By Zach Thomas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
It is not every day that proposals appear to eliminate school districts across Arizona. Lisa Graham, state superintendent of Public Instruction, recently introduced this and other far-reaching financial changes in a speech to the Joint Legislative Committee on School Finance in Phoenix.
Earlier this summer, she also publicized plans to radically restructure and vocationalize high school curriculums throughout the state. Though many of her proposals still are vague, they do hold the potential to radically reform primary and secondary education statewide.
Response from faculty and students of the University of Arizona's College of Education was mixed on the district issue. Janice Streitmatter, associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Education, called the proposed changes "much more cumbersome than the system we know now."
"District structure provides some means for staff to see a bigger picture as well as giving the state means for standardizing education," she said. "Districts are the system to provide oversight."
Gary Griffin, head of the Department of Teaching and Teacher Education, said, "I'm very enthusiastic about decisions being made at the local level."
Yet he also urged that the state hold off on a unilateral imposition of Graham's proposals and instead continue with the recently implemented charter schools initiative.
Sharon Meyer, education senior, said, "It does not matter what the bureaucratic differences are, it all comes down to the quality of the teachers."
Streitmatter called an increased role for vocational education in high schools a "difficult proposition."
"It is virtually impossible to predict what skills will be necessary ten years from now. Even if we could predict, those vocations are going to change over time," she said.
Griffin would be more optimistic if the program honed general work skills, however, "if it is training people in very narrow skills, then I am not enthusiastic," he said.
Some education students also agreed with Griffin.
"I think it's really important for (high school) students to have a well-rounded education," said April Parker, a secondary education junior, who believes optional programs would be best. "It's good to have it there, but there are many other things to deal with at that age."