Two large employers skip Phoenix citing reputation and education (Scottsdale: appointed, buying)

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by JTW2013

It would be nice if there were more private school options in the Valley. There are few Catholic schools and I've been told that they are all full. We're not Evangelical so those schools were not an option for us. The secular schools are not convenient to where we live in the East Valley. This is the kind of school that would be a nice option here for parents who want a solid education for their kids in a non-Evangelical setting. Classical School | Christian Education | Naperville Christian Academy or Highlands Latin School | Private Classical, Christian school in Louisville, KY

There are a good share of secular private schools to choose from, including these:
Phoenix Country Day School | Small Classes, Exceptional Teachers, and Time-Tested Results
Private School in Phoenix, Arizona
El Dorado Private School | Scottsdale, Arizona
ADD School | ADHD School | Dyslexia School | School for Learning Disabilities: Lexis Preparatory School
Academics | Bayer School

[JTW2013]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

There are a good share of secular private schools to choose from, including these:
Phoenix Country Day School | Small Classes, Exceptional Teachers, and Time-Tested Results
Private School in Phoenix, Arizona
El Dorado Private School | Scottsdale, Arizona
ADD School | ADHD School | Dyslexia School | School for Learning Disabilities: Lexis Preparatory School
Academics | Bayer School

None of those schools are convenient for the southern East Valley. It surprises me that there are aren't more private school options outside of Scottsdale and Phoenix.

[Voebe]

Ha. Thanks for the post. That's about the only thing that would ever make Phoenix wake up. Nobody would bother much about anything related to conscience or ethics, but they react to money.

[goolsbyjazz]

Ouch! This one stings because we living here usually hear about this stuff through the grapevine, not the newspaper. We have an issue that won't be resolved overnight. The problem with this is that there are some very good schools here but public perception is powerful. Even more powerful than the truth sometimes.

[stevek64]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

Over and over and over again people seem to be missing the point on education.
We compete with a lot of States and metros with better public schooling. The companies didn't dog the education system saying it sucked and that's why, the dogged it saying it would cost them more to attract talent here because educating employees kids is a big part of moving. They would have to lift wages to attract out of state employees (because our pool is small) making it less competitive than comparable metros where the employees have more reliable public education systems. It makes Phoenix more expensive to employers than it's worth. They would have to lift wages to attract employees who have to invest the time to take them to charter school often far away from home without bus or other services (also eliminating your child's community feel as all of their cohorts are off in another part of the city) or pay an extra 5-15k/year to drive them to a private school (cutting into the wage). It's simple business. How are we missing this?

Our schools are pricing us out of our market.

The reality on spending on education and results:

No matter how much money states spend on education, results stay same | Daily Mail Online



This chart should be a sober up time for the "more money!" crowd. Given this reality, are you suggesting we spend more money on education just for show, ie waste a pile of money and throw it at something that data shows does no good in terms of better or worse results, just to show people we are "serious about education"? This is nonsense and not a solution to anything in my book.

Again, we have some very good public schools in the valley. It doesn't have to be private school or bad public school as the only choices.

Originally Posted by goolsbyjazz

The problem with this is that there are some very good schools here but public perception is powerful. Even more powerful than the truth sometimes.

Agree. But we can't fix stupid/ignorant/perceptions by throwing money wastefully at something that will do very little/nothing to fix what is mostly a combination of cultural and/or "I don't care" parenting problem.

[JTW2013]

Originally Posted by stevek64

The reality on spending on education and results:

No matter how much money states spend on education, results stay same | Daily Mail Online



This chart should be a sober up time for the "more money!" crowd. Given this reality, are you suggesting we spend more money on education just for show, ie waste a pile of money and throw it at something that data shows does no good in terms of better or worse results, just to show people we are "serious about education"? This is nonsense and not a solution to anything in my book.

Again, we have some very good public schools in the valley. It doesn't have to be private school or bad public school as the only choices.



Agree. But we can't fix stupid/ignorant/perceptions by throwing money wastefully at something that will do very little/nothing to fix what is mostly a combination of cultural and/or "I don't care" parenting problem.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the best schools in the Valley are in school districts that passed the override which means they have more money. Compare Dysart to CUSD80. So it's definitely not as simple as "more money doesn't make a difference." Of course there are other factors involved. Schools with a reputation for quality attract people who are interested in education who are more likely to have children who do well in school than the children of parents who don't care. Regardless funding does play a role in this.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by JTW2013

Schools with a reputation for quality attract people who are interested in education who are more likely to have children who do well in school than the children of parents who don't care. Regardless funding does play a role in this.

That describes most private schools. When parents pay out of their own pockets for their children's education, it tends to motivate them to be more active in their education, as well as other happenings in school. On the other hand, public schools are often used by lazy parents as a place to plunk their kids for 6 to 8 hours every day, which is essentially a free babysitting service. Consider the parents who don't care: most of their children are in public schools, while the parents who do care often have children in private institutions.

SteveK's chart presents some very interesting statistics about education funding, and it basically echoes what I have stated all along: we keep throwing more money into the public system, and the only thing that increases is the number of employees. Test scores stay about the same despite all the increased funding. Not only that, but even after taxes are raised further to fund schools, it isn't too long afterward when we hear that there isn't enough money, and more tax money is needed. Such was the case after the big sales tax increase in 2000 to fund education. Where did the money end up going? It was sucked into a black hole.

[stevek64]

Originally Posted by JTW2013

Schools with a reputation for quality attract people who are interested in education who are more likely to have children who do well in school than the children of parents who don't care.

Agree. And we have chicken/egg logic here as we can equally say schools are good in the 1st place because of the people that settle there.

Originally Posted by JTW2013

Regardless funding does play a role in this.

The data says something completely different.

Back to the topic at hand. The mystery business comments don't reflect the reality on valley school quality. There are plenty of decent quality public schools to choose from in the valley. For businesses to make such comments(assuming they did) makes me scratch my head on why they couldn't have done a little extra research and learn this. Heck, google US News/their well regarded yearly study on the best high schools in the nation and AZ has at least a few in the top 10 each year. This year we have 3, 2 in the valley. And 2 out of the 3 are public schools. For these businesses sake, I hope they do more careful research when it comes to running their own business and don't rely on perception. But then again, it's their business and they can run it any way they want.

[New Horizons]

We need a car manufacturing plant here. That's the halmark of a healthy local economy, and something to be proud of. Just like we have these huge new distribution centers, I could imagine a state of the art plant out in tolleson or goodyear. And it's an affordable place to live for skilled technicians.

[JTW2013]

Originally Posted by stevek64

Agree. And we have chicken/egg logic here as we can equally say schools are good in the 1st place because of the people that settle there.



The data says something completely different.

Back to the topic at hand. The mystery business comments don't reflect the reality on valley school quality. There are plenty of decent quality public schools to choose from in the valley. For businesses to make such comments(assuming they did) makes me scratch my head on why they couldn't have done a little extra research and learn this. Heck, google US News/their well regarded yearly study on the best high schools in the nation and AZ has at least a few in the top 10 each year. This year we have 3, 2 in the valley. And 2 out of the 3 are public schools. For these businesses sake, I hope they do more careful research when it comes to running their own business and don't rely on perception. But then again, it's their business and they can run it any way they want.

If the data doesn't show that funding is a part of the equation then explain why the best school districts in this state are better funded than the average AZ school district.