It's been two months and a few weeks since Prop 123 passed. As promised, some money has been distributed to districts around the state which they wouldn't have seen otherwise. That's the first step Governor Ducey was talking about in the lead-up to the election. With vote-by-mail ballots making their way to people's homes marking the official opening of the primary elections, it's time to ask once again, where do we stand, Next-Stepwise?

The AZ Republic has a good article on the subject. Here's what I learned.

Ducey is still pushing his No New Taxes mantra—no surprise there—and is also saying, No New Funds. According to the article, Ducey's next step is a push for "outcomes, not funding." Watch for news from Ducey's Classrooms First Initiatives Council, which will recommend ways to redistribute our current education funding. Spoiler alert. Expect charters to do very well in the proposals, along with schools in high rent districts. Since this is a zero sum game, expect school districts with poor and minority children to be the losers.

The heavy hitters in the business community, like the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, agree with Ducey. Prop 123 relieved the pressure for funding increases, which is just fine by them. Their advice to the man in the governor's chair is, "Keep those yearly tax cuts coming, Doug!"

A resolution from the NAACP at the organization's National Convention in Cincinnati in July calls for a moratorium on charter schools. It isn't official policy until it is voted on at the National Board meeting in the Fall.

The resolution includes a number of concerns about charters. It states that charters increase segregation; some low-quality charters in low-income areas "mirror predatory lending practices;" the schools' boards are generally appointed, not elected; many use harsh disciplinary measures; and government oversight of charters is too weak.

The document states:

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the NAACP reaffirms its 2014 Resolution, "School Privatization Threat to Public Education," in which the NAACP opposes the privatization of public schools and/or public subsidizing or funding of for-profit or charter schools.

Later language, however, talks about making sure charters currently in operation are better managed and overseen, meaning it isn't calling for the elimination of charters. It states, "the NAACP hereby supports a moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charter schools."

The resolution is stronger than language in the Democratic Party platform, which has similar concerns yet praises "high quality public charter schools [which] provide options for parents," but there's not a lot of daylight between the two documents. As would be expected, Democrats for Education Reform, which represents the "education reform"/privatization wing of the Democratic party, is very critical of the NAACP resolution, as it is of the education planks of the Democratic platform related to charter schools.

Pearson Education, part of Pearson PLC, one of the world's largest education companies, bet big on Common Core testing as well as textbooks and other materials tailored to boost scores on Common Core tests. Right now, the British company is in a bit of trouble.

The stock price for Pearson PLC, the world’s largest education business, dropped precipitously Friday after its announcement of a 7 percent decline in underlying sales to about $2.5 billion for the first half of 2016.

Reuters reported that the company’s shares were the biggest losers on Britain’s Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 for the day. Analysts were disappointed that the decline was 2 percent larger than had been anticipated.

Another article hints at the reason for the company's revenue loss.

Political and economic problems have combined to derail the group's plans to sell text books and mark exams in the United States, and the group blamed a drop in revenue from exam marking in the U.S. and Britain, its top two markets, for its disappointing first-half performance.

I don't know much about the situation in Britain, but it's pretty clear what's happened on this side of the pond. With education funding just beginning to recover from the 2009 downturn, it's harder to get schools to buy stuff. More important, Pearson was supposed to be one of the major beneficiaries of Common Core spending. It expected to dominate the market with its high stakes tests, along with educational materials schools would purchase by the truckload to help students boost their scores. But it got pummeled by the double-whammy uproar over Common Core from the right and the left. States have pulled out of what was supposed to be a nationwide common set of standards, and many of them decided to go with other tests from other sources. It looked like a sure thing, but it's looking more and more like Pearson bet on the wrong pony.

In my last post, I put up a chart, which I also included here, showing the decline in enrollment numbers at TUSD from 2000 to the present. The short takeaway from the chart is, the district's enrollment declined slowly, averaging 350 students a year, from 2000 through 2007. Then the decline almost quadrupled, averaging 1,600 students a year, through 2012. Since then, the decline has slowed. The 2015-16 school year had the smallest decline, 417 students, in eight years.

I decided to pore over data for the 16 years in greater detail, looking at enrollment numbers from the beginning and the end of the school year and grade by grade, to see if I could find any trends worth noting. I did, and in the rest of the post, I'll describe some of what I found. I'm going to restrain myself from drawing too many conclusions from the data. I make a few observations at the end, but really, there are far too many variables at work here for me to tease out clear causes and effects. [Note: I'm going to try and make things as clear as possible, but I'm comparing lots of numbers, which always makes for slow reading, and this isn't the kind of writing I normally do. I'll do the best I can.]
I chose to use the figures from the 175th day for the end-of-the-year numbers because that's either the end of the school year or close to it, depending on the year, and the numbers for that day have fewer random ups and downs than other days. I also looked at student numbers on the 20th day, which is when things settle down after the first month's enrollment changes, so it's a reasonable place for a beginning-of-the-year count.

Looking at the enrollment on the 20th and the 175th day each year, I found, not surprisingly, that every year, TUSD had fewer students at the end of the year than at the beginning, which I suspect is true in other districts. For the 16 years from 2000 to the present, TUSD's average decrease from the beginning to the end of the year was about 1200 students.Only three years had decreases of less than 950 students: 2009-10 (915) and both of the last two school years, 2014-15 (920) and 2015-16 (582). That means that the during the last two years, holding onto students for the entire school year had a significant role in slowing the overall decrease of students. 

A year ago I created a chart showing TUSD's total enrollment from 2000 to 2015, using figures from the page on TUSD's website, School Enrollment by Gender & Ethnicity on Any Day. I've expanded the chart to include 2016 figures.

Like last year, I used the enrollment numbers from the 175th day, which seem to have fewer random ups and downs than other school days I looked at. On this year's chart, I expanded the width of the bars for the last six years so they could be seen more easily.

Here's the new chart.

The chart shows a decline in enrollment from 2000 to 2016 from 61,280 to 47,661, a loss of 13,619 students. But it also shows the rate of loss of students changed over the years. From 2000 to the 2006-7 school year, the district lost an average of 350 students a year. Starting in 2007 and continuing through the 2011-12 school year, the average losses more than quadrupled, to 1,600 a year. After that, the rate slowed, then increased, then slowed again. TUSD lost 417 students during the most recent school year, which is significantly lower than any loss in the previous eight years.

I'm against for-profit schooling. It's possible for a school designed to make a profit to offer its students a quality education, but the lure of the almighty dollar makes the urge to recruit students who don't have the qualifications to benefit from the school and to scrimp on staff and supplies, because every dollar you don't spend is another dollar in your pocket, is nearly irresistible. I don't like it when charter schools are run as for-profit enterprises, and for-profit colleges are notorious for getting most of their money from government-based student financial aid and supplementing that with student loans, then giving their students a substandard education and leaving them in debt.

That means I don't think much of Laureate Education, a for-profit higher-education company that runs schools around the world, or the fact that Bill Clinton was paid a total of $16.5 million to serve as honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities from 2010 to 2014.

Laureate Education has 85 campuses around the world. The greatest number are in Latin America, 31, followed by Europe, 23. The U.S. has 8. Some are brick-and-mortar institutions, others are online schools. Laureate spends more than $200 million a year on advertising, uses aggressive student recruiting techniques and sometimes increases enrollment without expanding its faculty or facilities to properly serve the larger student body.

If you want to know more details about Laureate Education, the best article I found is in a Bloomberg publication from 2014. Here's the key sentence in a very long story.

Laureate has thrived by exporting many of the practices that for-profit colleges adopted in the U.S., such as offering career-oriented courses and spending heavily on marketing. Such strategies helped build what was a booming industry until 2010, when recruiting abuses and mounting student debt spurred a regulatory crackdown by President Barack Obama’s administration.

That pretty much sums it up. The owner saw a flawed, roundly criticized, very profitable U.S. education model and decided to take it worldwide.

What did Bill Clinton do to earn his money?

In this paid position, Clinton has trekked to Laureate’s campuses in countries such as Malaysia, Peru and Spain, making more than a dozen appearances on [Laureate Education's] behalf.

A week ago I wrote about the Democratic party's education platform, which became significantly more progressive than the 2012 version as it moved from the first draft to its final form. The Republican party's education platform is pretty similar to its 2012 version, with a few changes around the edges. It added a condemnation of the move to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice, and it says an understanding of the Bible is "indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry" and encourages the study of the Bible as an elective part of the literature curriculum in high schools.

This paragraph sums up the general educational view presented in the platform.

After years of trial and error, we know the policies and methods that have actually made a difference in student advancement: Choice in education; building on the basics; STEM subjects and phonics; career and technical education; ending social promotions; merit pay for good teachers; classroom discipline; parental involvement; and strong leadership by principals, superintendents, and locally elected school boards. Because technology has become an essential tool of learning, it must be a key element in our efforts to provide every child equal access and opportunity. We strongly encourage instruction in American history and civics by using the original documents of our founding fathers. 

A few specific recommendations in the Republican platform are supported by many Democrats, like its condemnation of Common Core, its concern over "excessive testing and 'teaching to the test'” and its concern about the collection and sharing of "vast amounts of personal student and family data, including the collection of social and emotional data." The two parties differ on most other issues.

Two months ago when Prop 123 passed, Governor Ducey said we had taken a "first step" toward addressing Arizona's chronic underfunding of K-12 education. Everyone acknowledged it was a shaky, uncertain step. Some were pleased to see what they thought was a wobbly step forward by the young 'un, while others thought it was a dangerous step backwards, but few people thought that one step was all we needed.

On the two month anniversary, the toddler has yet to take a second step, and its fathers and mothers—the Ducey machine, the business community, education groups—appear to be neglecting their child, if not abandoning it entirely.

An acknowledgement of the two month anniversary of that first step is in order—a cake, candles, something to mark the occasion. Since the parents of the tyke don't appear to be in a celebratory mood, I will take it upon myself to blow out the candles and make a few wishes.

My first wish is that Governor Ducey reveal his plans for the next step to improve K-12 education. If he plans to increase the education budget next legislative session, that would be hopeful. If all he wants to do is shift around the deck chairs, using his Classrooms First Initiatives Council to move the cushiest chaises in the areas where the wealthiest Arizonans hang out, it would be helpful to know that so people can protest against his anti-poor, anti-minority agenda.

Some members of Turkey's military attempted a coup last week and failed. Game over? Not quite. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is arresting thousands of people who he says were connected to the coup. And he's asking the U.S. to extradite Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who lives in Pennsylvania and has a strong following here and in Turkey, including people who are now or have been part of the Turkish government. Secretary of State Kerry says he hasn't gotten a formal request from Turkey but will review any information he receives from its government. Gulen denies he is in any way connected to the failed coup.

Here's where the charter school connection comes in. Fethullah Gulen is connected indirectly—or directly depending on who you're talking to—to the Sonoran charter schools and other charters around the country. There are three Sonoran Science Academies in Tucson, including one on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and three Sonoran charters in the Phoenix area.

I began writing about the Sonoran Science Academies and their connections to Gulen in 2010, as did Tim Vanderpool in the Weekly and Tim Steller in the Star. The connection was even the subject of a 60 Minutes investigation in 2012. A group of people around the country believe the charters are too closely connected to Gulen and violate the requirement that public schools have no religious affiliation. They make a strong circumstantial case, but they've never proven a direct connection.

What we know is that the Arizona charters have a strong academic reputation, especially in the areas of science and math. We also know that many of their directors and administrators are of Turkish descent, and they have a number of Turkish teachers, some of whom have been brought to the U.S. on H-1B visas for the express purpose of teaching at the schools. We also know that the schools teach Turkish culture, though it may be in a similar way that a French school teaches French culture. Some say the schools have direct links to Gulen, which the schools deny.

Expect to hear more about the schools if the story linking Gulen to the failed coup stays in the news.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post trying to sort out what looked like contradictory information about the amount of Prop 123 money TUSD devoted to teacher salary raises. An article in the Star made it look like TUSD devoted far less of the new funding to increasing teacher salaries—about a third of the money, which amounted to a $700 raise—than neighboring districts, which would mean TUSD was shortchanging its teachers. But the article also mentioned the possibility that the district had found other ways to increase salaries. Meanwhile, the TUSD website states that returning teachers will make $2,000 more in 2016-17 than they made in the previous year. I ended the post by scratching my head and admitting I didn't know how to figure out the actual pay raises based on the information I had.

Since then, more has been written on the subject, and the pay raise situation is clearer. Here's the short version: As the TUSD website states, returning teachers will get a $2,000 raise over the previous year, which is in the same ballpark as neighboring districts. That's because, at the May 10 school board meeting a week before the Prop 123 vote, the board approved a $1,300 teacher raise. After Prop 123 passed, $700 was added to that amount, resulting in a $2,000 raise. Other Tucson-area districts created a variety of salary raise and retention incentive bonus packages, some of which are a bit more generous, and some a bit less generous, than TUSD's.

Here's the longer version, which I believe is accurate. If I've got my facts or numbers wrong, I'm sure people will let me know in the comments section.

At TUSD's May 10, 2016, board meeting, a salary raise was approved. It increased the pay for each salary step by $800, and since returning teachers move up a step which adds another $500, the total increase for returning teachers was $1,300. Since Prop 123 hadn't come up for a vote, the money for the raises was taken from maintenance and operations funds as well as Prop 301 funds. The $1,300 salary increase was guaranteed whether Prop 123 went up or down.