Bipartisanship in Washington. That alone is something to marvel at, regardless of what the Republicans and Democrats are agreeing on. The House and Senate passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which will replace Bush's No Child Left Behind, by huge margins. Congresspeople of both political stripes like it. Teachers unions like it. Lots of people on the left and right like it, or kinda like it. Rarely is heard a discouraging word about the ESSA as it makes its way to Obama's desk.

So, what will ESSA do? The answer is, it won't really do much all by itself, but it will give states more latitude to carve out their own education agendas. Given how much wrong-headed educational dictates have come out of the Bush and Obama administrations, that might be a good thing. But states' rights? In Arizona? In education? With Ducey and anti-public school legislators leading the charge for more privatization and the shifting of funding toward the "haves," charter schools and private school vouchers and away from everyone else? What could possibly go wrong? (Answer: pretty much anything.)

Here are some of the changes.

Common Core standards will no longer be pushed so hard from the top. Thanks to pressure from an odd coalition of the right and left that agreed they all disliked Common Core, though for different reasons, the standards will be optional. That won't make much of a difference here. Arizona already dropped its strict compliance with Common Core and is in the process of carving out its own version. Round and round our standards go, where they'll stop, nobody knows.

States will still have to give standardized tests to 3rd through 8th graders, then once in high school, as they do now. But states have the right to lower the high stakes a bit. Those test scores will no longer have to be the predominant measure of teacher or school success. Other factors can have substantial weight in the evaluations. And the law says it's OK for students to opt out of the standardized tests if the state allows it without any threats of withholding federal dollars for education.

All kinds of people out there think our classrooms are filled with rotten teachers doing a lousy job with their students. If teachers knew what they were doing, these folks say, if they were anything like what a good teacher should be, they'd get those kids whipped into shape in a hurry. Everyone would work hard, everyone would succeed—NO EXCUSES! Achievement scores would soar. "If I was a teacher, man, things would be different."

Sometimes I wish some of those folks could spend six weeks teaching. Not as student teachers under the watchful guidance of the classroom teacher, not as classroom assistants, not as guests who come in for a day and leave. As the person who runs a class of 30 to 40 students for six, on-their-own weeks. I'm not cruel. I wouldn't make them do it for a full day. Maybe in an elementary school, they'd work from the beginning of the day until lunch time. In a middle school or a high school, they'd teach two classes with different curricula needing two separate preparations. I'd not only pay them a full teacher's salary for their efforts, I'd pay them double to make them think they were making out like bandits. And if they could do what they think they could do in the classroom, if they were as good as those "real teachers" they dreamed up in their heads, if they could take low achieving kids and teach them, really teach them, how to read, write and do math—NO EXCUSES!—hell, I'd beg them to stay on as full time teachers at twice everyone else's salary. They'd be worth it, and maybe they could show all those other deadbeat teachers how it's done.

If a few of the blowhards took me up on it, they'd come out at the end of six weeks with different attitudes. They'd find out there's no magic teaching formula that turns every kid into a whiz kid, or even most of the kids into whiz kids, unless they started out with a class full of whiz kids. If they went into a school where most of the kids were a few years below grade level, they wouldn't figure out some amazing way to make those students "get it."

At the end of those six weeks, when they saw they hadn't turned their students into world beaters, some of them might leave cursing out the kids who wouldn't pay attention and all those teachers and parents who gave those kids bad attitudes. "It's not my fault someone else screwed those rotten kids up so bad. Give me a year, and believe me, I'd get them in shape. They may not like me, they may not think I'm their best friend, but by God I'd make those sons of bitches learn!" But if they were honest, they'd think back on their own efforts which didn't yield the results they'd hoped for. They'd remember dragging themselves home at the end of a teaching day—even half a day, even just a few classes—tired and confused, wondering why things didn't go better. They'd think back on the evenings they lay on the couch staring at the ceiling with the television in the background they weren't listening to, asking themselves, "What the hell am I going to do in class tomorrow?" And they'd admit, "OK, this is tougher than I thought it was. Much tougher. If I wanted to be a good teacher, it would take time, effort, commitment. And even then, there's no way I'd work those miracles I thought any competent teacher should be able to work without breaking a sweat."

Sometimes I wish I could get those cocksure teacher bashers into the classroom for six weeks. But then I think about what would happen in those six weeks, and I reconsider. No, it would be a bad idea. I wouldn't want to do that to the students.

Imagine I'm a public school math teacher, and I just gave my students a test worth 100 points. These classes of mine don't have strong math skills. With the students needing 50 points to pass, only 14 percent of them make it, and most of the passing students squeaked by just above the cut line, with between 51 and 59 points.

Next year I give the same test to my classes, which are basically identical in math skills to last year's batch. But this time I decide, damn it, 50 points shouldn't be enough to pass. I'm going to set the passing cut score at 60. That moves most of the students who would have passed with the previous cut score into the ranks of the failing. Only 2 percent pass.

The question is, should I be more concerned about the math skills of my classes with 2 percent passing rates than the previous classes where 14 percent passed? Obviously not. Their skill levels are basically identical. Only the score it took to pass changed. But while a 14 percent passing rate is met with shaking of heads and clucking of tongues, a 2 percent passing rate makes people crazy. Contact the media! Call out the public school haters! It's time to scream, "Oh my God, look at these scores! What happened? Shame on those kids! Shame on their schools! Shame on their parents!"

That, in a nutshell, is what's happening with the AzMERIT scores and the soon-to-come tsunami of shaming.

The process has already begun, though, believe me, it's only in its infancy. An article in Friday's AZ Republic, AzMERIT: Poor, rural districts feel burden of new test, is an example. It's a sympathetic, hand-wringing forerunner to the upcoming onslaught of shame. The article looks mainly at the AzMERIT scores on the San Carlos Reservation and in the Baboquivari Unified School District. In the San Carlos schools, 6 percent of the students passed the English section and 2 percent passed the math section. In Baboquivari Unified, 7 percent passed the English and 8 percent passed the math. The article talked about how difficult it it is for the districts to deal with these results, how hard both school systems have worked to boost their students' achievement. And yet, look at these disappointing passing rates, so much lower than the previous year.

But if you look back on last year's AIMS scores, you'll see that these new low scores are perfectly predictable. They're not a sign the students' achievement levels are lower this year, and they don't mean the students did worse on the AzMERIT test than on AIMS. What they mean is, the passing level — the cut score — was raised for the new test. If the students had been given one of the old AIMS test and the cut score was raised, like I raised the scores on my imaginary math test at the beginning of the post, pretty much the same thing would have happened. It's not about the students and it's not about the new test. It's all about raising the tests' cut scores.

In San Carlos, 14 percent of the students passed the 2014 AIMS math test, compared to 2 percent passing the AzMERIT. But if you look at the breakdown of the AIMS passing scores, you find that 13 percent simply met the math standard and only 1 percent exceeded it. So when you moved that bar up on the new test, what happened basically is, 12 of the 13 percent who just met the standards fell below the new line and only 1 percent joined that 1 percent that exceeded. If you go through the AIMS math and reading scores for the two districts, you find the same situation, between 10 and 47 percent meeting the standards and between 1 and 3 percent exceeding.

We should pay our teachers more, Governor Ducey says, so long as it doesn’t cost the state any new money.

We’re getting little bursts of information out of Ducey’s Classroom First Initiative Council about proposals they plan to make to the governor, and the bursts often sound pretty good. The council makes all kinds of pro-public education noises in its pronouncements, and pro-underprivileged kids noises as well. Caveat emptor. Buyer beware. Their ideas come out in dribs and drabs with few details because the details are going to mean a radical shift in education spending, moving more funds toward the haves, toward charter schools and toward vouchers, which will mean less money for everyone else. Don't expect to see the council's package of proposals in any detail for awhile. Better people don't have the opportunity to do the math and complain about the inequities built into the new system until it's too late.

The council says it wants more money for teacher salaries, with an extra boost for teachers who are willing to work in schools that have trouble finding teachers. And Ducey kind of agrees, though he’s not committing to anything. But, he says, no worries, we can make it happen. There’ll be more money—lots more money—soon. By which he means the approximately $300 million a year the legislature has stolen from the schools by illegally ignoring a voter mandate. He wants to give our schools, which are 48th or 49th in the nation in per student funding, the money they should already have. All that money that belongs to the schools, which were already cash-starved back when they had that money, will move Arizona from 48th or 49th place in per student funding all the way up to a little higher in 48th or 49th place. And it’s really only 70 percent of what the legislature owes the schools. And it will only happen if voters agree to take money from the state land trust funds instead of the current budget surplus so Ducey can use the money lying around in the state coffers to give his buddies the tax breaks he promised them. And if all that happens and schools get what they’re owed—or, actually, 70 percent of what they’re owed—Ducey wants to tell them how to spend that money which already belongs to them.

A prediction: If the money comes through and a significant portion is spent on much-needed increases in teacher salaries, it won't take long for conservatives to tell us how selfish and greedy the teachers are, sucking up all the money which, if they cared about the kids, would go for more supplies and smaller class sizes. And don’t expect those same conservatives to suggest as a solution that we supplement the money the state owes the schools—actually 70 percent of the money the state owes the schools—with an increase in next year’s state budget so we can afford much needed increases in teacher salaries alongside more supplies and smaller class sizes. It's not going to happen. That would get in the way of Ducey giving his buddies the tax breaks he promised them.

But really, with all his talk about how he's all for more money for schools, Ducey doesn’t really think increased funding is an essential part of school improvement. He thinks the schools have plenty of money right now if they only spent it more wisely. I guess he thinks schools whose per student funding is 48th or 49th in the nation, schools which spend a smaller percentage of their funding on administration than any other state, have plenty of fat they can trim from . . . well, from somewhere. School bus maintenance, maybe?

And besides, suggests the council, there are other, creative ways to “pay” teachers more which don't involve raising salaries. For instance, we can put together a PR campaign—I’m not making this up—to “celebrate Arizona’s teachers and the positive impact they make in the lives of the students in their classroom.” That’s sure to keep teachers from leaving the profession, or moving to a state where they’ll make thousands more a year and maybe be able to support a family on a teacher’s salary. Just tell teachers, “We appreciate you.” It’s like money in the bank.

Yesterday I posted about my first impressions of the newly released AzMERIT scores. Passing rates dropped significantly statewide from the 2014 AIMS test, which has everything to do with a tougher test and higher cut scores and nothing to do with Arizona student achievement going downhill. The most obvious observation is that the highest scoring districts in the Tucson area are in the high rent districts, and the lowest scoring districts are in the low rent districts. And I observed that the passing rates fell further in the Flowing Wells and Nogales districts than in others, which is interesting because the previous AIMS scores of those districts were frequently cited to show those districts beat the odds and scored higher than you might expect given the socioeconomic status of their students. The new scores may or may not indicate that those two districts were overrated in the past.

Since then, I've dug deeper into the daunting piles of AzMERIT data the Department of Education put into its downloadable spreadsheets—far, far more data, by the way, than was ever supplied in previous years—and I've compared them to the scores on the 2014 AIMS test. I'll give you some of the information I've pulled together and a few conclusions I've drawn from the data.

First, let's look at how the passing rates changed in the Tucson-area and Nogales districts from the 2014 AIMS to the 2015 AzMERIT. All of them went down, just like the rest of the state, but they went down at different rates. (Note: I had to approximate the passing rates of the districts on the 2014 AIMS test because I couldn't find that number in the data, but I used the same method of approximation for all the districts, so if the results aren't perfect, they should be fairly consistent.) How much did district passing rates drop from AIMS to AzMERIT? The largest drop was in the Nogales district: 48 points, from an average of 73 percent to 25 percent passing. That drop could be explained by a cheating scandal in the district which inflated its numbers. Three districts dropped 40 points: Amphi, Flowing Wells and Sahuarita, followed by Sunnyside at 39 points and Marana at 38 points. Vail and Tanque Verde dropped 35 points and TUSD dropped 34 points. Catalina Foothills had the lowest dropoff, at 25 points.

What does all this mean? You can play with the numbers all day, but here's one conclusion I arrived at. Even when the number of points the districts dropped were similar, the lower income districts with lower passing rates actually fell farther. I'll use Vail and TUSD as an example. Vail fell one point more than TUSD, 35 points vs. 34 points, which makes it look like they took a similar hit. But in 2014, Vail's passage rate was 28 points higher than TUSD's, 89 percent vs. 61 percent. So while they fell about the same amount in absolute terms, TUSD's passage rate fell by 57 percent while Vail's fell by 41 percent, a 16 point difference. (As an example, think of two people whose incomes are $100,000 and $60,000. If both incomes drop by $40,000, it's a far larger hit for the person at $60,000.) The same pattern follows elsewhere. The districts with lower income students, which also had the lowest scores on the 2014 AIMS, lost more ground than the districts with higher income students, even when the actual point drop was similar, because the high rent districts started with higher passing rates than the low rent districts. 

Arizona's AzMERIT scores have just been released, and the Department of Education has created such a detailed spreadsheet, it makes this old English teacher's head spin. Everything is broken down about as far as it can be broken down—by district, school and grade, then within those categories by gender, ethnicity, economic status, disability, English proficiency. Did I miss anything? Maybe, I haven't dug into the material in detail—and to give you an idea of what "in detail" means, just one page of the spreadsheet has more than 65,000 rows, with each row broken down into 13 columns. I'll be spending more time plowing through the breakdowns to see what I can discover. In the meantime if you want to look for yourself, you can download the spreadsheet here.

So, taking a first, very general look, what do we learn from the AzMERIT scores?

Mainly, we learn that the rich stay rich and the poor, and their schools, are going to get blamed for their low test scores—again. Districts with lots of kids from high income families have higher passing rates than districts with lots of kids from low income families. In other words, there's nothing new under the AzMERIT sun. The same was true with the AIMS test scores, and the same is true around the world. No matter where you go, socioeconomic status is the most reliable determiner of student scores on standardized tests. The only difference in the U.S. is, the gap between the high income/high scorers and low income/low scorers is greater than in most other industrialized countries (We're also the only country that spends less on its low income than its high income students). But here in Arizona, conservatives pooh-pooh all those pesky facts. They tell us we shouldn't play the socioeconomic card when looking at test scores. "No excuses!"  To them, low scores from poor kids mean: (1) those lazy kids aren't trying hard enough; (2) their schools are doing a terrible job teaching them and should be punished; and (3) their parents are lousy parents who don't care about their children.

We also learn that the AzMERIT test is tougher than the old AIMS tests and the cut scores are higher. This year, something like a third of Arizona students passed AzMERIT. On the 2014 AIMS test, 61 percent passed the math section and 79 percent passed the reading section. Unless someone put stupid juice in the kids' drinks last year, the overall difference in the passing rates is a function of the tests, not the students' skills and abilities.

Not surprisingly, around the Tucson area, passing rates for the more affluent districts beat the state average. The above-state-average districts, starting with the highest passing rates and working down, are Catalina Foothills, Tanque Verde, Vail, Amphi, Marana and Sahuarita. The below-state-average districts, starting with the highest passing rates, are Flowing Wells, TUSD and Sunnyside.

Now here's one interesting change I have to spend more time looking into. Flowing Wells and Nogales districts are always held up as the shining achievement stars whenever people question the correlation between socioeconomic status and test scores. "Yeah, but what about Flowing Wells and Nogales? If they can beat the odds and score higher than similar districts, why can't everyone else?" This year, Flowing Wells scored just a few points higher than TUSD, and Nogales scored a few points lower. It looks like both are off their AIMS games when it comes to AzMERIT. Why?

The ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy recently conducted a poll covering a number of issues. When people were asked what is the most important issue facing Arizona voters, they put education at number one (32 percent), with immigration (17.1 percent)  and the budget (16.1 percent) coming in distant seconds. It's good news that the Republican screaming about immigrants invading our country and the state budget bankrupting taxpayers is taking a back seat to concerns about the way we educate our children here in Arizona.

So what did the people polled say they wanted to do to improve education? A strong majority—65.8 percent—agreed with the statement, "I would be willing to pay higher state taxes to improve Arizona's public schools." Democrats and liberal Independents agreed in large numbers—84.4 percent and 86.2 percent—while Republicans and conservative Independents came in just a little shy of agreement—43.3 percent and 49.7 percent.

The pollsters gave their respondents a chance to go the other way on this, asking how they felt about the statement, "I prefer that Arizona reduce funding for state services such as public schools, universities and public health rather than raise taxes." A feeble 23.5 percent agreed. Even on the Republican side, only 35.6 percent of Republicans agreed that it's OK to reduce government services to keep taxes at their current level.

If this poll is anywhere near accurate, Arizonans are willing to pay higher taxes to improve education—theoretically, anyway. That number would probably come down if voters were faced with a choice. One of the rules I've heard from politicos about tax initiatives submitted for voter approval is, you need to have at least 60% of the people on your side in the months before the election to win on election day. Lots of people who like the idea of paying more for services in theory change their minds when it comes time to fill in the "Yes" bubble on their ballot. But even with that caveat, a 65.8% majority in favor of more taxes to improve education is impressive.

So. Democrats. Maybe it's time to take the risk of suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous negative ads and come out strongly in favor of increasing funding for education, even if it means raising taxes for some people. You can strengthen your case by reminding people that Arizona's top one percent of earners pay 4.6 percent of their incomes on state and local taxes while the lowest 20 percent pays 12.5 percent. It's not "soaking the rich" to make them pay their fair share in taxes, which would allow us to fund our schools at a level where our per student funding is, oh, say, 40th in the nation rather than 49th.

Segregation and desegregation in Tucson schools has become such a hot topic recently, I decided to do a little research to see how the ethnic and racial numbers break down in TUSD schools. As I looked over the numbers, I began to be curious about what they look like in Tucson's charter schools as well. I've read often that charters tend to be more segregated than district schools, and I wanted to see if that was true here. I found that all the data I needed is on the Arizona Department of Education and TUSD websites.

I gathered together enrollment stats on 75 charters in Tucson—I believe it's a fairly complete list of the city's charter schools—using information from the Arizona Department of Education website. Then I did the same with the 85 TUSD schools listed in the enrollment stats on TUSD's website. TUSD keeps its enrollment information current, compiling each school's ethnic and racial composition on a daily basis, but the most recent numbers I could find for charters is from October, 2014, so I used the same date for TUSD to create an accurate comparison.  

Of Tucson students in publicly funded schools (I didn't include private schools in my research), 73 percent are in TUSD schools and 27 percent are in charter schools. Hispanics make up 61 percent of the total student population, 25 percent are Anglo and the remaining 14 percent are divided among African American, Native American, Asian American and Multi-Racial students.

Here is a graph showing the overall ethnic and racial compositions in TUSD and Tuscon's charter schools.


There's a large difference between student populations in TUSD and in Tucson charter schools. Charters have 11 percent fewer Hispanic student and 16 percent more Anglo students than TUSD. Though the numbers of other students are far smaller, it's clear that African American, Native American and Multi-Racial students are underrepresented at charters compared to TUSD—there's a consistent one-to-two ratio—while Asian American are slightly overrepresented at charters.

The numbers indicate there's a significant white (and Asian) flight from TUSD schools to charters, which indicates that charter schools are more segregated than TUSD schools. But the difference may be greater or smaller than the numbers imply. After all, students attend a variety of schools with unique ethnic and racial mixes, not the TUSD school district or charter schools as a whole. So my next question is, what are the ethnic and racial compositions of the schools students attend?

The chart below shows the percentage of students in TUSD and Tucson charter schools who attend schools with various ethnic and racial compositions. 

The federal court that's been dealing with Tucson Unified School District's desegregation lawsuit is getting quiet a few letters from parents, and others, concerned with the future of eight magnet schools. With the support of the TUSD Governing Board majority, many parents argue that the court, as well as the plaintiffs in the suit, need to consider their opinion, since they actually have children who attend these schools and will be affected by any changes.

Sylvia Campoy, the long-time representative of the Mendoza plaintiffs, says in a mass email that the letters "reflect a great amount of misunderstanding by the public regarding the changes underway to TUSD's magnet program." And who's guilty of providing the community with misguided information, according to Campoy and other critics? Well, the TUSD majority and Superintendent H.T. Sanchez. (Read up on some of the things TUSD has to comply with, here.)

In the latest cour order, which was issued this month, it says: “The TUSD Board is the appropriate venue for the community to obtain information regarding this case and the best venue for the community to provide input and express concerns regarding this case.”

"With this specific order, it is made clear that the TUSD Board is accountable for ACCURATELY informing the public about matters concerning the Desegregation Unitary Status Plan," Campoy says in her email. "Given this, it is my hope that the misinformation campaigns that have attempted to divert attention from the real issues at hand will halt and that the misdirected blame aimed at the special master, the court, the plaintiffs’, legal counsel and representatives will also cease."

I've been off for the past few weeks, but the world of education decided to continue turning in my absence, and TUSD is no exception. So here's a quick catch-up on TUSD-related events and decisions: The Good, the Bad and the Arrogant.

TUSD decided to rework its student code of conduct. It's a good idea, especially if, as Superintendent Sanchez said, “The student code of conduct as it exists now is templated off of the penal code and speaks to student disciplinary actions as a law enforcement officer would." That's school-to-prison pipeline territory, and it needs to change. Helping students has to take priority over punishing them. Hiring consultant Jim Freeman looks like a good move, especially if he's as capable and experienced as his resume suggests. He should bring a wide variety of possible approaches with him, which he can mix and match to create a disciplinary policy best suited to TUSD students. I don't see how the district, or any district, has enough in-house knowledge and expertise to do the job itself. If Freeman comes through with an improved new disciplinary policy, it will be $35,000 well spent. [Note: a just-published study on suspensions in California schools maintains that lowering district suspension rates correlates with higher district achievement.]

The approval of a plan to change the student makeup of five schools, mainly adding middle school grades, is a mixed bag. The big question is how the move will impact the district's desegregation status, which is why it has to be approved by the courts before it's put into action. Overall, the plan is a good idea if it's anywhere from neutral to moderately positive in its effect of the district's racial and ethnic mix. As central as the deseg plan is to nearly every important decision TUSD makes, a district's mission is to provide the best education possible for its students, and if the changes increase the quality of education for the students attending those schools—and if it also encourages some parents to leave their children in TUSD rather than fleeing to charters or neighboring districts—those are good things regardless of whether they further the deseg cause. It's worth noting that the board was unanimous in its approval of all the changes except for the plans at Sabino High, which were opposed by Michael Hicks and Mark Stegeman. We haven't seen lots of unanimous board votes on important issues lately.

The controversies over TUSD's magnet schools, which haven't succeeding at their deseg missions, have moved in a positive direction with an agreement between the district and some of the plaintiffs in the deseg lawsuit. More money will be flowing to the magnet schools, recruiting efforts outside of the schools' neighborhoods are supposed to be stepped up, and permanent teachers are supposed to take over the classrooms which have been taught by long term substitutes. But the longstanding problems with the magnet schools, some of which will be addressed, show that the district has dropped the ball for years. And even with the positive changes, Sanchez, the board majority and their supporters in the magnet school communities continue to partake in mind-boggling doublespeak when they say the schools should be able to keep their deseg funding even if they continue to have Hispanic student populations far above the 70% maximum required by the court-ordered deseg plans. Magnet schools are called "magnets" because their unique programs are supposed to draw a wider variety of students from beyond the neighborhood. Any school that doesn't succeed at that is a failed "magnet" school, even if its program is a success with the students who attend. Call it a "specialty" school if you want, but not a "magnet." The district and parents have every right to believe a "specialty" school which enriches the educations of neighborhood students is a terrific idea, that it doesn't need to have a diverse student population to be valuable for its students, but they lose the right to call it a "magnet" school worthy of deseg funding if it doesn't try to attract students from outside the neighborhood and isn't interested in desegregation.