These dropout reports are for grades 7-12, and are based on a calendar year that goes from the first day of summer vacation through the last day of school. A school’s total enrollment is used as the number against which dropouts are counted.
For this study: A dropout is defined as a student who is enrolled in school at any time during the school year, but was not enrolled at the end of the school year and did not transfer to another school, graduate or die.
Drop-Out Hot Zone: Arizona
(For 2009-10 School Year, Grades 9-12)
Arizona: 7.8%
Mississippi: 7.4%
District of Columbia: 7%
Alaska: 6.9%
New Mexico: 6.9%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
A major shake-up is needed to improve the way Arizona pays for public schools, so say teachers, lawmakers, school administrators and others, who argue struggling students often get shortchanged with the state’s decades-old funding method. “We fund like a Third World country,” says Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association. “It’s time to start investing in our kids.”
The state’s base-level, per-pupil funding amount is based on average daily attendance the first 100 days of school. The problem arises because at-risk students with behavioral and academic problems often start at new schools after the 100th day, but schools don’t get additional money for them or, for that matter, supplies and teachers’ salaries to compensate for the late-starts.
“We scramble,” says Kellie Burns, district executive officer for the Yavapai Accommodation School District. “Extra funding after the 100th day would be fantastic.” Her district sees many students behind on credits at its two high schools and transition program for students who were in the juvenile detention system. In the last four years, about 20 to 30 new students have started in the district after the 100th day. Sometimes the district hires part-time tutors, using general fund money, to assist teachers. The district’s class sizes are around 20 students, and Burns says sometimes teachers use their own money to buy supplies.
The Arizona Alternative Education Consortium is one of several groups asking Governor Doug Ducey’s Classrooms First Initiative Council to change the way the state funds schools. It wants additional money for students in alternative schools, which target specific types of at-risk students, saying often these students are “counseled out” of schools after the 100th day.
Democratic state Representative Reginald Bolding Jr. of Laveen, who is on the House Education Committee, says when he was a teacher he’d see two or three students start in his classroom after the 100th day. “It is a much easier lift for schools to get rid of students after the 100th day because the financial implications aren’t as severe,” he says. Thomas with the Arizona Education Association says when he taught at Mesa Vista High School in the Mesa Unified School District, he’d see about 20 students per year starting after the 100th day.
Jim Swanson, co-chairman of Ducey’s Classrooms First Initiative Council, says the funding formula should be “clear and transparent” and updated because of the surge in charter schools and open enrollment. “It’s the state’s responsibility to provide an equitable funding source for education in the state,” Swanson says. The state council, made up of education and business leaders, wants to modernize and simplify the K-12 public schools funding formula. Its goal is to recognize and reward schools for student achievement and to boost money for teachers. Charter schools get more money in their base, per-pupil funding than district schools, but district schools can ask voters if they’ll boost property taxes with bonds and overrides.
This school year, the state provides about $3,635 per pupil in base funding to public schools. Charter schools get that amount plus about $1,750-$2,040 extra per pupil. Betsy Fera, executive director of Horizon Community Learning Center, which consists of two Ahwatukee charter schools, says generally “charter schools receive less per student” than district schools due to bonds and overrides. Crystal Korpan, chief financial officer for the Queen Creek Unified School District, says there’s “always a risk we run of voter fatigue when going out to them multiple times” asking for support. Arizona places 48th in the nation for per-pupil state funding, according to a June U.S. Census Bureau report. That doesn’t include federal, bond and override funds.
Queen Creek parent and Desert Mountain Elementary School PTO president Jennifer Revolt says the district’s teachers are great, but spread thin. “Am I doing my children a disservice by being in Arizona?” Revolt worries. The state council aims to release recommendations by January 2017.
