Gregory A. Miller, Arizona Daily Star
RE: “Calvin Baker – The whole truth on charter school funding”
Superintendent Baker knows that anyone can make his or her case or agenda using statistics, or in this case, very complicated financial systems that support our children’s education. If he truly believes what he advocated at the end of his Arizona Star Special Letter to the Editor: That districts and charters need to work together; as he outlined in his last two paragraphs, he would have opened his AZ Star Special Letter with that. But no, Mr. Baker opened citing a district where tax-payers didn’t support a local request for an override of up to 15% of the State Formula: or incorrectly suggest that all State Sponsored Charter Schools get an extra $1800 per student/year, where in fact just the opposite is true. On average, statewide, the districts get approximately $1700 per student/year more as defined by the State Superintendent’s Annual Financial Report. A report that is a collation of all school and district Annual Financial Reports submitted to the Arizona Department of Education each year; or suggesting that State Charter Schools are out of compliance with Federal Law and not providing a Free & Appropriate Education to students under Section 504 or IDEA statutes concerning Special Education. All charter schools are public schools and are held accountable to all the same Federal laws and requirements impacting Special Education Services as the districts, by the same State & Federal agencies.
His approach indicates Mr. Baker is still very much a part of the Educational Status Quo. Where the aim is to eliminate the parent choice option of the open marketplace. District Conversions of existing schools to charter schools is only a money grab; one of those pesky little “quirks” in State Law where districts can change up to 50% of their schools’ names and call them charters and get an extra $1600 per student/year. Vail District “charter conversions” alone will hit the “state’s stressed general fund” for approximately $6,400,000 a year. Money that will only increase the existing deficit between Districts & State Sponsored Charter Schools. So much for his concern for tax-payers statewide and the overall health of the General Fund.
State sponsored Charter Schools have saved the property tax payers of this State BILLIONS yes with a B! Due to the lack of access to both the secondary property tax and the Student First Fund for the facilities of our schools. Yes we invested our own money to secure revenue streams for facility construction and maintenance. Without the robust school choice opportunity in Arizona, the 140,000 currently enrolled charter school students would have had to be accommodated by new district facilities, costing Billions in state property tax payer dollars. As I stated in the beginning of this response, Mr. Baker is absolutely right when he said “The important truth is that for both district schools & charter schools funding is shamefully inadequate. Both … are struggling … educational funding is among the very worst in the nation. It is a funding level that cheats our children, our future, and our economic development”. I couldn’t agree more. I would like to close with two very important statements. The 1st is that we all owe Mr. Baker and all the employees of the Vail School District a major thank-you for providing their students a robust and challenging educational opportunity. Their “A” rating is well earned. They have set high expectations and held their students accountable while still creating an exciting environment to learn in, as many other successful charter schools and districts have. The 2nd is that due to the woeful underfunding of education in this state, the resulting scarce resources available, and the competition for them, it is hard to have a truly honest discussion about how to fix this issue among those who are in positions of policy and legislative leadership. But the time is now!
Gregory A. Miller
Vice President & Charter Representative of the
Arizona State Board of Education