Mesa school district begins discusssion on how to handle 2,400-student loss

8 comments:

• Tookie88 posted at 7:21 pm on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 135

  I agree with soricobob...Charter schools do need to be treated like public schools.

  I am a public school teacher and we get many students from charter schools who are two to three years behind grade level! Then we have to spend most of the school year trying to get them caught up.

  Plus there are too many charter schools in this state....all with a different focus, little accountability, and a lot of questionable accounting practices.

  I also agree with the person who posted about Mesa no longer being a desirable place to live. Outside of the Northeast area of Mesa, I would have to agree. What is there in Mesa anyway??? NOTHING!

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• trigama posted at 6:22 pm on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 30

  Alright now mps can use these teachers to help the other get our somewere close to surpassing the national average!

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• mesateacher posted at 4:42 pm on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 180

  I don't think all of the declining enrollment is due to SB1070, maybe some. But there are other things going on. Mesa is no longer a desirable place to move to is one reason. Thanks to myopic leadership over the past 20 years, you've lost businesses like crazy. How many Motorola plants were demolished? What replaced them? You let low income neighborhoods deteriorate to the point that parts of Mesa look like a 3rd world city. The lack of leadership has cost the city once thriving arts institutions. The Mesa Museum has never become a great one. The Mesa Symphony is history. Remember when they gave marvelous, free concerts at the Mesa Amphitheater? No more.

  So who wants to move there? Then, there's the school district itself. Again, lack of visionary leadership has turned a once proud and great district into a 3rd rate one that no one in the state looks to for leadership. The upper administration is not composed of scholarly people, but it's full of "professional educators" with their EdDs. They don't understand what goes on in classrooms, they're out of touch with teachers, and spend most of their time on public relations. The sad truth is that there are competing district and charter schools that are doing a much better job of educating kids, and parents who demand a 21st c quality education are moving the kids to those schools. If MPS wants to attract kids back, they must improve the quality of their education and make it world class. Raise standards higher. Not lower them like you've been doing. Demand students work, dress properly, and learn. Then maybe people will take you seriously.

  As far as budget cuts go, there are a lot of highly paid administration types on Main Street, Stapely and Country Club who can go and teachers won't notice.

  Finally, the union is not part of the problem in Mesa. When only 30% of the district teachers belong, the union is almost insignificant.

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• Mesa Citizen posted at 3:58 pm on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 25

  Why don't you just have a firing squad and shoot all of us that want you to cut spending...
  Will that make all union people feel better...

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• Mesa Citizen posted at 12:14 pm on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 25

  There should be lay-offs...
  But then again we are talking government...
  There will probably be pay raises in the near future...

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• soricobob posted at 5:32 am on Sun, Sep 12, 2010.

  Posts: 680

  There are many factors contributing to the loss of students, but the one which is "controllable" is charter school regulations. The State of Arizona needs to put a leash on charter schools: 1. Pay less per student for charter schools than public schools since charter schools are not required to have the same personnel (certified teachers, Superintendent, etc.); 2. Start examining the finances of charter schools which proliferate , and find out who is getting paid what; 3. Finally, do to charter schools what you do to public schools that do not perform.

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• CooperG posted at 10:51 pm on Sat, Sep 11, 2010.

  Posts: 132

  Don't forget there's another side of the economic equation: the lost economic contribution of those families. The bought food, clothing, rented apartments and homes, While this may "save" the state some money, the overall costs to the state will be significantly higher.

  As the saying goes "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."

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• SunWorshiper posted at 7:32 pm on Sat, Sep 11, 2010.

  Posts: 83

  [sad] OK, I don't claim to have the best math skills, but if 2/3's of the 2400 students gone from MPS (with SB1070 the assumed reason), that's about 1600 less students....students that I am ASSUMING are children of illegal aliens that were living amongst us. That, times the $5K per student cost, is $8 MILLION We the People of Arizona are paying to educate someone else's children when that someone shouldn't be here to begin with. Is that $5K per student the FULL cost or are there other hidden elements (say free breakfast/lunch, ELL, transportation costs, summer schools, etc., come to mind).

  That's a lot of money that We the People of Arizona could probably be spending on other budgetary items right about now.

  Then, again, maybe this is only the beginning of other "benefits" for our U.S. children in AZ schools:
  smaller class room sizes, more teacher/pupil interaction time, less spent on ELL that would free up $$$ for other classroom education of all students not just the ones needing ELL.

  Gee, maybe this is the beginning of one day AZ students will be moving up from the lower rungs of the national rankings by this reduction in students??
  

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