Arizona:
Heart of the Matter

by Lynn Schnaiberg

High school students first take each of the test's seven components--which gauge whether they are meeting the state standards in reading, writing, and mathematics--in the sophomore year. If they fail any part, they can retake it up to four more times. They must pass all seven components in order to graduate.

Arizona takes aim at social promotion, but the real test is still to come.

The AIMS test also will measure student performance in grades 3, 5, and 8 starting in the spring of next year. Although the state is not mandating that students pass the test in order to move to the next grade, state officials have said some districts may choose to adopt such a policy.

The state's push to roll back social promotions has plenty of fans, but, critics say, the devil is in the details.

Originally, the Class of 2001 was slated to be the first required to pass the test, which measures proficiency against academic standards the state adopted in 1996. But in November--after hearing teachers and parents complain that they first saw the standards in September when they were sent home with students--the state school board voted to push back the graduation requirement one year.

"The concern is not enough schools have adapted their curricula to the standards," Patricia Likens, a spokeswoman for state Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan, said in November. "In too many instances, the material is stopping at the district curriculum director's desk and not getting to teachers so they can teach it."

In response to questions about what the state would do to help students who perform poorly on the test, Keegan is asking lawmakers to set aside $4 million for schools to offer help through options such as summer school, tutoring, or remedial classes.

With the testing date looming, many educators say it's hard to know whether the effort will prove meaningful. Test producers and the state still need to decide what a student needs to demonstrate to be deemed proficient in an area. Such critics as Gene Glass, the associate dean for research in the education school at Arizona State University in Tempe, say such decisions wind up being more political than pedagogical.

"There's no nonarbitrary place to draw the cutoff score," Glass says. "The score becomes politically manipulated so there's a politically acceptable failure rate. And the real damage is that the focus becomes all on test preparation."

Other concerns remain about how poor students and those with limited English skills will fare on the test.

The AIMS test will be offered in Spanish for 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders; students whose native language is not English are exempt for up to three calendar years from testing in English. High school students, however, must take the test in English.

"It's not right to give a diploma if students can't read or write in English. That's the state's responsibility to ensure they have those skills," Orr says. To pass the test in English, some students may have to enroll as fifth-year seniors, she says. Under Arizona law, students can attend public school until age 22.

Some experts such as those at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington have lauded the academic standards on which the AIMS test is based. Schools are expected to align their curricula to the state standards in language arts, math, science, the arts, foreign language, workplace skills, comprehensive health, and technology. State officials hope the social studies standards will be ready by fall.

The statewide tests are an exception to Arizona's usual philosophy extolling local control. The preference for local control and parent choice over state mandates is reflected in Arizona's general approach to school accountability.

Armed with state-supplied statistics on schools, parents can choose any traditional public school or charter school through statewide open enrollment.

As in past years, the state over the summer posted on the World Wide Web results on the state, district, and school levels from the Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition, which students took in grades 3-12.

The state also publishes a report card on each school. The report card includes student test results as well as other information about school performance.

The state education department in the fall sent out guides to the academic standards for schools to put into parents' hands. In addition to the standards themselves, the guides include a list of questions parents should ask of their child's school: Have teachers been trained to teach using the standards? Has the school shared its school report card with you? Will your child be ready to graduate?

"We here are pretty much 'local control,' " Orr says. "But we'd hope parents have enough information about their school and student performance and how the school compares to other schools so that they can make choices."

Arizona's fierce protection of local control may help explain why a number of bills seeking to push accountability from the top down--such as allowing for state intervention in failing districts--died in the legislature last year.

Arizona has tried, meanwhile, to infuse teacher preparation with greater accountability.

The state board has signed off on new rules for teacher certification that rely on a more standards- and performance-based approach than in the past. New tests that measure academic knowledge and classroom performance are in the works.

"We've moved a couple notches over on the continuum as far as solid commitment to creating a quality teaching force and holding teachers accountable," says Penny Kotterman, the president of the 30,000-member state affiliate of the National Education Association.

Arizona has more than 250 charter schools--more than any other state. Many of the state's education leaders, such as the Republican state schools chief, are strong supporters of charter schools and see such schools as a means of bolstering accountability in public schools overall. Charter schools receive public funds but operate free from many regulations in exchange for being held more accountable for student results.

Critics say that Arizona's charter school law is too open and that oversight of the schools has been lax, but state leaders counter that they have tightened the charter-approval process and regulation.

Lawmakers last year shot down attempts to expand the list of who can grant charters and how many they can grant. Currently, the state board of education and the state board for charter schools are each limited to awarding 25 charters per year; local school boards may sponsor an unlimited number of charters.

Testing, teachers, and charter schools aside, it was school finance that dominated much of the education debate last year.

After years of legislative wrangling, the Arizona Supreme Court over the summer approved a state plan to create a more equitable and adequate finance system for school construction and maintenance.

The court approval came seven years after a coalition of poor districts filed suit against the state. Since 1994--when the high court first found the system unconstitutional--lawmakers had made several attempts to change the system, but the courts shot down each one.

Working under the court's threat of a cutoff of state aid, the legislature passed a plan that shifts much of the fiscal responsibility for building and maintaining schools from local districts to the state. It allows districts to issue bonds if they wish to go beyond the state's minimum-adequacy facilities standards, which must be set by April. The state estimates that its far-reaching plan will cost $374 million a year, eventually costing less as existing facilities problems are resolved.

Gov. Jane Dee Hull, a Republican, won kudos for pushing the finance package through the legislature. Experts say that package served the former teacher well in a November victory over her Democratic opponent, former Mayor Paul Johnson of Phoenix. Keegan won a second term as schools chief.

© 1999 Editorial Projects in Education

Vol. 18, number 17, page 128