Bottom line:  We need more Charter Schools in Arizona to offer better schools and ratings for our children across the state.  If you take a look at the interactive report card released by Students First — you will see that Arizona received a mere C rating.  I discovered the Arizona GPA rating is at 1.85.  Who wants that for their children?  Don’t our children deserve more?  The teachers seem to be doing a good job, but it looks like parent empowerment needs help, and so does the spending department.

The New York Times wrote an excellent piece regarding the failing grades states are receiving and I was surprised to learn that not one single state received an A rating.

I thought this was America? We don’t want to be on a path in being a second-rate economic power, do we?

The United States will become a second-rate economic power unless it can match the educational performance of its rivals abroad and get more of its students to achieve at the highest levels in math, science and literacy. Virtually every politician, business leader and educator understands this, yet the country has no national plan for reaching the goal. To make matters worse, Americans have remained openly hostile to the idea of importing strategies from the countries that are beating the pants off us in the educational arena.

There is absolutely no reason why educational programs should be receiving substandard grades — after all … don’t we expect stellar grades from our children? If we expect good grades from our children, then we ought to expect good grades on our public educational system, too.

From the NYT:

12 States Get Failing Grades on Public School Policies From Advocacy Group

By MOTOKO RICH

In just a few short years, state legislatures and education agencies across the country have sought to transform American public education by passing a series of laws and policies overhauling teacher tenure, introducing the use of standardized test scores in performance evaluations and expanding charter schools.

READ FULL STORY.