Please note an article by Tim Galen on 17 December 2015 in Phoenix Biz Journal 2015 In Review
Did you hear about how Arizona's poor reputation in education cost the state a few thousand jobs?
That was just one of our top stories from August 2015, as our economy reporter caught up with a handful of decision-makers from two companies that considered Arizona for an expansion and up to 3,000 jobs total. But the state lost out because of its education reputation.
First ya gotta be honest to at least recognize there is a big problem that's not finding a solution even after getting paid to do it --- it's NOT ENOUGH to say school leaders "want to boost test scores" . .
Mesa school leaders want to boost test scores
By Shelley Ridenour, East Valley Tribune December 17, 2015
The article never states the test scores, and uses one source, Joe O'Reilly, with the title of Executive Director for Student Achievement Support in the district.
Student achievement? . . . Or do you wanna call it lack of achievement or more bluntly failure to deliver results or failure to achieve basic educational goals?
The motto for Mesa Public Schools is "Unprecedented Excellence in Education."
In November of last year voters approved a whopping $31.8 Million dollar budget override to prevent unwieldy class size, to maintain school security, and to continue teacher technology training, costing the average-priced homeowner $146 in annual property taxes.
Question = is the school system doing its job to educate kids?
AZ Merit results clearly say NO.
According to what Mr. O'Reilly says in the article, there are "large numbers of students" in lower proficiency levels across Arizona [ . ]. . . In Mesa, not enough students are considered proficient or highly proficient."
To be clear, not enough of the 9,044 employees in one of the city's biggest taxpayer-funded employers are doing their jobs to educate children to the higher levels of achievement that can attract talent and jobs to Mesa . . . that's a problem looking to get solved.Readers of this blog can see the entire AZ Merit Test Scores assessment in this report card for the Mesa Unified District.
Here's the Report Card from the Arizona Department of Education in this link >> not trying to hide a bad report card here, folks
https://www.azreportcards.org/Assessments/Assessments
AzMERIT is the assessment given to third- through 11th-graders in Arizona that determines how students are learning based on Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards. In November 2014, the Arizona State Board of Education voted to replace AIMS with AzMERIT In Spring 2015, approximately 45,000 Mesa students took AzMERIT assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and math on computer or on paper. Parents received the scores at the end of November 2015.
Performance labels for AzMERIT are Highly Proficient, Proficient, Partially Proficient and Minimally Proficient. Cut-off scores for each performance label were determined based on what students at each grade level should know.
Students that do not achieve at the proficient level might not get promoted to the next grade level.
In the interest of being fair and balanced, here's a link to a 2:40 You Tube video uploaded by Mesa Public Schools on November 12, 2015 before test results were released https://youtu.be/zskbSaEqUC8
... and here's a link to a 2:15 You Tube video uploaded by Cronkite News on December 3, 2015 after test scores were released showing scores coming up short https://youtu.be/W138yuty3Dw
Here's a visual for achievements in English Language Arts for Mesa students: 33% passed.
On the Math scores 38% passed
