Arizona is one step closer to offering prospective teachers a new pathway into the profession. 

The state Senate last week passed SB 1159, sponsored by Sen. Rick Gray, R-Peoria, legislation that expands the ways a person can attain a teaching certificate and crucial training. 

Arizona previously made reforms to the teacher certification system in 2016 and 2017 that removed some of the bureaucratic hurdles for hiring qualified teachers and expanded the accessible talent pool. The Subject Matter Expert (SME) teaching pathway has allowed more than 3,000 individuals to begin teaching in areas where they possess expertise in a subject matter. 

Currently available to those teaching grades 6-12, SB 1159 would expand the SME certification pathway to be available for those teaching grades K-12.  

“As a non-traditionally certified teacher myself, I have a firm belief that if you have the right mindset about wanting to serve children, having high expectations, and care about their wellbeing, we can train you to be a great teacher,” said Matt Simon, vice president of government affairs & advocacy for Great Leaders Strong Schools, during Senate Education Committee testimony on the bill. “This bill represents the next phase to empower local school leaders. I trust local school leaders about their hiring of talent.” 

The legislation also expands the Classroom-Based Preparation Program to allow individuals without a Bachelor’s degree to enter the training program and complete their training while working towards finishing their degree. The Preparation program has various stipulations, including that the individual cannot regularly instruct students unless they are in the presence of a full-time teacher, a certified teacher, an instructional coach or an instructional mentor, unless the candidate has a separate certification, such as a substitute certificate. 

This new pathway represents an approach for those to be able to gain crucial training and experience, while also completing their degree. This could include individuals already employed at the school who are looking for ways to grow in their career and need affordable and accessible pathways. 

The bill also requires the Arizona Department of Education to report on the number of certified teachers in the state and how they achieved their teaching license.  

Groups supporting this bill include Great Leaders Strong Schools, the Arizona Charter Schools Association, and Arizona Parents for Education.  

The Arizona Education Association and the Arizona School Administrators Association, which represent the interests of current school employees, are among the opponents of the legislation, but bill sponsor Gray was unpersuaded by their arguments when the bill was heard during committee.

“If we don’t allow, out of hand-wringing and fear, those people that have qualifications, those people that have a passion and the desire to educate our youth, then we are short-changing our children,” he said. “It’s been reinforced over and over and over again how desperately we need teachers in the classroom, and this bill gives the potential for people that have that ability, it gives them the opportunity to come in and serve in an area of passion for them. The potential for good far outweighs any concern.” 

The bill passed the Senate 16-12 and is currently awaiting a committee hearing in the House.

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Advocates for reforms to Arizona’s system of funding K-12 schools presented their views to state lawmakers at a luncheon on Monday.

“I don’t think there is a more prime opportunity for the Legislature to take this on, considering the state’s historic investments in education and the federal dollars schools have on hand,” said Matthew Simon, vice president for government affairs and advocacy for Great Leaders Strong Schools. “This is an opportunity to reform our system to ensure we have a K-12 student funding system that funds students the same regardless of the types of public school they attend.”

The group and its allies believe the funding system should be reshaped to fund students more equally, regardless of whether the student attends a public district school or a public charter school, or whether the school is an urban, suburban, or rural area. In addition, the system should reflect the state’s robust school choice options.

A recent poll conducted by nationally recognized firm Public Opinion Strategies found that nearly 80% of Arizona voters believe every K-12 student should be funded the same way regardless of what school they attend or where they live. Seventy percent of respondents said they would support a new funding formula.

The poll of 500 voters was conducted last month and has a margin of error of 4.38%.

“It is very promising that voters see something wrong with the current system and are becoming more interested in a true student-centered funding system,” Simon said. 

The current K-12 funding formula fluctuates depending on the type of school, the makeup of the local property tax base, the student mix, and whether voters in the jurisdiction have supported bonds and budget overrides. District schools are funded with a mix of state and local tax dollars, while charter schools cannot access local dollars.

The complexity of the funding formula, say reform advocates, does not treat students the same based on where they are attending school, but rather is still largely calibrated around systems. 

School districts must campaign during elections to raise property taxes so that schools may receive increased funding, but a statewide per-student funding formula would eliminate the need for local bond and override elections. 

“Districts with lower property value and less cooperative voters have much more trouble securing bonds and increased funding for their schools,” Simon said. “A state student funding formula wouldn’t just make economic sense for these districts, but we hope that all districts would do the economic math and realize that it is the better option. We want to provide a glide path for these districts to make this choice.” 

Simon also discussed the formula used to calculate funding for school transportation. The current formula does not account for the major changes in enrollment that some school districts have experienced over the past 20 years. 

“You have districts like Tucson Unified School District, which are down nearly 30% in enrollment in the last 20 years, and yet they still receive funding for student transportation as if their enrollment was at an all-time high,” Simon said. “And this money that they receive does not have to be spent on transportation. The transportation formula is flawed.” 

Reform advocates in 2021 backed legislation passed by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey to establish a $20 million competitive grant program to enable district and charter schools, local governments and non-profit groups to modernize student transportation and make it easier for families to access schools other than their assigned location or schools not near a city bus line. Under the program, districts and charters can also provide direct grants to families for transportation needs, whether direct commutes, carpools, K-12 ridesharing, or public transit.

Advocates this year are supporting legislation that would increase flexibility in the types of vehicles education providers can integrate into their fleets.

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Imagine you’ve just moved into the Arizona State Capitol – great bones, but it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.

You need to find a school for your 7^th grader. Within a mile-and-a-half, there are 5 middle schools. But inside 3 miles, your options expand to 19 public schools – many with high ratings and strong reviews.

Just one problem: like thousands of Phoenix families, you don’t have a car – meaning your child is effectively limited to the single middle school served by the school bus route. So much for school choice.

Gov. Ducey and legislators began that process this year with approval of a $20 million competitive grant program. The pilot will enable district and charter schools, local governments and non-profit groups to submit innovative proposals for student transport.

The fact is, more than half of K-8 students in metro Phoenix attend a school other than the one assigned to them according to their address. A growing number of families are taking advantage of a broad menu of school options, including district, charter, online, micro-schools and more. Yet, until now, Arizona’s K-12 transport system – and the funding that supports it – has remained yoked to the increasingly outdated model of diesel-belching yellow school buses we all remember from our childhood.

Today, nearly 2 out of 3 students nationally travel to school each day in a household vehicle, walk or ride a bike;. The trend long preceded the pandemic, but has accelerated in the past two years amid a widespread bus driver shortage that has sent schools scrambling and led to canceled routes and frustrated families.

Just like there is no single style of school that meets the needs of all students, Arizona requires a multifaceted approach to student transport. The first round of, with awardees proposing everything from on-demand micro-transit solutions like vans, to app-based carpooling, rideshare and more. Midtown Primary School in central Phoenix will even use grant funds to create what it calls a “walking school bus,” which will involve use of staff members, adults and walking ropes to help young students safely walk to and from school and navigate busy intersections.

Another common sense solution involves realigning municipal bus routes and bus stops so that they can be more useful to students. A Minneapolis program to give monthly bus passes to high-school students resulted in reduced truancy and improved GPAs. Surveyed students said the added flexibility of the municipal system helped them both get to school and participate in afterschool activities. Arizona schools have the opportunity to partner with local governments and non-profits to create similar cooperative efforts.

During the past legislative session, South Phoenix parent Alysia Garcia told lawmakers that – as an open enrollment transfer family for the last decade – her family has solely borne the expense of taking her kids to and from school every day. That’s 5,600 trips totaling over 62,000 miles.

“What is the point of having a great open enrollment policy if families aren’t able to utilize it?” Garcia asked. “I’m fortunate to have a vehicle to transport my kids. What about the kids who don’t have vehicles?”

She’s right. Arizona families already pay taxes to support a wide array of public school options. They deserve a modern student transport system designed with this flexibility in mind to help their kids get to and from these schools safely.

Matthew Ladner is the Director of the Arizona Center for Student Opportunity

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The Arizona Board of Regents made history last week when it released the and, for the first time, included disaggregated data for students with  disabilities. 

The invaluable report informs the state about the postsecondary enrollment and completion of  Arizona’s high school graduates. Previous versions of the annual report have disaggregated data  by gender, race and ethnicity. Now students with disabilities will also benefit from the report.  

A Disheartening First Look  

The numbers from the report, detailed below, are initially stunning and disheartening: students  with disabilities are far behind their peers. This is especially troubling considering that most  students receiving special education services should be achieving on par with their peers if they  receive the services and support to which they are entitled. In Arizona, nearly 65% of students with disabilities come from three categories of disabilities  that are considered to be mild in nature such as dyslexia, speech impairment or attention  deficit disorder. Indeed only 5% of Arizona students with disabilities have an intellectual  disability as their primary diagnosis. Nationwide, it has been estimated that 80-85% of students  with disabilities could achieve at similar levels as their peers if given the necessary services,  supports and accommodations. 

Key Findings

Achieve60AZ 

In 2016, Arizona adopted the goal that 60% of adults ages 25-64 would hold a professional  certificate or college degree by 2030. Achieve60AZ has sparked numerous conversations and 

initiatives to increase postsecondary attainment, but—until now—there has never been a focus  on our students with disabilities even though they comprise approximately 13% of the state’s K 12 population. 

The 2021 Postsecondary Attainment Report dataset allows Arizona to add students with  disabilities to the state’s strategic plans. While the initial data may be discouraging, it gives us  an important baseline to begin developing solutions, setting goals and measuring progress so  we can include students with disabilities in Achieve60AZ efforts. 

Recommendations  

Now that we are armed with this new data, there are some ways the state can act to improve  postsecondary attainment of our students with disabilities: 

1. Include this new data into the Arizona Progress Meter. Currently the Post-High School  Enrollment and Attainment metrics do not have disaggregated data for students with  disabilities. Further, let’s ensure that goals and metrics for students with disabilities are  included in the Board of Regents’ Strategic Plan. 

2. Create a statewide college access program for students with disabilities. College access  programs are traditionally non-profit organizations that work to expand college access  and success for students from low-income and minority communities. They provide  services such as application completion, financial counseling, career guidance and  tutoring. The same concept is needed to improve postschool outcomes for students  with disabilities, and the state could use federal funds to seed a program formation. 

3. Launch a dedicated scholarship fund for students with disabilities. These scholarship can be used at Arizona public or private universities, community colleges or technical  schools to help students with disabilities cover the costs of the additional, yet essential,  services and support they need. 

4. Appropriate line-item support for universities and community colleges to improve and  augment support for students with disabilities. The state already provides additional  support for students with disabilities at the K-12 level. Yet, basic services are typically  provided by a Disability Resource Center on campus and costs are assumed by the  college. Additional services provided are typically fee-based (e.g. the SALT Center at the  University of Arizona). 

5. Become the first state to pass the RISE Act. Federal legislation has been introduced to  address some of the obstacles K-12 students with disabilities face matriculating to  college. In particular, the proposed legislation states that the same documentation required to demonstrate a student had a disability in K-12 will suffice in higher  education. But Arizona doesn’t have to wait for the federal government; we can be the  first state to break down these barriers. 

I am extremely grateful to the Arizona Board of Regents for their commitment to  equity. Together we can improve outcomes for our students with disabilities and  simultaneously help Arizona to Achieve60!

Karla Phillips-Krivickas is the Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy for KnowledgeWorks. She has over 20 years of national and state education policy experience in legislative, executive and non-profit leadership roles. As a mother of a child with a disability, Karla is channeling her experience and opportunities to passionately advocate for students with disabilities. She’s on Twitter at @azkarla. 

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A for Arizona, an education organization that advocates for policies that increase the ability of Arizona K-12 students to access excellent schools, announced today the awardees of the Arizona Transportation Modernization Grant Program, a first-in-the-nation $20 million initiative to modernize K-12 transportation options and improve access to reliable and safe transportation for students.

The grant program is administered through the A for Arizona Expansion & Innovation Fund and supports locally driven solutions to provide reliable access for more families to the public learning options that best meet each child’s needs.  

“Arizona has a system of public school options envied across the country, but transportation barriers to these quality schools are a reality for far too many Arizona families,” Gov. Doug Ducey. “Arizona kids deserve access to a classroom that meets their needs, and the Arizona Transportation Modernization Grants Program is providing new ways to make this a reality. These solutions will strengthen opportunities for K-12 kids and their families in rural communities and all areas of the state. I thank A for Arizona for their partnership in launching this vital effort.”  

Grant applications were reviewed and assessed by a committee of local and national industry, philanthropic and community leaders. In this first cycle, the committee awarded more than $18 million in awards to fund 24 proposals across Arizona, with 40% of the funds going to proposals representing rural and remote communities.  

Grant awardees will deliver a wide range of school transportation solutions to tackle problems identified at the local level, including providing direct-to-family grants to help assist with transportation needs, high-efficiency vehicles to drive down costs, micro-transit efforts to target key subgroups of students, and more.

include Arizona Autism Charter Schools, which plans to use its $2 million grant to partner with Kid Commute, an organization dedicated to transporting students with special needs, and launch a transportation system that serves high-needs students traveling from all parts of the Valley.

Bowie Unified School District, a small district in rural Cochise County, aims to use its $550 thousand grant to purchase an electric bus with Wi-Fi and the necessary charging supports to dramatically increase efficiency, reduce gas and maintenance costs, and to safely transport students long distances. BUSD believes it can help increase homework completion rates and put the bus to use in non-school hours to get services to needy families.

“The Arizona Transportation Modernization Grants will accelerate the pace at which the Grand Canyon State can move past an antiquated education transportation system and respond to the student-focused needs of the 21st century,” said Emily Anne Gullickson, founder and CEO of A for Arizona. “It is evident by the competitive cycle and number of high-quality proposals that school leaders, entrepreneurs, and community partners have forward-thinking and innovative solutions ready to address our K-12 transportation needs. This first cycle of awardees will serve as a catalyst to tearing down long-standing access barriers and inform playbooks on how others can deliver multiple transit options to better serve every K-12 student.” 

The Arizona Transportation Modernization Grants Program was established in the state budget passed in June by the Legislature. Supported by a coalition of education reform groups representing the education and business communities, the grant program provides resources to improve access to reliable and safe transportation for students who attend a district school through open enrollment or who attend a public charter school.

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Iranian militants held American embassy staff hostage for the entire year. The United States boycotted the Olympics. Ronald Reagan became the 40^th President of the United States in the November election. These were some of the memorable events of 1980.

The youth of America were still a year away from hearing the phrase “I want my MTV,” and the Oldsmobile Cutlass was the nation’s best-selling automobile. This was also the last time Arizona policymakers substantially updated the K-12 finance formula.

The time has come to modernize the formula again.

Arizona educators have accomplished a great deal under the 1980 formula. The K-12 student population has grown from less than to more than. During the past 40 years, our state has simultaneously improved the quality of the education system and quantity of high performing schools.

But similar to the Oldsmobile Cutlass, however, Arizona’s school finance system has become increasingly antiquated. By enrolling in different public schools, an Arizona student can generate wildly different K-12 funding amounts. The same student could change public schools in Arizona but receive only a fraction of the public funding his or her previous school received. It is time for Arizona policymakers to finish the job of equalizing education funding.

Formula Served an Important Purpose at the Time: Advancing Equity

Arizona largely equalized school funding in 1980 by mandating an equal level of local property taxes in every school district and creating a single operational formula built around weights for individual student needs. Previously, both tax rates and operational spending levels were discretionary and differed significantly based on the wealth of the local school district. Arizona was one of many states compelled by court actions to reform their finance formulas to ensure the learning opportunities for poor students were not shortchanged by virtue of their zip code.

Inequities Crept Back In After 1980

The 1980 effort went a long way toward equalization, but because it kept open multiple avenues for local jurisdictions to add to their school budgets through additional primary and secondary tax levies, inequities in district resources have.

states: “No law shall be enacted granting to any citizen, class of citizens, or corporation other than municipal, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens or corporations.” Despite this provision and the 1980 reforms, today the best funded Arizona district generates six times as much revenue per pupil as the lowest funded district. With no automatic or mandatory review of the formula required of the state Legislature, these inequities have continued to grow. This state of affairs does not adhere to the constitutional principle of equal privileges and immunities.

Formula Was Created for a Different System

The 1980 formula revisions sought to replace local discretion for school taxing and spending with a state equalized effort centered on individual students. It was a massive, two-year effort and disrupted a great deal of tradition and ease of practice for wealthier school districts but resulted in an outcome closer to the “general and uniform” requirements of the state constitution.

However, that formula was created to serve a school system where the vast majority of students attended the local school assigned to them. Students today are far more mobile, and public- school enrollment relies far more on attracting students than simple proximity.

In 1994, the Arizona Legislature enacted two policies that have greatly accelerated the move away from assigned schools: the creation of public charters schools and an open enrollment system.

Public charter schools do not operate with any particular jurisdiction; in effect, their “local district” is the state of Arizona. Public charter schools are unable to levy local property taxes; their public funding for maintenance, operations, and capital comes exclusively from the state. Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee in total public funding.

Arizona lawmakers also required districts to pass an open enrollment policy, enabling students to attend the public school of their choice within or outside of their assigned school district, tuition free.

Today, Arizona charter schools serve approximately 20% of public-school students and have taken the lead in accommodating state enrollment growth. Attendance in “out of boundary” public schools, however, is the most common form of school choice, with district schools both gaining and losing students through open enrollment..

The combination of district open enrollment, charter enrollment and private/homeschooling has resulted in a majority of students attending schools other than their zoned district school. As the percentage of students attending the school in their assigned district declines, the justification for local tax support versus statewide tax support erodes.

After nearly 30 years, charter schools are an integral part of Arizona’s public-school system and their funding should be integrated into the overall school finance formula.

Arizona policymakers should consider the successful practice of other states in funding students with special needs, such as those with disabilities and English Learners, to reflect the level of services required rather than an arbitrary amount of funding associated with a diagnosis. Weights relating to schools, such as additional funding for rural communities and rewards for academic success should be incorporated into the funding formula and provided to schools on a neutral formulaic basis.

Outmoded Formula Creates Inequities for Taxpayers, Too

Zip codes no longer determine a child’s public school but still heavily influence the level of resources their school receives.

In the past, both homeowners and local businesses were taxed to support the education of students in their neighborhoods. Now, they increasingly find themselves being taxed to pay for the education of students attending schools elsewhere, or who are receiving their education online. Place-based taxes for mobile students have made less and less sense over time.

For example, the formula for school transportation only applies to students who attend district schools. This means Arizona households pay school transportation taxes, but many students, including the majority of students in Maricopa County, receive no benefit from it.

Arizona school buses still largely transport children within their zoned attendance boundary as they did in 1993. Families using other public-school options must currently fend for themselves. Governor Doug Ducey’s Executive Budget proposal recognizes the importance of this long-neglected equity issue by providing transportation assistance to district open enrollment students and charter students.

Similarly, the disconnect between school district construction bonding and student attendance patterns has contributed to a glut of underutilized space in many districts —. This effectively stunts the growth of our most-in-demand schools and leaves many waitlisted students shut out of their first-choice school.

Modernization Essential to Improve Equity

A school finance system suited to Arizona’s needs would collect all school taxes and distribute them on an equitable, per-student basis according to a single statewide formula. The tax obligation for education should be shared equitably among taxpayers, and revenues should be allocated to the public school that students attend, rather than to a local taxing authority. Inequities for taxpayers and schools alike would be minimized by replacing district bonds and override elections with a system of increased state funding. Districts carrying facility debt should retain a local tax for the purpose of retiring preexisting debt during a transition period.

With individual success tied to greater levels of attainment, the state’s economic future is tied to education. Arizona’s fundamental interest in educating its children does not vary by which public school they attend.

We cannot expect Arizona to be competitive today using the 1980s playbook. The time has come to address funding inequities squarely and to modernize Arizona’s outdated funding formula for the needs of the 21^st Century.

Public funding systems for public education should arise from statewide support and be focused directly on students. �鶹��ýӳ��ade a strong start in this direction in 1980, charting a pathway followed by many states thereafter. What was once a visionary formula has gone the way of the 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass. We can – we must – set a new and better standard in student funding once again.

Dr. Matthew Ladner is the director of the Arizona Center for Student Opportunity

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The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released 2019 12^th grade Math and Reading national results a few days before the 2020 election. NAEP provides state level data for 4^th and 8^th graders at the state level, but this recent data was only at the national level. The news is bad; performance of American 12^th-graders was in decline before the pandemic struck. These tests were given in the spring of 2019, meaning before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The earliest 12^th grade reading score we have in this series comes from 1992. The Class of 1992 had a nationwide. The Class of 2017 (latest available, the Class of 2019 would have a somewhat higher figure) had a nationwide average of $158,431 in constant dollars spent on their education–approximately 50% more. Which class had the better ability to read? Let’s break down the 12^th grade Reading results by parental education:

Regardless of the level of education of your parents, reading scores were lower for the Class of 2019 than 1992 despite the higher level of spending. All of the above declines in scores are statistically significant. An increase in childhood poverty might explain such a decline, but Mike Petrilli from the Fordham Institute showing that national childhood poverty rates have declined from where they stood in the early 1990s. 

We do not have 12^th grade NAEP data for Arizona, but we do have reasons to hope that Arizona’s results have been better than that of the nation as a whole:

The above chart shows NAEP 8^th grade math scores from 2003 (the first year all 50 states participated) and 2019 (the most recent available) for Anglo, Hispanic and Black students. All three student groups advanced approximately a grade level worth of learning, with both Arizona’s Anglo and Black students landing in the top 10 when compared to their peers in other states in 2019.

Arizona educators nevertheless have their work cut out for them in attempting to help students recover from. Evidence regarding “COVID slide” has begun to trickle in from formative assessments given during the Fall of 2020, and the data is concerning. For example, 54% of Dallas Independent School District 5th graders reached the “meets grade level” threshold in math in 2019, but only 24% of this year’s 5th-graders do so on the same test given in 2020.

The national 12^th grade NAEP results are especially worrisome as students took the exams approximately a year before the outbreak of COVID-19. The next round of state level NAEP is scheduled for the Spring of 2021 and seems likely to show academic damage caused by the closure of schools and the reduction of instruction time.

Chad Alderman, senior associate partner at Bellwether Education Partners, to see how much instruction time they were delivering to students by whatever means – in-person, remote, etc. Alderman wrote:

The term ‘’ is defined as missing 10% or more of school days in a year. By that standard, the majority of K-12 students might be considered chronically absent this school year.

Alderman examined the instruction time being delivered by 10 major American districts, including Arizona neighbors Los Angeles Unified and Clark County Nevada (Las Vegas metro area). He found that these and other districts were delivering less than half of the normal amount of instruction.

The long and the short of this: the 2019 NAEP demonstrated that American education had substantial problems before the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the heroic efforts of many educators to hold things together during an incredibly challenging period, the scale of the challenge has grown still more dire. Arizona schools however rose to the challenge of the Great Recession by. I’m “all in” on them rising to this new challenge as well. 

Dr. Matthew Ladner is the executive director of the Center for Student Opportunity

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Highly respectable judges of school quality like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and Stanford University’s Education Opportunity Project give Arizona schools high marks. The online finance website however ranks Arizona 49^th out of 50 states.

Measuring the quality of a K-12 system is a complex endeavor, but not nearly as much as the marketing firm Wallethub makes it. For a succinct explanation of what Wallethub does and the basic problem with their K-12 rankings, I cannot improve upon that provided regarding a previous Wallethub state K-12 ranking:

WalletHub is a personal finance website that makes its money from advertising and premium listings on the site. It has come up with a brilliant marketing strategy. It collects data from other sources, tosses it into a blender, and spits out a list of the best and worst states and cities about various things…WalletHub, however, isn’t a serious social science research outfit, as this report amply demonstrates.

If you peer into the blender of Wallethub’s, you once again see a goulash of weird ingredients that don’t really belong together. 

Imagine looking into a blender to see grapes, ice cream, vegetable stew and Purina monkey chow with a cup of chocolate syrup and you might get in the neighborhood. Specifically, the Wallethub rankings include a mixture of measures that are inputs rather than outputs, others that are projections about the future, and others that are merely regulatory in nature and have nothing to do with school quality.

Direct measures of academic achievement are few and far between, and predictably the bartender has thrown the wrong ones into the mix. Most analysts agree that the best measure of the quality of a school system is not the overall levels of academic achievement, but rather academic growth over time.

Academic achievement is important, but it is also highly correlated with socio-economic characteristics. We know for instance that upper quintile families spend approximately five times as much as bottom quintile families on student enrichment activities. If the higher income kids show higher levels of math achievement than low income students, is it because they attend higher quality schools, or is it because they go to Kumon? We cannot be entirely sure.

Academic growth on the other hand is not nearly as correlated with socio-economic status. Measuring academic improvement over time tells us where students start and how much they learn over time. Kids can have different starting and ending points but a measure of academic growth can tell us how much they learned between those two points in time.

linked state academic exams across the country to give both a comparable growth and achievement score for Grades 3-8 in the country. The below chart shows academic growth (the dotted east-west line) by academic achievement (north-south line) for public schools in Arizona. Each dot represents an Arizona public school. Note that the dotted east-west line represents the national average for academic growth:

The first thing you should notice here is that far more schools are above the dotted line than below it. That is because Arizona schools lead the nation in academic growth during this period. 

Arizona not only has many above-average-growth schools, it also has some of the highest growth schools in the country. The highest performing schools rank among the highest performing schools in the nation whether you use growth, proficiency or both.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) also shows Arizona students made stronger than average academic progress across a variety of 4^th and 8^th grade exams since 2009.

Arizona schools, like schools in all other states, must continue to improve. Our schools, however, are a strength, not a weakness. Arizona families can access world class public schools through both charter school and open enrollment mechanisms. Arizona not only has fantastic schools, families do not have to buy their way into their attendance boundaries in order to access them.

Matthew Ladner is the director of the Arizona Center for Student Opportunity.

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