Category: Association Blog

By Jamar Younger

A public charter high school with a college preparatory focus is entering into a unique and potentially groundbreaking partnership with a union high school district to provide more options for students in Tempe.

ASU Prep, a K-12 public charter school network with nine campuses spread across Phoenix and Casa Grande, has joined with the Tempe Union High School District’s Compadre Academy to open a joint school that will integrate ASU Prep’s rigorous college preparatory focus with Compadre’s flexible, self-paced, non-traditional program.

The schools will merge to form ASU Prep Compadre High School in Tempe.

This initiative is designed to provide disadvantaged students equal access to higher level college preparatory classes, regardless of their personal circumstances.

By Jamar Younger

Each year, the New York Times solicits college application essays from thousands of high school seniors around the country who choose to address money, work or social class as their topics.

The newspaper published five essays this year, including a piece authored by Tillena Trebon, an Arizona public charter student who is set to graduate this month from Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff.

In this poetic essay, Trebon describes the intersection of urban and rural existence in her life, how she balances these contradictions and how she’ll continue to “crave experiences only found at the edge” as she enters adulthood.

By Jamar Younger

Adam Jackson has always been a top-notch student who excelled academically and socially.

However, after Jackson’s father and biggest supporter died unexpectedly from cardiac arrest while being hospitalized for pneumonia, the high school junior lost his motivation.

Normally active and enthusiastic, Jackson descended into a depressive state, which affected his academic performance and caused his grades to temporarily drop.

Jackson grew up without his mother, who wasn’t involved in his life after he moved from the Los Angeles area to Phoenix as a young child, and was now fatherless. His grandparents provided his only familial support.

To make matters worse, his grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time, although she was able to conquer the disease and make a full recovery.

“I couldn’t find the motivation to continue in school. I lost a part of me,” said Jackson, 18, now a senior who will graduate from the school on May 23. “I just didn’t feel like doing anything.”

By Eileen Sigmund

​Arizona leads the nation as one of the first states to adopt a comprehensive – and enduring – charter school law. Our charter schools now serve more than 17 percent of all public school students in the state and have achieved unprecedented outcomes. With innovative leaders opening schoolhouse doors for the last 22 years, changes have occurred in the last two decades at both the state and federal level. And more change is on the way.

Significantly, Arizona’s school districts are suing today for over $4.5 billion in funding allegedly owed by the state for their facilities since 2009. Just as we did with Prop 123, the Association will review and examine how to best position our charter community in these upcoming legal and advocacy battles. It is imperative that the thousands of Arizona students attending charter schools are not left out of funding equity determinations going forward.

By Jamar Younger

National Charter Schools Week is a time to raise awareness and celebrate the accomplishments of public charter schools across the country.

In Arizona, we have a lot to celebrate.

Charter schools have become a preferred choice for parents, with about 180,000 students attending one of 547 charter schools across the state. That’s an increase of nearly 10,000 students – or 5.8 percent – over the last school year alone.

Nationally, there are about 1 million students nationwide who are on waiting lists to attend a public charter school.

These schools offer a diverse array of options for families.

Editors update: On April 24, 2017, the Arizona State Board of Education voted 7-2 to adopt the Ad Hoc committees recommended models for elementary and high school.

By Eileen Sigmund

How good is my child’s school?

One way parents can find out is through Arizona’s school accountability system, known as the A-F letter grades. On Monday, the Arizona State Board of Education is poised to make a historic decision: updating Arizona’s A-F letter grade system.

After eight months of working to craft a system that evaluates Arizona’s public schools, the State Board’s Ad Hoc committee has recommended an equitable accountability system. The Ad Hoc Committee relied on the work of technical experts; you know, the Ph.D.-type that can run data models and differentiate how the proposed A-F models measure the impact of the school, rather than the zip code of its students.

In this guest blog, Jeanne Allen founder of the Center for Education Reform (CER), tackles the overregulation of public charter schools. A fervent supporter of flexibility and innovation in education, Allen has been at the forefront of the education reform movement since founding CER in 1993. Below, Allen explains how a bill circulating through the Arizona State Legislature could impede that progress.

By Damon Norris

It’s not a secret that teacher recruitment and retention has been an issue at schools across Arizona for the last few years.

While there has been much debate on the reason for the teacher shortage, the truth is, it’s complicated.  As a former charter school business leader and now in my role at the Association, I’ve witnessed this crisis firsthand — fielding phone calls, exchanging emails and in meetings with school officials. They are concerned and want to work together to find solutions for this problem.

While many of Arizona’s brightest minds are working to help solve the teacher shortage, the Association has also thrown its hat into the ring. We’ve launched the Arizona Charter Career Center to connect schools with prospective employees. This free benefit for our charter members provides a central place for schools to post jobs, as it feeds to and from job boards like Zip Recruiter and Indeed.com. Prospective employees can apply through their Facebook profile, resume or custom resumes. We also included a resume database within our Career Center for school leaders to search for new candidates.

But we know a job board isn’t enough.

By Kate Gottfredson and Megan Gilbertson

Teachers are the single most important in-school factor to raising student achievement. As Arizona’s policymakers wrestle with tough budget decisions, they have expressed concern about how these decisions reflect the ways in which we value our teachers and support teacher pay. As State Rep. Paul Boyer, a teacher himself, recently pointed out, teachers are best supported when their schools recognize the significance of their work and are committed to raising expectations for all learners.

When our lawmakers make the choice to fund what works, high quality schools should continue to have the funding flexibility to make decisions that support great teachers and, in turn, serve the best interests of students.