Arizona Town Hall will tackle education funding
Town Hall participants will examine teacher shortages, full-day kindergarten
Arizona Town Hall forums have sought solutions to the state’s most challenging issues for the past halfcentury. This year, the statewide brainstorm will focus on Arizona’s education-funding crisis, with participants spending Sunday through Wednesday in Mesa developing recommendations to better fund Arizona’s public schools.
“We have consensus that we want to do better for our kids. The debate really is how do we get to that next level and what does that next level look like?” Zoe Richmond Chandler mom selected to participate in Arizona Town Hall
For 50 years, community members have gathered at Arizona Town Hall forums to find solutions to the state’s most challenging issues, from housing and jobs to water and transportation.
This year, they will focus the power of the statewide brainstorm on Arizona’s pre-K-12 education funding crisis.
“We have consensus that we want to do better for our kids,” said Zoe Richmond, a Chandler mom of two young kids who was selected to participate in the town hall. “The debate really is how do we get to that next level and what does that next level look like?”
Arizona Town Hall participants will spend Sunday through Wednesday in Mesa developing recommendations to better fund education.
Participants will look at issues including teacher shortages, full-day kindergarten, special education, maintenance costs and performance-based funding.
“What I hope Arizona Town Hall can do is assure a productive conversation as opposed to different factions of the education world shouting at each other,” Richmond said.
Organizers then hope policy makers will take those recommendations and implement the best ones.
“We are not the implementation agent ourselves, we are the neutral facilitator,” Arizona Town Hall President Tara Jackson said at a recent community forum. “Our purpose is to allow the opportunity for more Arizonans to become informed and engaged in these conversations.”
Arizona Town Hall began in 1962. The goal of its process is to rise above debate and focus on fact-based consensus to develop solutions. Its organizers pick two main topics to focus on each year.
Recommendations from town-hall events over the decades led to the creation of the Arizona Water Commission, a statewide jobs-training program and a gas tax to fund freeway expansion.
Prior to the main three-day townhall event, the organization this year hosted 15 smaller community town halls with diverse groups around the state to gather input on education funding.
Recommendations from those events included:
Find a dedicated public funding source for education, that the governor and Legislature can’t sweep.
Increase the sales tax for education by asking voters to expand Proposition 301.
Increase prekindergarten opportunities.
Free up state trust lands for development. Funds from this go to education.
Encourage corporations to invest in education and school technology.
Repeal the expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Account school vouchers.
Focus additional funds and services on low-income students.
It also hosted a Future Leaders Town Hall, consisting primarily of students.
At that event, participants said attracting “well-qualiified, trained and motivated teachers who will be excellent role models for students” who work hard and are paid “what they deserve” are key to Arizona’s education success, according to their report.
The students in their report said schools need more funding, and more fairly dispersed funding.
“We say to Arizona’s elected leaders: Please care about us and pay attention; we’re worth it. We are your future. Talk to us. Listen to us. Stop avoiding the discussion about school funding and other education topics,” the report stated.
The students also suggested elected leaders “visit public schools to see for themselves the work that is done and the disparities in funding.”
Community town-hall events were open to public participation.
Participants in the three-day discussion must be nominated and selected.
In advance of the town hall, participants are given a detailed, nonpartisan report explaining the history of education funding in Arizona.
Dick Foreman, president and CEO of the Arizona Business and Education Coalition, was among the authors of this report.
“It’s one of the best compilations of publiceducation facts ever assembled,” he said, adding that the intent of the report is to give participants a common set of facts they can use to begin discussions.
Foreman said the community town halls, which hadn’t been done before, also will provide participants some additional thoughts on which to begin discussions.
He said he attended several of those and found that participants really don’t have one particular solution to the funding problem, but found bipartisan agreement that the state needs more revenue for schools.
“Public education is a great unifier,” he said. “This idea that Republicans somehow are not connected to their schools is fiction, and the myth that this state does not support public education is simply that, a myth.”
Richmond, who has participated in other town halls, said Arizona Town Hall officials do a good job of seeking a diverse group of participants, not just ethnically but also based on where people live, their political beliefs and their areas of expertise.
Over the three days, they will listen to expert speakers and then break into small groups to discuss key education funding questions.
“It’s not a very sexy process in the sense that you’re sitting around doing a lot of talking and listening,” Richmond said. “But it’s a very necessary process, especially in the area of education.”
Richmond said Arizona Town Hall gives her voice as a parent equal weight to that of an educational expert or a public official.
“Sometimes, as parents, we feel we get left out,” she said.
She said one thing she would like to see come out of the town hall is a way to better educate parents about how Arizona’s education system works.
“You become a parent, and all of a sudden you’re supposed to navigate this education system,” she said. “But you don’t always have the right resources. There is no onestop shop for what to do.”
Arizona Town Hall began in 1962. The goal of its process is to rise above debate and focus on fact-based consensus to develop solutions. Its organizers pick two main topics to focus on each year.