Page 11 - The Edge - Back to School 2018

VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES CAN OPEN EYES It explains to legislators what’s happening and where we are, using
good examples. e majority of those years we were not able to get
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 across to people that Arizona was way underfunding schools, and

To illustrate the disparity, a display was created clearly showing that teachers were not adequately paid. We kept hammering away
that over the years charters are gaining a substantially larger share of that we were 48 in the nation, but we didn’t make much progress.
th
the state general fund, larger than their enrollment would indicate. What we were giving people did not project the message.”
e charters’ share of public school enrollment is 16 percent, but Year a er year, the Arizona Tax Research Association would
they receive 27 percent of state funding. provide more believable information. “ATRA was always beating
“It’s disproportionate,” Essigs said, “and the gap is growing. Next us,” Essigs said, “because they would come out with information
year we may see charter enrollment of 17 or 18 percent and their and people would believe what they were saying. ey would say,
share of funding at 28 or 30 percent. at should be concerning ‘We’re pretty low spending but that’s because we have a lot of kids.
to everyone. Districts still have more students to educate but an And every state that has a lot of kids doesn’t spend as much money
increasingly smaller share of the pie.” per student.’ So their message was, ‘Arizona is doing a really good
In 2017, charters received $1.3 billion while serving 170,000 job – we just have too many kids.’ And ATRA said teachers don’t
students. Districts received $3.4 billion for 928,000 students. need to be paid as much as the rest of the country because it’s so
“When you look at the districts’ total from the state funding cheap to live in Arizona. Neither one of those is true.”
formula, they do get more than charters, but if you back out federal Arizona costs are below the national average, Essigs said, and
money the districts get for food service and special education kids, it’s not an excuse that just because you have a lot of kids you spend
that gap gets really small,” Essigs said. “And when you take out the less money per student.
costs of districts educating disabled kids, charters actually end up Aportela was able to dispel the notion that schools weren’t
with more dollars to spend on their regular population. Without spending the money properly — she was able to turn things around.
Anabel putting all this together, we were never able to get that She showed that the vast majority of money from Proposition 123
message across.” goes to teacher salaries and they were still underpaid.
Aportela’s e orts have made a big di erence. “Because of all the
analysis, the di erent ways she can look at data, we now get better
information out,” Essigs said. “It’s less information, but it’s better. CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

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