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In response to a warning by Governor Brewer that some services may face cuts or elimination, Senator Russell Pearce suggested specific cuts to education. Senator Russell Pearce, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, suggested elimination of full day Kindergarten and a roll back in the number of days students attend school in Arizona as an answer to the budget crisis. Please note that in the article there seems to be some confusion about the number of school days currently required in Arizona–the requirement is currently 180 days* (see comment section below for explanation). Senator Pearce appears to be proposing a return to 175 days. For the full article click below.
Brewer: Some programs, services to end, Arizona Daily Star, October 6, 2009
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To Learn More About the Facts
The first two sources below present some comparisons for the length of school year by both states and internationally. The third source presents information on Kindergarten programs offered by state. This information may be useful in the discussion of these issues:
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For a comparison of the number of days/hours by state click on; Number of Instructional Days/Hours in the School Year, Education Commission of the States, June 2008.
For a comparison of school days by country, see Trends in international Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 2003
For a listing of Kindergarten attendance by state, see The Digest of Educational Statistics, 2008 tables and figures.
A summary of current Full-Day Kindergarten Research can be found via this link to the State of Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction.
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Tags: Arizona budget, Arizona education budget, Arizona education standards, Arizona Legislature, Arizona schools, arizona senate, Contact Governor Brewer, education, k-12 education funding
You are incorrect. The ARS reads…
“one hundred eighty days” means one hundred eighty days of instruction or an equivalent number of minutes of instruction per school year based on a different number of days of instruction approved by the school district governing board or charter school governing body.”
Arizona requires the MINIMUM instruction time as the following (in hours):
Grade\Required Hours per grade
K\356
1-3\712
4-6\890
7-8\1068
HS\720
Almost every district elementary school in Arizona teaches about 5.5 hours x 180 days (990 hours), thus significantly exceeding the minimum.
AZ Ed Watch:
You left out a bit of that ARS statute. Article 3, Section 15-341.01 of the Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) reads:
“A. Notwithstanding any other law, school instruction shall be conducted in each public school in this state for school sessions that total at least one hundred eighty days each school year. The superintendent of public instruction shall cause all relevant school funding formulas to be adjusted to reflect instruction on the one hundred eighty days’ equivalency. The department of education shall adjust the amount of state aid distributed to school districts pursuant to section 15-971 to correspond to the increased number of school days prescribed by this section.
B. For the purposes of this section, “one hundred eighty days” means one hundred eighty days of instruction or an equivalent number of minutes of instruction per school year based on a different number of days of instruction approved by the school district governing board or charter school governing body.”
Without our lawyer-decoder ring, we interpreted Section A of the ARS to mean that the school year should last 180 days. We’ll also stretch and say that the average public school parent, teacher, and student in this state could assume that the second section gave the schools some latitude to make up for missed days, etc. or to extend educational programing during non-traditional school hours.
Or is that the case? Our state legislature just added that second section of language referring to the hours (Part B) that you referred to above in 2007…we’ll leave it to our readers to speculate why they might have made the change to the language.
Curiously, just last month (Sept 2009) Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne’s office requested a legal translation of this ARS from the Attorney General’s office. The Superintendent’s office was seeking information specific to Proposition 301 (otherwise known as the Voter Protection Act) and the additional funding for schools that it provides. As the Attorney General’s report notes, the purpose of the Voter Protection Act was “to increase funding to public education” and to apply “additional funds to the increased cost of basic state aid…due to added school days and associated teacher salary increases enacted in 2000.”
The Attorney General’s opinion read that Voter Protection Act funds would not be impacted by the legislature’s creative language enhancement because the 2007 amendment to ARS 15-341.01″ was not a voter-approved measure”. (see http://www.azag.gov/opinions/2009/I09-007.pdf for the whole brief)
While we greatly appreciate the information from your office, I think that you are overlooking the intent of the law, as well as the almost overwhelming national and international movement to find ways to extend the number of educational hours within each year. While it is interesting to play with the math and figure out that my son is only ‘required’ to spend 89 ten hour days in school (or 297 three hour days, or 148 six hour days, etc.) — I’ll go out on a limb here and say that it is frustrating to most of our members that some of our Arizona legislators are continuing to find creative ways to cut back on education. We shouldn’t be finding more ways that we can maintain “minimum” standards.
As a site editor, I also support the author’s contention above that the ARS supports a 180 day school year. Thanks again for your contribution, and please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any further questions or information on this topic.
Lisa Hawkins lisa@arizonaeducationnetwork.com
Are we really talking about REDUCING the number of school days in AZ? Seriously?!??!?!? Pearce seems bent on picking apart our public schools piece by piece…maybe this is his way of scaring immigrants away??
The only good thing is that Pearce is losing his ability to shock me anymore — from forwarding White Separatist emails to his sneering remarks in the legislature…if he finally bites the head off a baby kitten in public I won’t be the least bit surprised.
I have a small business here and I am really afraid of what is happening to the schools in our state. How can we keep a workforce and a tax base when our elected representatives keep chopping away at the basic foundations of our society?
This is sad, and I hope it isn’t a real reflection of how most people in this state really feel about learning.
I have a couple of questions on this article:
1. This is a question for AZ Ed Watch. Just curious…are those minimum hours part of the law?
2. Lisa (or whoever is on this forum): are the legislators in Snowflake supporting the cuts to the school year and/or Kindergarten? I haven’t read anything about it yet over here.
Russell Pearce wants to make our public schools private. What kind of American is he anyway? I swear, I am sick to death of those politicians hiding behind the American flag and claiming to support our society while working as hard as they can to undermine the very foundation of our communities.
I may not be highly educated myself, but I sure the heck know that my kids and my neighbor’s kids need a good education to succeed. Shame, shame, shame on Russell Pearce and the people who voted for him!!