The Future of Public Schools in Arizona?
Robin Hiller of Tucson’s Voices for Education writes that while it is true that charters in Arizona represent 25% of all schools in the state, they enroll only 9% of the state’s children.
| The 25% number is misleading, because we have charters that have 17 students and public high schools that have 3,000. In 2008, Arizona had 1,480 ‘traditional’ K-12 and 477 charter schools. But according to the Arizona Dept of Ed and reports from each county’s superintendent’s office: 85% of Arizona students attend public schools, 9% attend charter schools, 4% attend private and less than 1% attend home schooled. If we want to fix education, we need to invest where the children are. |
Another reader in Arizona writes in response to this post about “the wild west” of unregulated charters:
The situation in Arizona is distressing. A significant number of charter