify students in a mental health crisis or how to de-escalate a situation.
National Reading Emergency: Educators Sound the Alarm. See more national education news here
STUDENTS IN THE U.S. are getting worse at reading, and a dozen education and civil rights organizations sounded the alarm over what they say is a national crisis.
The clarion call comes after the reading scores dropped among fourth-graders in 17 states and eighth-graders in 31 states at the same time that the achievement gap between the highest-performers and the lowest-performers grew.
Education groups consider measure to tax rich – and poor. See more state education news here
The activists behind last year’s Invest in Education Act are considering a comeback – they’re eyeing a sales tax hike, an idea they have routinely rejected in the past as regressive and detrimental to the poor.
After seeing their proposal thrown off the ballot last year, they’re making other major changes aimed at garnering broader support, maybe even from foes.
Several education groups familiar with the plan said the coalition shifted its focus to a hybrid of income and sales tax increases that would raise roughly $1.2 billion annually. Of that amount, $500 million would come from raising the state sales tax by four-tenths of a penny, bringing the sales tax dedicated to education to a full cent.
Charter School and Public School Students Have Same Academic Performance, Report Finds. See more national education news here
A new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) finds that charter school and public school students have the same academic performance in testing conducted at the fourth- and eighth-grade level.
Support grows nationwide for paying teachers more. See more national education news here
Most Americans believe that K-12 schools deserve more money, the federal government should chip in a bigger share of education costs and a college education — especially at community colleges — should be tuition-free, according a nationwide education poll released (Aug. 20)
