Debra Duvall (Mesa Public Schools)
Arizona’s top education official faced off Wednesday at the state Capitol with several school district superintendents over what public schools should be doing to educate students who don’t speak English as their first language, and how much should it cost to do the job right.State Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, arraigned for a two-hour debate between Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and the local superintendents because school districts are complaining loudly that the Arizona Department of Education is pushing too quickly to change the approach for dealing with English language learners, and is dramatically underestimating how much the money is needed.In 2006, the Legislature moved to end a longstanding federal lawsuit by charging the Education Department and a separate task force to develop new methods for teaching ELL students, and to inform the Legislature how much tax money it would take to fund such changes. The biggest change would be every ELL student should be separated from regular classes for four hours a day for intensive instruction in English. Most of those students would be expected to return to regular classes full-time within two years.
Based on information gathered from the state’s various school districts, Horne estimates $40 million a year is needed to hire more teachers and to provide additional reading materials. But the school districts say they will need far more, as much as $300 million a year.
For much of Wednesday’s debate, both sides dissected obscure details related to Arizona’s complex formulas for education funding. But a compelling moment came when Debra Duvall, superintendent of the Mesa Unified School District, suggested the months-long process of research and negotiation between the Education Department and local schools had been a farce.
“I think there was a dollar figure in mind … that you thought the state could afford; that you had someplace in your budget or you could go to the Legislature and that maybe you could get $20 million or $30 million, or maybe it was $40 million.
“And then, you kind of backtracked. That now we are expected to insure the total comes up to (a pre-determined number). I can guarantee you that $40 million sounds like a whole lot of money. But when you talk about the youngsters that are in this state and the things that need to be done to effectively implement the models that were proscribed, $40 million isn’t going to cut it.”
The idea that Horne or his staff just arbitrarily picked a funding number and then fixed the books to match it would have enormously bad implications. Arizona is under a federal court order to calculate what it really should cost to properly educate about 138,000 ELL students, and then to come up with the money. The federal judge has twice found the state in contempt of court for failing to finish this task, and faces millions of dollars in fines if it doesn’t do so by April 15.
Duvall’s comments struck Horne and one of his deputies right between the eyes. John Stollar, associate state superintendent for accountability, responded fiercely during the debate.
“I didn’t like my integrity being impugned,” Stollar said. “My staff and I have worked on these figures from day one. Superintendent Horne was never part of any of our discussion. He would ask things like, ‘can you give me a rough number’. I would respond that we have to work through the system. … The bottom line is there was absolutely no suggestion to me and my staff, ‘Oh, you had better make this come in at $40 million.’ ”
Duvall said after the debate she came to the Capitol convinced there were underhanded manipulations afoot because of the wide discrepancies between the funding numbers reached by Horne’s agency and those calculated by her staff and other school districts. But once Duvall heard directly from Horne and his assistants, she accepted the differences probably aren’t driven by politics, but by honest disagreements about what school districts will need to carry out the state’s new mandates.
