Arizona children could be going to school 10 fewer days a year - but longer each day - under the terms of a proposal crafted by two Republican legislators.
Sen. Rich Crandall of Mesa and Rep. Doris Goodale of Kingman said Thursday they believe giving schools more flexibility with their school years might help them cope with cutbacks in state funding. Crandall said that could let them trim everything from utilities to transportation costs.
The plan, to be formally unveiled next week, also expands how schools can use the money they now get in donations. Current law limits the funding to extracurricular activities; this plan would let the districts spend anything they get on supplies and other one-time expenses.
It also contains some changes in laws governing borrowing.
But it is the section on changing the school year that could have the broadest impact.
Senate Minority Leader David Schapira, D-Tempe, said it's not an even trade to extend the school day while cutting the number of days in class.
"If you keep them there more hours in the day, as a former high school teacher myself, I certainly can tell you you're certainly going to run into some attention span issues," he said.
Schapira said there also are financial implications.
First, he fears that school districts may try to cut the salaries of teachers by 5.5 percent based on them having to work 10 fewer days, even with the longer work day.
"I've been hearing from some school districts that's exactly what they would do," he said.
Crandall said he doubts any district that hopes to keep its best teachers would ever try such a maneuver. Anyway, he said, state law already allows districts to scale back salaries in financial emergencies, with or without changing the length of the school year.
Parents also would be affected, Schapira said.
"That's 10 more days a year where the parent has to find a way to have their kid be supervised," he said. "Now they have 10 more days a year they have to pay for daycare."
Schapira also said the proposal violates a measure approved by voters in 2000 which permanently added six-tenths of a cent to the state sales tax. The language of that provision, he said, says money raised would go to extending the school year by five days, to 180 days.
Crandall disagreed with Schapira's assessment of the legality of the plan.
"We're maintaining the minutes," he said. Anyway, Crandall said, there already is precedent for what he wants, pointing to school districts that now have four-day weeks.
"If shaving off 40 days doesn't violate (the ballot measure), how does shaving off five to 10?" he asked. "It's the minutes that are critical, not the number of days you're in session."
Crandall and Goodale acknowledged the provisions in their plan are simply an interim solution to the state's funding problems. That has resulted in lawmakers failing to fully fund state aid to public schools, including a voter-approved mandate for annual inflationary adjustments.
Crandall said, though, there just isn't the cash to provide more money for public education.
"The bigger challenge we have is everybody is asking for a piece of the pie," he said.
One of the biggest pieces, Crandall said, is the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which currently provides free care for one out of every six state residents. While the Legislature is moving to trim that, he said health care will continue to make demands on the budget.
Goodale said the political reality is that she and Crandall are just two of the 90 legislators.
"It takes a lot of convincing," she said. "And that's part of the challenge of changing the culture of thought of where the budget goes. Every member on the floor of the House has an idea of what properly funding means, what my district means, to education, health care, public safety."
One other change would alter the laws that now govern the use of donations.
Arizona law provides individuals with a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, up to $200 a year, for money donated to public schools for extracurricular activities. Crandall said he believes some of that money is not spent wisely, with students able to seek donations from neighbors for things like a class trip to SeaWorld.
The plan would limit the use of these proceeds to $200 a year per pupil for out-of-state activities and $800 for any foreign trips.
On the other side of the equation, it would permit schools to use the cash for some academic uses, ranging from supplies to professional development activities of teachers.
loubator posted at 5:35 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Idiots.
DrJCA1 posted at 5:45 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
How come the public never hears of any organization, schools system, retailer, manufacturer, healthcare facility, etc dumping a bunch of middle to upper managment personnel???
Every employer is top-heavy with "administrators" and want to cut jobs for the folks who do the actual work. Sooner or later we, as a people, will actually get fed up with this kind of balony and insist that things change. The last thing the US needs is a shorter school schedule.
Rich posted at 8:37 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Schedules have very little meaning. School is Labor Dat to Memorial Day. The rest of the year is work. And for the most part between Memorial day and Labor day. Education really when the government does it is only indocrntation. Look up.. the sun goes around the Earth daily. You see it every day of your life, And yet you believe differently, because they told you so. When you are that neurotic, you'll believe anything.
hillstreet posted at 9:41 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
and we wonder why we are the joke of the nation?
rrjenn posted at 10:00 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Lets take a look at how things could be worse. Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America’s largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released new statistics this week showing social spending for those families in his county rose to $53 million in November, putting the county government on track to spend more than $600 million on related costs for the year—up from $570 million in 2009.
It isn't even half that bad anywhere in Arizona yet getting these parasites off the dole would just about put us in the black.
rrjenn posted at 10:05 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Maybe next time we want to cut services to the 400 thousand parasites who are breaking our law and siphoning off money that could be used to fund schools, you wont be so unwilling. Sometimes you people need to have reality slammed (metaphorically speaking) up against your collective heads before you get it.
rrjenn posted at 10:14 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
600 million per year! I wonder if that includes the millions of dollars in unemployment checks for all those citizens who can't find work because a Mexican is doing it cheaper, with no benefits and lousy working conditions. Isn't America great. This is the land where foreigners can take your job and the government refuses to stop it from happening.
rrjenn posted at 10:14 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
And the pretend cop says AZ is a joke?
rrjenn posted at 10:20 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Antonovich arrived at the estimate by factoring in the cost of food stamps and welfare-style benefits through a state program known as CalWORKS. Combined with public safety costs and health care costs, the official claimed the “total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers” was more than $1.6 billion in 2010.
“Not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education,” he said in a statement.
Antonovich acknowledges that the children whose benefits he’s focusing on are U.S.-born. But he argues that the money is collected by the illegal immigrant parents, putting a painful burden on taxpayers, including those who are legal immigrants.
“The problem is illegal immigration. . . . Their parents evidently immigrated here in order to get on social services,” Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said. “We can no longer afford to be HMO to the world.”
soricobob posted at 6:11 am on Fri, Jan 21, 2011.
How about a 4 day week and longer days?
lisa442 posted at 1:12 pm on Fri, Jan 21, 2011.
rrjenn, isn't the topic about education and the school year?
Retiree2000 posted at 1:40 pm on Fri, Jan 21, 2011.
As a college instructor, I see too many high school graduates who are unable to read, write coherently, or perform basic math skills. Cutting down the school year will only serve to further reduce the skills students should have upon graduation from high school. The state will also suffer with a workforce that fails to meet minimum educational requirements to perform basic tasks. Sadly, Arizona's worse than average graduation rates, quality of education, and poor schools will continue to decline. Wake up, people, the current legislature is only damaging our wonderful state by seeking to cut funding to our schools. Lowering the number of school days will have a negative effect on our children!!
rrjenn posted at 4:39 pm on Fri, Jan 21, 2011.
No lisa442, it's about cutting expenditures to match our income. Keep spending millions to educate illegals and you have less money for our children. Pretty simple idea don't you think lisa442. Fortunately, Arizona doesn't have the same problems as southern CA, but that's just due to the fact that we don't tolerate as much as the left coast does. Rid our state of illegals and suddenly you free up a whole lot of money to do all sorts of things.
rrffcc1 posted at 8:43 am on Sat, Jan 22, 2011.
Retiree2000: They don't want reasonably smart people around. Sly people, sure...mono-focused idiots, sure...the easily-led and weak-minded who blame illegals for all ills, absolutely. But having even modestly intelligent folks around who question what they're hearing from the screaming so-called pundits, and do the fact-checking -- oh no, can't have THEM around. THEY'RE too much trouble. Truth and facts just get in the way.
The ultra-whatevers on here with all the answers haven't called for a "final solution" yet, but they're working up to something extreme. Zealots always do.
azrepublican posted at 12:08 pm on Sat, Jan 22, 2011.
There we go, the left winger finally brings Nazis and extermination to the table. So rrffcc1, explain to us how the ultra-whatevers here are close to offering up "the final solution"?
Us so called zealots are tired of paying for the world's poor, and just want them to go home, so we are zealots who want "the final solution"?
Truth and facts just get in the way? You mean your truths and facts? Tell us all about what you consider to be truths and facts.
Are the facts presented by rrjenn something you don't consider to be truth?
America, the only country in the world where foreigners can come here illegally, steal your identity, take your job, and the federal government do very little to correct the situation.
And we wonder why America is the joke of the world.
lezlie posted at 11:15 am on Sun, Jan 23, 2011.
We've certainly learned that throwing more money into the educational systems does not cure the problems!
As a public school employee for over thirty years I can only share my experiences. Many of us educators have begged our administrators and school boards to save MILLIONS of dollars by NOT adopting new reading and math series. After all, a good educator knows the standards that are to be taught to the students and works hard to present those standards using different modalities - not through the utilization of one textbook. Unfortunately, that option has never been considered.
In defense of rrjenn's posts, we also are very aware that illegal immigrants are granted access to state-funded AHCCCS programs the day they enroll their children into our schools. Something my own adult children could never qualify for, even when making very little over minimum wages in their jobs. To those who come into this country illegally, "free education and healthcare" is spoken of frequently - that's because, to them it is free.
To the college professor - we all know that universities are targeted for big cuts again, so we understand your point of view, although I don't personally agree with it. I have two sisters who have worked in a state university for thirty years and with every budget cut, the professors are NEVER touched. There are thousands of professors in their seventies and eighties who decline to retire, which means other positions must be cut, and we all know those positions are the foundation of our educational institutions.
I tend to agree we may need to look at a four day school week, as many businesses have.
I do know that educators struggle already to find the time to teach the necessary standards. I think the entire system needs to be restructured and I'd also like to do away with the Dept. of Education.
Lastly, I am a true believer that it is the parents' responsibility to educate their children. Schools are facilitators of that education. Too many parents are failing in their responsibilities!
EmperorSmith posted at 11:57 am on Sun, Jan 23, 2011.
I can't help comment on Rich's the sun goes around the earth. It is all relative. The first astronomer, that mapped out the movement of the celestial bodies accurately had the earth at the center. I forget the guys' name.
EmperorSmith posted at 12:15 pm on Sun, Jan 23, 2011.
, after the acurately