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State fails to fund ELL plan; WUSD may suffer
By Ainslee S. Wittig/Arizona Range News
Under a state mandate, starting next year all Arizona schools will be required to teach four hours of English a day to students who aren't proficient in the language.
School administrators from throughout the state went to Phoenix Jan. 23 to protest the unfunded mandates of the 2006 law that will require districts to boost services to English language learners (ELL).
According to data provided by school officials, the state currently spends about $54 million a year on ELL services. With the new mandate next year, the costs could increase to more than $350 million.
When the state legislature approved the law, they did not allocate the needed funding for school districts to properly implement the program, school officials say. And, during a press conference in Phoenix, school administrators estimated the new law will cost the state's 227 school districts more than $30 million.
An estimated 140,000 students are not proficient in the English language statewide, and the Arizona Legislature passed the 2006 law as part of a court order to increase instruction for children struggling to learn English.
Willcox School District Superintendent Dr. Don Roberts said the district has an ELL population of 211 students, or about 21 percent of the 1,300 students in the district.
"The state said we (the school districts) must fund ELL education. The state has determined that it's given us enough money to teach students English - and that we just have to use it correctly. Yet they want us to use all of our Title (federal) funds to pay for this mandate," Roberts said.
However, those funds are totally committed to cover other state and federal government mandated programs. There are not any dollars available from the federal funds that can be allocated to the ELL program to cover what should be the state's fair share.
He said Willcox School District prepared for this mandate prior to the start of the 2007-'08 school year, because they were told it would begin next year.
What really upsets Roberts and Business Manager Joan Clem is that the district is being penalized for meeting the needs of the ELL students at the cost of other students.
"To prepare for this mandate, we have six kindergarten classes, two are fluent and four are non-fluent English speakers. We structured it so that all kids are mixed in every other activity. We kept our class sizes small and made sure we had enough qualified teachers and teacher's assistants. We thought it would be mandated so we tried to be prepared," Roberts said.
"Now we're being penalized for it. Under the state's formula for funding districts (for the program), we'll get less than $20,000 total. We've easily spent $200,000 to keep the student ratios down and assimilate the kids. We used dollars that could have gone to other instructional programs, and now they say they are not going to fund us (that cost). So we have done this at the expense of other things -- they are mandating this at the expense of others."
Roberts said, "The Willcox community was willing to step up to the plate with a budget override in order for us to have the progress we're having. If we eat into that (money) with mandated programs, that will mean we have to take away other things. The state is forgetting why we have what we have and how we got here (the override).
"The state, through the legislature, is refusing to provide for education in the state, regardless of ethnicity," he said.
"Year after year, we end up 49th or 50th in state expenditures," Clem added, "but it's a boon to teachers that kids do well on standardized tests when measured with kids from other states."
Roberts said the state's funding formula for ELL is based on students being proficient in two years.
"They pass the AZELLA (proficiency) test, but they are not proficient. And then they expect them to pass the AIMS test the third year.
All Arizona school districts are now submitting cost estimates to the state in advance of the law being implemented in the fall.
Roberts said districts are submitting two sets of estimates - one the way the state has asked districts to estimate it, and the other "is the actual cost."
"The state has stacked the deck against the districts so the costs come out less that what it would take," he said. "They count librarians, art and P.E. teachers as ELL instructors."
The state model has tentatively determined that the Willcox School District would need:
1.15 fewer teachers in Kindergarten
3.71 fewer teachers 1st-3rd grades
0.18 more teachers in 4th-6th grade
0.38 fewer teachers in 7th-8th grade and
0.17 more teachers in high school
Thus, the state would award the school less than $20,000 for salaries and benefits for the changes in staffing for the mandate, Clem said.
Using the Arizona School Administrators Association cost estimates for ELL, it will cost Willcox more than $206,000. In addition to that amount, the school says it needs two ELL instruction sections at about $91,000, additional funds to increase certified staff base pay costing about $23,000, as well as other needs totaling $18,500.
"Administrators want an actual flat per-student dollar figure so we know what amount we'll get for each ELL student, just like the state funds other programs on a per pupil basis. We should all have the same dollar amount, not an amount based on some pre-supposed need and not calculated by actual dollar figures," Roberts said. "We should not be penalized because we looked at (what the state wanted) in the correct way."
Other issues superintendents are concerned with regarding the law include segregation of students, which is discriminatory; and with the added required hours of English, whether high school students will be able to graduate in four years.
Roberts and Clem ask voters to speak with their representatives about the under-funded mandate, and ask friends in Maricopa County or other areas to speak with their representatives. (See Where to Write, page B6)
School administrators from throughout the state went to Phoenix Jan. 23 to protest the unfunded mandates of the 2006 law that will require districts to boost services to English language learners (ELL).
According to data provided by school officials, the state currently spends about $54 million a year on ELL services. With the new mandate next year, the costs could increase to more than $350 million.
When the state legislature approved the law, they did not allocate the needed funding for school districts to properly implement the program, school officials say. And, during a press conference in Phoenix, school administrators estimated the new law will cost the state's 227 school districts more than $30 million.
An estimated 140,000 students are not proficient in the English language statewide, and the Arizona Legislature passed the 2006 law as part of a court order to increase instruction for children struggling to learn English.
Willcox School District Superintendent Dr. Don Roberts said the district has an ELL population of 211 students, or about 21 percent of the 1,300 students in the district.
"The state said we (the school districts) must fund ELL education. The state has determined that it's given us enough money to teach students English - and that we just have to use it correctly. Yet they want us to use all of our Title (federal) funds to pay for this mandate," Roberts said.
However, those funds are totally committed to cover other state and federal government mandated programs. There are not any dollars available from the federal funds that can be allocated to the ELL program to cover what should be the state's fair share.
He said Willcox School District prepared for this mandate prior to the start of the 2007-'08 school year, because they were told it would begin next year.
What really upsets Roberts and Business Manager Joan Clem is that the district is being penalized for meeting the needs of the ELL students at the cost of other students.
"To prepare for this mandate, we have six kindergarten classes, two are fluent and four are non-fluent English speakers. We structured it so that all kids are mixed in every other activity. We kept our class sizes small and made sure we had enough qualified teachers and teacher's assistants. We thought it would be mandated so we tried to be prepared," Roberts said.
"Now we're being penalized for it. Under the state's formula for funding districts (for the program), we'll get less than $20,000 total. We've easily spent $200,000 to keep the student ratios down and assimilate the kids. We used dollars that could have gone to other instructional programs, and now they say they are not going to fund us (that cost). So we have done this at the expense of other things -- they are mandating this at the expense of others."
Roberts said, "The Willcox community was willing to step up to the plate with a budget override in order for us to have the progress we're having. If we eat into that (money) with mandated programs, that will mean we have to take away other things. The state is forgetting why we have what we have and how we got here (the override).
"The state, through the legislature, is refusing to provide for education in the state, regardless of ethnicity," he said.
"Year after year, we end up 49th or 50th in state expenditures," Clem added, "but it's a boon to teachers that kids do well on standardized tests when measured with kids from other states."
Roberts said the state's funding formula for ELL is based on students being proficient in two years.
"They pass the AZELLA (proficiency) test, but they are not proficient. And then they expect them to pass the AIMS test the third year.
All Arizona school districts are now submitting cost estimates to the state in advance of the law being implemented in the fall.
Roberts said districts are submitting two sets of estimates - one the way the state has asked districts to estimate it, and the other "is the actual cost."
"The state has stacked the deck against the districts so the costs come out less that what it would take," he said. "They count librarians, art and P.E. teachers as ELL instructors."
The state model has tentatively determined that the Willcox School District would need:
1.15 fewer teachers in Kindergarten
3.71 fewer teachers 1st-3rd grades
0.18 more teachers in 4th-6th grade
0.38 fewer teachers in 7th-8th grade and
0.17 more teachers in high school
Thus, the state would award the school less than $20,000 for salaries and benefits for the changes in staffing for the mandate, Clem said.
Using the Arizona School Administrators Association cost estimates for ELL, it will cost Willcox more than $206,000. In addition to that amount, the school says it needs two ELL instruction sections at about $91,000, additional funds to increase certified staff base pay costing about $23,000, as well as other needs totaling $18,500.
"Administrators want an actual flat per-student dollar figure so we know what amount we'll get for each ELL student, just like the state funds other programs on a per pupil basis. We should all have the same dollar amount, not an amount based on some pre-supposed need and not calculated by actual dollar figures," Roberts said. "We should not be penalized because we looked at (what the state wanted) in the correct way."
Other issues superintendents are concerned with regarding the law include segregation of students, which is discriminatory; and with the added required hours of English, whether high school students will be able to graduate in four years.
Roberts and Clem ask voters to speak with their representatives about the under-funded mandate, and ask friends in Maricopa County or other areas to speak with their representatives. (See Where to Write, page B6)
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The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of willcoxrangenews.com.
Dan wrote on Feb 9, 2008 10:55 PM:
The responsibility of the school system is to teach the finer points of the English language and how to use that language. The finer points include the use of sentence structures, nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc, not how to translate from Spanish to English. That should be the responsibility of the parents.
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