The Arizona Republic: Reforms are needed to improve education in Arizona

By Lisa Graham Keegan and John F. Munger

April 14, 2009

Imagine an Arizona where the K‐12 education system is recognized as the best in the nation, where all students are expected to reach their full potential in college prep or in excellent vocational training while also learning good citizenship, good behavior and respect for others.

Arizona can make these dreams happen by fundamentally reforming that system forever.

First, Arizona must create reforms that require a clear definition of sound academic goals for our schools and a public accountability of the schools that meet these goals and advance the achievement of all students.And we must create an environment that empowers dedicated professionals at the most local levels to lead or create the schools that are capable of achieving those goals in behalf of students.

At ImagineArizona, we believe in the power of individuals who have dedicated their lives to education, in the innovative energy of our teachers and school leaders and in the inherent power of parents to seek what is best for their own children.

In addition, Arizona must create reforms that require teachers to have a deep understanding of their subjects. And
experience in how to teach very different students is critical.

Arizona has already allowed new routes to teaching but must be far more aggressive. The state must adopt additional and "alternative" means of certification so that it is not based solely on earning college degrees in pedagogy (simply the process of teaching) but must also be based on demonstration of knowledge in the field to be taught.
Such new routes to teaching certifications have a solid and far superior academic track record and attract more teachers from minority communities. Programs like Teach for America bring some of the nation's brightest college graduates into the field. Other alternative routes welcome accomplished professionals and business leaders, who are excluded from teaching today regardless of expertise and experience. Without such reform, for example, Bill Gates could not teach our children about computers and software because he does not have a teaching certificate in education.

Finally, we believe that our great teachers must be rewarded. Arizona must embrace professional employment models,
including true merit pay that fairly reward teachers who demonstrate excellent results in educating our children both academically and as citizens.

Much of the needed money is already in the system but is misused in administration, so that today, only about 58 cents of our education dollar get into the classroom. That must change.
ImagineArizona believes that if Arizona truly liberates our educators, while holding them strictly accountable for real results, and provides serious rewards for successful results in educating our children, we can expect the greatest innovative explosion in education in American history.

Our children have waited long enough.

Lisa Graham Keegan is former Arizona superintendent of public instruction. John F. Munger is a former president of the Arizona Board of Regents.