Arizona: home to some of the best ideas in education, but also some of the worst.
That’s the perception that National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García, who was in town Thursday, discussing some of those bad ideas: overtesting students, unregulated charter schools, vouchers, inequities among students and schools, and the underfunding of education.
While Eskelsen García identified these as problems in Arizona, she noted they are not unique to the region. Rather they have become universal, and are the result of politicians with agendas that are not in the best interest of students, she said.
“They want to privatize, they’re making money off of tests, they’re getting what they need, and it has nothing to do with the best interest of children,” Eskelsen García said in an interview. “The politicians all had ads about how wonderful they were going to treat schoolkids, and then they cut budgets and doubled down on toxic testing that didn’t give us any real information about how kids are doing. And they disrespected the voices of the people who know the names of those kids — who’ve spent their lives and careers in the service of someone else’s children.”
That push toward privatization has only increased segregation, making inequities more pervasive, Eskelsen García said, arguing that the wealthy send their children to private schools, taking away advocacy for public schools.
Added Andrew Morrill, president of the Arizona Education Association, “Isn’t it interesting? Arizona is in its first years where Anglo students are not the majority population in our public schools, almost as if someone decided that since Anglos are no longer the majority population in our public schools, it was OK to start defunding them.”
Eskelsen García’s hope is that rather than being demoralized over what has been done to public education, that teachers will be energized to get people into office who will do what is right for children.
“Sometimes that means you’ve got to look at underfunded schools and fund them properly,” she said. “You have to have the programs, you have to have well-prepared career educators in those schools given the support staff that they need to make an entire learning community work, you need to assess and measure what matters and use data well — data that helps guide your instruction and isn’t used to punish a child, let alone a teacher.”
Bringing about change requires more than just getting yourself to the ballot box, she said. It requires using your circle of influence — talking to your family, neighbors, co-workers and community members to share your views on issues and making sure that they too have their voices heard.
Eskelsen García’s stop here — which included attending a private luncheon and a get-out-the vote rally at Tucson High Magnet School — was the first of several across the country to places that are having close election campaigns. In Arizona, that is the case in about a dozen key races that could be won or lost by a small number of votes, she said.
