Arizona Needs Improvement on School Improvement
December 8, 2018
Brenna Bailey reports for the Arizona Daily Star that, while Arizona has long focused on local control of schools, the Collaborative’s Promise to Practice report “says the state’s approach has backfired when it comes to improving its lowest performing schools.” Peer reviewers found that Arizona’s ESSA plan “technically complies with federal regulations” seeing how it’s a word-for-word copy of the U.S. Department of Education’s own policy. But peer reviewers find that “it puts most of the burden of improving D- and F-rated schools on the districts themselves.” The “lack of streamlined, consistent state oversight causes struggling schools to continue to struggle, despite district efforts to keep them out of the weeds.”