OBAMACARE:  Join us for this informative panel discussion

Phoenix, AZ – On Wednesday, February 8, 2012, Arizona Mainstream Project (AMP) will bring to the public a panel discussion on Obamacare.  Speaking on this panel will be Goldwater Institute’s Senior Attorney Diane Cohen and Director – Center for Economic Prosperity Byron Schlomach, Dr. Jeff Singer, and former AZ Congressman John Shadegg.  550 KFYI Talk Host Terry Gilberg will be the moderator for the discussion.

Each panel member will share their personal expertise and direct involvement with uncovering the facts about The Affordable Care Act and how it has begun and will continue to negatively impact the lives of ALL Americans.  You will gain a better understanding of this law and how it applies to your access to health care, the current legal battles, and how you can help stop this anti-American and socialistic agenda.

 Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Location:  Goldwater Institute Auditorium
Address: 500 E. Coronado Road, Phoenix,  AZ

Time: 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm (doors open at 5:30)

Light snacks and beverages will be served

Cost:  $10.00 per person

To reserve your seat we encourage you to RSVP and purchase tickets in advance

Go to: http://www.arizonamainstreamproject.org/#q=Seminars-18

or send payment to:

Arizona Mainstream Project
15029 N. Thompson Peak Parkway
Suite B-111 Box 589
Scottsdale, AZ 85260

This panel discussion will be STREAMED LIVE from AMP’s website.

A “Live Stream” button will be available on our homepage www.ArizonaMainstreamProject.org on the day of the event.  Follow the instructions to access the live video stream.

Contact: Honey Marques, Executive Director, at 808-283-3661 or honey@arizonamainstreamproject.org

Arizona Mainstream Project is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit charitable grassroots organization whose mission is to attract, educate, and mobilize the people of Arizona around America’s founding principles and leadership. AMP believes in the principles of a constitutionally limited government, free markets, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty to promote the common good and prosperity for the people of Arizona.

In the first episode of The Cosby Show, Cliff Huxtable explains to Theo how to keep track of a budget. Using Monopoly money, they wrestle over the costs of living on your own. Finally, Theo pledges to survive with only the bare necessities and has $200 left over for the month. As Theo beams with pride, Cliff asks, “Are you going to have a girlfriend?” and then plucks the remaining bills out of Theo’s hand.

Two weeks ago, the real Bill Cosby offered a lesson in school finance in preparation for National School Choice Week: “[E]ducation is not a thing that big bucks happens to be the answer [to].” He says, “We have a moral and societal obligation to give our children the opportunity to succeed in school, at work, and in life. We cannot meet that obligation unless parents are empowered to select the best schools of their children.”

Shortly after Cosby made his comments, families around Arizona cheered Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Maria Del Mar Verdin’s ruling upholding the state’s one-of-a-kind education savings account program. Judge Del Mar Verdin wrote in her opinion, “The exercise of parental choice among educational options makes the program constitutional.”

For students with special needs, like Nathan Howard, the decision couldn’t have been better. His mother, Amanda, says that since Nathan started at his new school, a move made possible by the savings account, she has seen “such a huge difference.” For the first time he can almost speak in full sentences.

HB 2626, sponsored by Rep. Debbie Lesko and Sens. Gould, Klein, Melvin, Murphy, and Yarborough, would extend the opportunity for a brighter future to the 94,000 students in Arizona’s lowest-performing schools. The bill also offers hope to Arizona’s intellectually gifted students, another underserved population, as well as to students in military families.

HB 2626 is a tremendous step toward providing all students the best opportunity to succeed.

Jonathan Butcher is the Education Director for the Goldwater Institute.

Learn more:

Education Next: Challenging the Gifted

Goldwater Institute: Superior Court Upholds Education Savings Accounts

The Cosby Show: Season 1, Episode 1

National School Choice Week: Bill Cosby is IN for National School Choice Week

The Daily Caller: Bill Cosby on Education: More funding is not the answer

By Vicki Alger, Ph.D.

Right now in Arizona more than 94,000 students are attending “D” schools, or schools that have chronically poor academic performance.

Rather than waiting for bureaucratic wheels to turn and their schools to improve, these children deserve an out. Arizona already has a pathway for them – it just needs to be widened a bit to give more children a chance.

That path is Arizona’s tax-credit scholarship program, which more than 31,000 low-income, special needs, and foster students are already using to attend private schools.

The proposal now working its way through the state legislature would allow couples to donate up to $2,000 (instead of $1,000) toward the scholarships, and would extend scholarship eligibility to children of military personnel. Moreover, anything couples donate over $1,000 would go specifically to students using the program for the first time.

These changes could help more kids escape failing schools and get on the path to academic success.

No child’s education should be limited by his family’s income or address. Expanding Arizona’s scholarship tax credit program just makes good sense for children.

Vicki (Murray) Alger, Ph.D., is President and CEO of Vicki Murray & Associates, LLC, a Phoenix-based education research and services company. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum in Washington, D.C., and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, where she is completing a book on the history of the U.S. Department of Education.

Learn More:

Arizona Department of Education: 2010-2011 A-F Letter Grades for All Schools

Arizona Department of Education: The New A-F School Accountability Letter Grade System

Arizona State Legislature: S.B. 1048

Harvard University: An Analysis of Arizona Individual Income Tax-credit Scholarship Recipients’ Family Income, 2009-10 School Year

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 26, 2012
CONTACT: Andrew LeFevre

Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal to Close Out Arizona School Choice Week Festivities
Arizona’s Groundbreaking Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Ruled Constitutional

Phoenix, AZ, Thursday, January 26, 2012 – On Friday morning, January 27 at 11:00 AM, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal will close out National School Choice Week activities here in Arizona by addressing thousands of students and parents at Edu-Prize campus located at 4567 West Roberts Road in Queen Creek, Arizona. Along with message on school choice week, Superintendent Huppenthal will be discussing the ruling earlier this week by Arizona Superior Court upholding the constitutionality of Arizona’s innovative Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) for special needs students.

“I am a firm believer that educational decisions should be made at the most local level possible,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal. “To me that means parents should be able to make the decision on which school will best meet the unique educational needs of their child.”

Friday, January 28 marks the end of the second annual National School Choice Week. All across the nation, school choice advocates and organizations, grassroots networks, parents and students held hundreds of events to increase awareness of the importance of providing effective educational options for every child. Arizona’s events included rallies and balloon launches at schools all across the state, a screening of the award winning documentary “Waiting for Superman,” and a virtual Congressional Town Hall.

As an added bonus to the School Choice Week activities, on Wednesday a Superior Court Judge found that Arizona’s ESAs which benefit special needs students was constitutional under Arizona law. Under the ESA program, parents are able to take 90 percent of the state education funding that is provided to their child and use it to purchase educational services that they deem best meet their child’s unique needs.

“The judge’s ruling was a great victory for parents and our most vulnerable students,” exclaimed Superintendent Huppenthal. “The ESA program epitomizes what school choice is all about – giving parents direct control over their children’s education.”

“To me one of Arizona’s greatest educational assets is our school choice environment,” continued Superintendent Huppenthal. “I am very excited to be able to be at Edu-Prize and hear firsthand from the students and parents about how being able to choose this school has made a difference in their education.”

Superintendent John Huppenthal has been a champion in the struggle to give parents greater control of their children’s education for over 18 years. In 1994 he led Arizona efforts to bring charter schools to the state. As Senate Education Committee Chairman in 1995, he sponsored and helped pass legislation that took the caps off the number of charter schools allowed under the law. He led the effort in developing some of the strongest home school and public school open enrollment laws in the nation. He was also a leader in the efforts to allow individuals and corporations to claim educational tax credits to fund student scholarships. Due to his efforts, tens of thousands of students have been able attend a school of their parent’s choice.

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The Maricopa County Superior Court rejected a legal challenge by the Arizona School Boards Association and the Arizona Education Association against the accounts, known formally as empowerment scholarship accounts (ESAs).

“Though this is only the opening round of a protracted legal battle, it is gratifying to start with a victory for the kids,” declared Clint Bolick, vice president for litigation at the Goldwater Institute, who argued on behalf of the Institute before Judge Maria Del Mar Verdin.

ESAs were proposed by the Goldwater Institute as a way to expand educational opportunities, and were adopted by a bipartisan majority of the Arizona Legislature for disabled schoolchildren in 2010.  For eligible children who leave the public schools, the state provides 90 percent of their per-pupil funding in an account that can be used for a wide variety of educational purposes, including private school tuition, tutoring, distance learning, community college classes, and educational software.

The Arizona Supreme Court struck down school vouchers in 2009, holding that because they could only be used for private school tuition, they were impermissible aid to private and religious schools.  Judge Verdin noted that ESAs, by contrast, can be used by parents to fund various services from multiple entities.  “The exercise of parental choice among education options makes the program constitutional,” she concluded.

The Goldwater Institute has called for expansion of the program to children who are enrolled in poor-performing public schools.

Although an appeal is inevitable, Bolick said, “We wish the school boards and teachers’ union would call off the attack dogs and direct their resources toward education rather than litigation.”

In addition to the Goldwater Institute, the program is defended by Attorney General Tom Horne and the Institute for Justice.  The decision comes in the middle of National School Choice Week.

The court ruling is available here (PDF). Read more about Niehaus v. Huppenthal here.

To celebrate National School Choice Week, the Goldwater Institute is highlighting five key areas of education reform. Today’s focus is charter schools. For more information about the Institute’s groundbreaking work in this area, visit our Education Reform page.

When my wife, April, and I first studied charter schools in Arizona back in 1997, they had 222 campuses, a 3.3 percent market share, and heaps of criticism from folks who had never set foot inside of one. Fifteen years later they have 524 campuses, a 12 percent market share, and still plenty of critics.

Perhaps the most important change of the last 15 years, though, is that now we know. We know that charter school teachers feel more empowered than district school teachers. We know charter parents like their schools. Contrary to a popular myth that charters are more segregated than traditional schools, a study conducted by some of my colleagues at the University of Arkansas found that there are only small differences in the level of overall student segregation.

We know that charters spend less, and do about the same on student academic growth—with the dramatic exceptions of some Arizona charters where student achievement levels are among the highest in the country. Nationally, charters are funded at a level that is slightly more than half of what traditional schools receive, according to the Center for Education Reform ($6,585 compared to $10,771). In Arizona, charters receive 20 percent less than traditional schools. We know that charter competition has generally led traditional public schools to be more respectful of parents and teachers.

We know that charter schools like Mesa Arts Academy, Sonoran Science Academy, and the upstart Phoenix Collegiate prove that disadvantaged kids can learn. We know that charters like Tempe Prep and Basis prove a demand for world-class academics. We know that the Charter School of Sedona proves that teachers can run a public school, and do a darn good job of it.

But thinking back on the studies I’ve read and the schools I’ve seen, I keep coming back to one scene. In an arts-oriented charter school, a recent immigrant told me how much her life had improved since leaving her well-regarded district school. At her charter school, she wasn’t bullied for her accent or appearance. She no longer cried every day when she went to school; she no longer cried every day when she came home.

She is what the charter movement is all about. Traditional public schools do a good job serving many kids, but in many instances, they cannot serve that girl, or kids like a teenage me, who need a different option. In Arizona, her parents have 524 chances to find it.

Robert Maranto (rmaranto@uark.edu) is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.

Learn more:

​Goldwater Institute: Basis v. Horne (Charter school autonomy case)

Goldwater Institute: Comparison of Traditional Public and Charter Schools

Goldwater Institute: Does Charter School Attendance Improve Test Scores?

To celebrate National School Choice Week, the Goldwater Institute is highlighting five key areas of education reform. Today’s focus is homeschooling. For more information about the Institute’s groundbreaking work in this area, visit our Education Reform page.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1.5 million students in the United States were homeschooled in 2007. One estimate of homeschoolers in Arizona puts the number at over 35,000. When the University of Arizona considered instituting a minimum SAT score only for homeschoolers, the president of the university resisted. Homeschoolers were the least of his problems when it came to students achieving, since homeschoolers have a proven achievement record in colleges and universities.

Homeschooling has come a long way. When my wife and I started homeschooling our daughter in the early 1990s, it had not been that long since homeschool families were pursued by truant officers. Today, homeschooling is much more accepted and takes on many different forms. Homeschoolers create co-ops where parents with different skills and knowledge teach each others’ children. They organize book fairs, sports teams, choirs, and field trips (often getting special praise for good behavior). And, homeschooled kids pretty regularly win the National Spelling Bee.

Homeschoolers sacrifice a second income in making the choice to educate their children, even as they pay the taxes to support public schools, scholarships to private schools, and charter schools. Education savings accounts hold out the promise that at least some who choose to homeschool will be able to recoup some of the costs they bear for the public system, making homeschooling a viable education choice for more parents.

Byron Schlomach, Ph.D. is Director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Economic Prosperity.

Learn more:

A to Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling: Number of Homeschoolers in the USA

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine: Homeschooling Comes of Age in College Admission (PDF)

National Center for Education Statistics: 1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007 (PDF)

PHOENIX – Today, the State Board of Education elected its leaders for 2012. The Board unanimously elected public member Jaime Molera to serve as its president and Tom Tyree, Yuma County Schools Superintendent, to serve as its vice president.

“I commend both President Molera and Vice President Tyree for their ongoing leadership with the State Board of Education,” said Governor Brewer. “Each of these individuals has played a vital role in improving the standard of education in Arizona. I look forward to their continued exceptional service to our schools and to our children.”

The State of Education is responsible for supervising and regulating the conduct of Arizona’s K-12 system. The Board is comprised of 10 gubernatorial appointees and Superintendent of Public Instruction, Hon. John Huppenthal.

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In case you missed it, here is the recent interview of Attorney General Tom Horne on the BBC discussing Tucson Unified School District’s “Ethnic Studies” program: http://www.azag.gov/press_releases/jan/2012/world%20service.mp3

By Jonathan Butcher

Momentum is building around the country for “Parent Empowerment” — the movement to allow parents to petition, under law, for sweeping changes to their child’s school. Just last week The Wall Street Journal reported on the efforts of “fed-up parents” with students at low-performing schools in Southern California to “take an unusual step: fire the school.” Later this year Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight, Away We Go) and Holly Hunter (The Incredibles, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) will star in the feature film Won’t Back Down, depicting the efforts of parents to turn around a failing school.

California’s law, along with similar legislation in Texas and Mississippi, allows parents to vote to convert chronically low-performing schools to charter schools, replace school leadership and provide new directors with significant decision making authority, or even close schools entirely.

Ben Austin is the head of Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based parent group that started the movement in 2009, and he told me he is convinced we are living in a “revolutionary moment.” He said, “A grassroots movement sprung up over parents having real political power. Not parent involvement ‘old school’ like bake sales, but when parents are treated like grown-up political actors and are taken seriously.”

Austin’s resume includes a stint with the Clinton White House from 1994-99 and communications director for the 2000 Democratic National Convention Host Committee, so a parental choice-style reform such as Parent Empowerment might not seem like his forte. But he says, “The system fundamentally is failing because it’s not designed to serve kids. The only way we’re going to change things is to transfer political power from defenders of the status quo to parents.”

Arizona has been one of the nation’s leaders in education reform for over a decade, and lawmakers should seize the moment we are in to allow parents to take ownership of their child’s school. No matter which side of the aisle you are sitting on, we can all agree on the need to serve students, not protect a system.

Jonathan Butcher is the Education Director for the Goldwater Institute.

Learn more:

Parent Revolution

The Wall Street Journal: Parents Rebel Against School

IMDB: Won’t Back Down (formerly titled Learning to Fly)

By Clint Bolick

We like to joke around the office that the best way to determine if an education reform is worth pursuing is whether the special interests that defend the status quo challenge it in court. So we knew for certain we were onto something with the idea of Education Savings Accounts when they were hit with a double whammy: a lawsuit against them filed not only by the teachers’ union but by the Arizona School Boards Association. (Your tax dollars at work!)

Three years ago, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down school vouchers under Article 9, section 10 of the state constitution, which forbids the “appropriation of public money made in aid of any . . . private or sectarian school. . . ” The Court reasoned that because all of the voucher funds necessarily would be used in private schools, they constituted impermissible “aid.”

Education savings accounts (ESAs), on the other hand, can be used for a variety of educational purposes, from private school tuition to distance learning, home schooling, tutoring, educational software, community college classes, or college tuition. It’s tough to consider the accounts an appropriation in “aid” of private schools when none of the money is earmarked for them.

The legal challenge, now in its opening round in Maricopa County Superior Court, is vitally important to the future of systemic education reform. If we were designing a K-12 education system from scratch — with no preconceived notions yet mindful of the technology that enables us to deliver high-quality, personalized instruction to every child — surely it would not look like the bricks-and-mortar, one-size-fits all system to which most American children are consigned.

ESAs allow families to tailor educational services to their children’s individual needs. In 2011, the Legislature enacted ESAs for children with special needs. This year, we hope ESAs will be made available to children in poor-performing public schools. Just as the Goldwater Institute gave life to the idea of ESAs, so are we tenaciously defending them in court.

Clint Bolick is director of the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.

Learn more:

Arizona Judicial Branch: Cain v. Horne (PDF)

Goldwater Institute: Niehaus v. Huppenthal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 11, 2012
CONTACT: Andrew LeFevre

Statement of Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board’s Decision to Immediately Suspend Their Mexican American Studies Program

Phoenix, AZ, January 11, 2012 – Today, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal released the following statement regarding the action by the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD) governing board to immediately suspend their Mexican American Studies Program:

“Last night, by a 4-1 vote, the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District resolved that ‘All Mexican-American Studies (MAS) courses and teaching activities, regardless of funding source, shall be suspended immediately.’

I am very encouraged by the swift and decisive action taken by the members of the governing board last night to address the issues that I raised in my final ruling on January 6, 2012 of the district being in violation of A.R.S. § 15-112.

I am currently reviewing the official resolution that was adopted by the governing board and, upon consultation with TUSD representatives, will make a determination on appropriate method to verify their compliance with A.R.S. § 15-112.

I look forward to working with Superintendent Pedicone and other TUSD leadership to find ways to improve their schools and to provide a quality education for all TUSD.”

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In 1965, The Four Tops released a follow-up to their hit single, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” with a number called “It’s the Same Old Song.” It was, actually, nearly the same song as “Can’t Help Myself,” admits singer Abdul “Duke” Fakir, as he and songwriter Lamont Dozier were in a rush to produce something and “reversed [‘Can’t Help Myself’] with the same chord changes” to write “Same Old Song.”

In Arizona, we’re hearing the same old song about more money for education, now in the form of continuing the “temporary” 1 percent sales tax.

The Arizona Education Network says, “Studies show Arizona continually lags among the bottom of all states in terms of public education funding and academic performance,” as though speaking of money and student achievement in the same breath will somehow link them together.

As history shows, increases in education funding do not lead to higher levels of student achievement. In fact, education funding has been on the rise for decades with nothing to show for all that additional money.

Between 1985 and 2007, federal school spending increased 138 percent, and per-pupil expenditures around the country have more than doubled since 1970, says Stanford University’s Eric Hanushek.

In Arizona, reading scores for 4th graders on the Nation’s Report Card have changed little in the last decade, despite a 47 percent increase in total spending per pupil between 2000 and 2009. Interestingly, even when funding ticked down 4 percent between 2009 and 2010, not only does that make but a small dent in the earlier increases but scores did not change. Suggestions that Arizona’s low achievement levels are a result of funding levels ignore these findings.

Lawmakers should follow Gov. Jan Brewer’s lead and mark Arizona as the nation’s leader in education reform, as the East Valley Tribune reported last week, and keep the state committed to sound fiscal practices and a balanced budget.

Jonathan Butcher is education director for the Goldwater Institute.

Learn more:

East Valley Tribune: Brewer wants to revamp public education funding, expand private school options

Rolling Stone: The Four Tops Turn Fifty

Arizona Education Network: Arizona Voters Support Sales Tax Continuation to Fund Public Education

National School Choice Week

Arizona Auditor General: Arizona School District Spending