By
Eric Swedlund and Anastasia Ching
Arizona Daily Wildcat
State superintendent of public instruction touts AIMS test, pay raises for teachers
Raising the bar for student achievement in Arizona rests on bringing quality teachers to the classroom and keeping them there with higher pay, the state's top education official said this week.
Lisa Graham Keegan, state superintendent of public instruction, said in her state of education address Wednesday that improved test scores and greater student achievement should be credited to the state's teachers.
"We are getting real improvement that we owe to classroom teachers," she said before the state legislature in Phoenix. "For the next two years, my focus is on great teachers."
Keegan cited annual increases in Stanford 9 test scores and 10th grade AIMS test improvements as proof that Arizona's student achievement is increasing.
The AIMS reading section saw a 7 percent increase in students who meet or exceed standards. The writing and math portions of the test saw 4 percent and 5 percent increases, respectively.
"For our children, it is ridiculous to say you can't test them into excellence," she said, adding that it is "ludicrous and extreme" to say testing is causing a problem with students.
"So long as tests are well-made, well-considered and valid - which our test is - they reflect real difference in achievement and that's what needs to be looked at," Keegan said. "The (AIMS) test is where it needs to be. I just can't see that we would excuse ourselves from that great challenge."
However, Justin Price, an elementary education senior, disagrees that the AIMS test is definitive in reflecting achievement in students.
"The AIMS test doesn't reflect what students have been learning since kindergarten," Price said. "It needs to be phased in so as to give students who haven't been taught in the style of the AIMS test a fair chance."
Malia Huston, a pre-elementary education sophomore, found from personal experience that the AIMS test did not accurately assess her readiness for high school graduation.
"I took it my senior year and it didn't reflect anything I spent 12 years learning," Huston said. "I think there definitely should be a standard for graduating high school, but I don't think that the AIMS test is the solution."
Keegan added that continued improvement can be reached by going further in supporting the state's teachers.
"Let's make the $100,000 teacher a reality in every school," she said. "We have a huge number of master teachers in Arizona that we can call on to really bring our kids over the top."
Price agrees with Keegan that higher pay for teachers indirectly leads to higher student achievement.
"I definitely think that higher pay would attract innovative, intelligent people to teaching - the kind of people who might not necessarily choose to teach because they have the skills to do something that would pay more," Price said.
Huston, however, sees higher teacher salaries as having a negative impact on teacher quality.
"I think that you would get people entering the profession for the wrong reasons," Huston said. "There should be a monetary reward for teachers who are doing a good job - an incentive to encourage quality teaching as opposed to using money as a way to attract the wrong people to teaching."
To improve the education of Arizona's children, Keegan said classroom teachers must be a top priority of the state.
"The way to push this over the top is to go straight to the heart of classroom teachers," she said.
Keegan's plan rests on five principles:
* All teachers - especially new teachers - can benefit from ongoing evaluation and training.
* Those with proven academic expertise need to stay in the schools.
* The state needs to reward teachers based on their students' academic success.
* The state needs young teachers to see a meaningful and rewarding future.
* The state needs a full-time cadre of teaching excellence.
As a future young teacher, Price envisions the state as needing to play a direct role in his "meaningful and rewarding" experience.
"The districts need to have better support programs for new teachers in order to keep new teachers from quitting after their first couple of years in the job," he said.
Money from Proposition 301 - a 0.6 percent sales tax specifically for classroom education passed by Arizona voters in November - should be used for teacher salaries.
"We should use all available education money for teachers," Keegan said. "It should be a priority to spend money on excellent teachers."
Keegan said state schools have about $500 million in unused funds that can be used for teacher raises. Some of that is reserved for capital expenditures - new building projects and renovations - while some schools are prohibited from spending as much as they have.
"What needs to stop is the impression that Arizona so grossly underfunds its schools that they can't do anything," Keegan said.
Regardless of Keegan's hopes of increasing teacher salaries, Huston will continue her pursuit of a teaching career.
"I would say the current salary is a deterrent, but the reason I want to be a teacher overrides the low salary."
