Month: January 2019

Phoenix (Jan. 28, 2019) – The Arizona Charter Schools Association is pleased to announce that the State Board of Education has approved $10 million in federal Charter School Program grants. These dollars will increase the number of high-quality, public charter schools serving disadvantaged students in Arizona. The schools will create nearly 3,000 additional seats for Arizona’s students. Via the Charter School Program, the federal grants commit $250,000 annually for five years to eight schools that will cater to underserved students by either opening new schools, replicating campuses, expanding enrollment or adding grade levels.

“The Arizona Charter Schools Association applauds Governor Ducey for his continued commitment to K-12 education, as demonstrated by his proposed Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2020.

“In public education, everything starts with a great teacher. That’s why it’s so important the Governor’s spending plan allocates critical funding to further boost teacher pay, making good on the Governor’s promise to increase average teacher compensation 20 percent by 2020. These dollars will help public charter schools recruit and retain quality teachers for our classrooms. Added funding for school counselors is another urgent need in our schools that this budget takes a solid step toward addressing,” said acting Association CEO Robert Di Bacco.

“Additionally, this budget proposal significantly augments the existing Results Based Funding initiative to incentivize and reward high-achieving public schools, especially those serving low-income students. Arizona needs more quality classroom seats in outstanding schools, and Results Based Funding is one more tool to achieve this.

“Lastly, Governor Ducey’s budget plan proposes an extra $785,500 for the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools – enabling the oversight body to hire 10 extra staff to monitor academic, operational and financial performance at charter schools, as well as investigate complaints. The Arizona Charter Schools Association supports this effort to root out misconduct and ensure accountability on behalf of Arizona taxpayers and the nearly 200,000 students attending charter schools statewide.”

Phoenix (Jan. 17, 2019) – The State of Arizona has issued final school letter grades for 2017-18, finding nearly 4 in 10 public charter schools earned an “A” grade and almost 7 in 10 received an “A” or “B” grade. For the sake of comparison, 1 in 4 district schools received an “A,” and just over half got an “A” or “B” grade.

State-issued A-F school grades were initially made public in October 2018. Final performance scores now announced come following a multi-month appeals process in which letter grades were amended for 25 schools statewide. The latest charter performance scores for 2017-18 represent an improvement over 2016-17, when 66 percent of public charter schools earned an “A” or “B” grade.