A new survey released by the state Department of Education shows that many teachers who didn’t return to the classroom this year left due to student behavior and discipline issues. State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne is using the report to push for new legislation.
"Wouldn't you be burned out if you had to teach a class where the kids were acting up and the administrators weren't doing anything about it?" Horne said. "I wouldn't last a year."
He wants a law designed to penalize districts that don't back their teachers. Horne supported a proposal earlier this year, introduced by Sen. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills), which would have reduced the academic standings of schools whose administrators do not impose discipline at least three out of every four times requested by a teacher.
But Rep. Nancy Gutierrez (D-Tucson) also said during the debate that she saw a darker motive in the proposal.
She pointed out that each school gets a rating of A through F, one that is based on academic performance and year-over-year improvement. Parents can use those ratings to determine whether to send a child there.
"It is my opinion that this bill has been put forward in order not to support teachers but in order to make it so that there’s an easier way to have more public schools with D and F grades to support some of the rhetoric that we hear that public schools are failing our students," Gutierrez said, an argument that has been used by some to support the use of tax dollars to let parents send their children to private or parochial schools.
The proposal cleared the Republican-controlled Senate on a party-line vote but died in the House when some Republicans refused to go along.
Horne acknowledged that the threat of lower grades is designed to get the attention of schools — and parents.
"Believe me, districts care about their grades," he said. "If you give them a grade incentive to support the teachers on discipline, they'll do it."
