Ducey takes one last parting shot at Ariz. teachers

Isense that the state Legislature adjourned recently just so lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey could rest their sore arms. All those months of slapping around educators must have worn them out. But, in the end, the governor had one last swing in him. So he thumped teachers. Again. This came after Ducey and the Republicans who control the Capitol had already whacked educators in the face with a paltry raise.

And insulted them about their cushy jobs, making it sound as if teachers were members of an exclusive yacht club.

Lawmakers robbed the poor to give to the rich by expanding a voucher program designed to help wealthy parents send their kids to private schools. Which doesn’t help public education. And they decided not to provide most of the funding needed to keep education facilities in good repair.

In other words, they did all they could to keep Arizona at the bottom of the list for education.

But Ducey had one final swipe to take.

After the Legislature adjourned for the year, Ducey bashed teachers one last time by vetoing Senate Bill 1209.

The bill was meant to add a little common sense to the way we evaluate teachers. Can’t have that. Already, the state puts too much emphasis on standardized tests, and puts too much emphasis on those test results when evaluating teachers.

The proposed changes in SB 1209 would have created a more realistic approach to those evaluations. For example, they would have eliminated the practice of lumping teachers together and judging them based on disciplines they don’t even teach.

(An instructor at one local high school said in an Arizona Education Association statement, “As a French teacher, I get part of my performance evaluation and pay determined by my students’ test scores in math and English.”)

In his veto letter to the secretary of state, Ducey said, “Today, I vetoed Senate Bill 1209. This bill diminishes the impact and focus of improving student academic outcomes as a measurement of quality teaching and learning.”

I have no doubt that any one of Arizona’s hardworking middle-school or high-school language-arts teachers could take a red pen to that statement and point out the flaws in logic and composition.

Unfortunately, they’re probably too busy trying to prepare our kids for standardized tests, rather than preparing them to write and think on their own.

After Ducey vetoed SB 1209, the head of the Arizona Education Association, Joe Thomas, said in part, “We need to remove the hurdles to student learning created by politicians and all of these failed reforms, stop pressuring our teachers to teach the test, and let them get back to teaching our students.”

Or not.