David Hatfield

As if this state’s leaders don’t do enough to intentionally keep Arizona on the bottom rung of education. They even do it when they think they’re doing the right thing.

A case in point: The Legislature’s restoration last week of budget cuts to education. Unfortunately, that decision at a one-day meeting won’t undue the harm caused during the previous six months as lawmakers insisted they would make cuts to our state’s already miserably funded education system.

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There’s still the matter of trying to figure out how to pay for the nearly $3.6 billion they’re investing in education — which is about the amount of the deficit they were trying to fix in the first place. Lawmakers will start today (July 13) when they resume their special session.

In the meantime, though, school districts that were required to have their budgets set by July 15 have spent most of their planning trying find ways to cut expenses.

An unintended consequence is that good teachers were pushed out. I personally know three highly-qualified teachers who decided this was the year to retire. All three are the kind of teacher who is able to captivate and inspire students to search out knowledge.

One is Frank Draper who specialized in teaching field sciences at Catalina Foothills High School. Two decades ago Draper was instrumental in developing a program called Systems Thinking with the help of a retired professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The idea is to learn from causal loops and feedback — sort of like forecasting to prevent unintended consequences. The program has grown to international status. I know former students who remember Draper as one of their most inspirational teachers, years after they’ve graduated.

Another retiree is Caryl Jones who has been a librarian at both Ventana Vista and Canyon View elementary schools, also in the Catalina Foothills district. Jones has been a teacher for 40 years and every one of those years was on the cutting edge of technology. She calls the library the heart of a school. And every time I saw her among children, you’d think she was a pied piper. She is magic when it comes to getting youngsters interested in reading.

And the third teacher is a woman I live with, Trish Hatfield. She’s been working in special education in the Flowing Wells Unified District. She believes every child can learn, the trick is trying to figure out how they learn. I still remember one day when a neighbor asked her to tutor their son who had trouble reading. Within a year he went from being a student getting “C”s and “D”s to one getting “A”s and “B”s and his parents insisted that getting him excited about reading caused the change. 

There are probably scores of other equally-good teachers across the state who decided this was the year to retire. Some might have retired anyway, but two that I’ve mentioned decided to do so under circumstances related to their district’s budget woes — one because the retirement deadline was extended and the other because class sizes were forecast to increase.

It now appears the dire budget cuts to education won’t happen — this year — but our children have already lost the teachers.

  

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Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.