Arizona Education Plan - HF Howard for Arizona Governor

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be” Thomas Jefferson

In 2009, the Goldwater Institute issued a 10-question quiz including the above questions to 1350 Arizona high school students. To what should be our horror, a mere 3.5% of the students could correctly answer 6 of the 10 questions.

Pick what ever survey or report you wish, our educational performance is unanimously abysmal. If nothing more, any reasonable sense of civic, community or parental responsibility demands that we not find ourselves in this shameful position. This is perhaps the greatest failure of this state as we are responsible for;

Having spent my career in for-profit business, I can say from experience that the business world is a competitive take-no-prisoners environment. Sending our children into this world with a strong back, weak mind and no comprehension of achievement is perhaps a most severe form of child abuse.

Why is our school system producing such dismal results? Well, complacency with celebration of average achievement is too kind. Obviously, in Arizona, we do not consider education to be worthy of serious attention even though we spend $9698 annually per student.

This candidate is no stranger to the world of academia. Having started my education in a rural two-room schoolhouse and ended it as a scientist with a PhD from a prestigious university, all in the public school systems, I have a multipoint analysis of the problems with appropriate solutions that I will execute.

You may not want to hear it but parents, it is your responsibility to raise your children and ensure achievement. The teacher is there to educate our child with you as a partner. I will institute an environment that will foster a cooperative effort between the parents and teacher with frequent communication of accomplishment and behavior. Parents and an extensive community volunteer system will be an integral part of the education program.
High aspirations with quantitative verification. Some years ago, the AIMS test was developed as a device to measure student achievement and ensure that graduates had mastered an acceptable level of academic competence. When initially administered, surprise, a very large portion of the students couldn’t meet the minimal standards of the test. Arizona’s response, dumb the test down until students could score a passing grade. This was a terrible admission of our complacency with low standards and general apathy for our youth’s futures. Under my administration, achievement compared to the highest standards in the nation will be frequently measured and reported to parents. Welcome to the real world kids, get in the game. And parents, take responsibility.
I support the newly-proposed initiative to directly couple teachers’ professional survival and reward to the quality of their product, their students’ achievement. As well-stated by the Goldwater Institute, “It would be immoral to keep ineffective teachers in the classroom simply because they have already spent years mis-educating students. No one – conservative, liberal, libertarian or vegetarian – should support such a policy.” With the frequent quantitative assessment of student achievement described above, we will have a ready and accurate measure of teacher performance. Highly-performing teachers should be handsomely rewarded and should take great satisfaction in being recognized as superior professionals.
A friend of mine came to this country from Ukraine with her 14-year-old son who had not a word of English skill. The Monday after arrival, he was dropped off at the local school and told to “make it work”. In two weeks, he was communicating effectively and in three months, his English skills were equivalent to native-born peers with no trace of his former speech phonetics. Though some in the judiciary will disagree, I will do the non-English-speaking children of Arizona a great favor and end bi-lingual education. Through immersion, those children will quickly gain the skills to become educated and competitive with their fellow citizens rather than perpetuate a system that destines them to a subordinate role in society. At the same time, the educational opportunities of English-speaking students will not be diminished by this peripheral distraction.
Bureaucracy doesn’t teach students but it will paralyze any well-oiled machine. My vision for Arizona schools is to demand performance from teachers then get out of the way. Don’t throw water on their ammunition by smothering energetic teachers with rules, politics and red tape that stifle spirit, initiative and common sense that would otherwise result in transfer of knowledge to students. My school had a principal (who was also the superintendent and CFO) and an assistant principal. That was it. Today’s schools are bloated with administrators for every conceivable niche, each with assistants who also have assistants. When each of these people has to produce some mark on the world to justify their existence, the only likely product will be quicksand. The same is true at the State administrative level. Decentralized school-based management (just like small government) will be most effective. As in any competitive private industry that achieves maximum results, teachers and local administrators should be empowered. They are the boots on the ground of education. Give them local authority (coupled with responsibility) and get out of the way. If they produce results, reward them. If they don’t, quickly replace them. The charter school concept is a fine illustration of this concept which I intend to institute throughout the Arizona public school system.
Most teachers that I confer with tell me that the number one obstacle to educating children is the inability to maintain discipline and protect the educational experience of receptive students from disruptive classmates. The classroom should be an incubator of learning, not of disruption. It is time for a dose of common sense here. Performing students are to be honored and cherished. Those preventing their achievement need to be moved out of their way. Today, we preferentially value the rights of a classmate to deprive fellow students of their right to become educated. Parents, if you can’t adjust the behavior of your child, your school will no longer accommodate your child’s presence in the mainstream. I will ensure that teachers and administrators will be empowered and required to remove disruptive classmates without red tape
This country went to internal war over the subject of racial separation. We have spent the 145 years since in painful conflict to rid our country of racial/cultural segregation and ensure equality, a status that we have or are near achieving. Yet, in Arizona, we have academic programs that are designed to divide students into racially/culturally distinct groups. Common sense should leave us scratching our heads over this lack of logic. My administration will end divisive ethnic studies and any other programs that are in contrast to the ideals of this country.
Superlative academic achievement by all students is impossible without the civic involvement of the entire community. Unfortunately, many parents are unable or ill-equipped to effectively mentor their child’s achievement. However, our community is a wealth of mathematicians, biologists, etc, many of whom would relish an opportunity to contribute to the future by tutoring and mentoring. I envision an army of such volunteers mobilized at every school. Aside from the obvious scholastic benefits to the students, both the young and senior generations will develop a positive mutual familiarity. Also, the adult volunteers will reap the benefit of community contribution and expanded social interaction.

In the last couple months, the State government has announced a number of school reforms that in some ways resemble a portion of the above. Have we finally grown a conscience? No, let’s not congratulate ourselves on our new-found responsibility. These have been enacted in order to qualify for Federal funding under the Presidents “Race to the Top” educational grant program. Our recent actions have been strictly in pursuit of money, not about taking responsible actions that we should have taken long ago in search of excellence. I will enact the reforms detailed above regardless of Federal money because it is the right thing to do for our children.

Recently an expert expressed the hope that Arizona can significantly upgrade the education system by 2020. Excuse me but that is no where good enough. No more studies, no more hollow lip service, no more election-year promises, no more absence of leadership. A new paradigm of achievement begins this November! Get on board!