Supreme Court Judge schools state officials in finance

Throwing more money at schools doesn't make them better. Over 15 years of reporting education, I wish I had a dollar for every time a taxpayer fed me that line. Bond issues. Overrides. Initiatives. Legislation. Every time a potential tax increase came up for debate, readers would respond that more money doesn't make better schools.

Yet, the converse IS true. Less money DOES make worse schools. It's not that teachers cannot teach without the newest and best equipment, books, technology and classroom spaces. The best and brightest teachers don't enter the field, don't take jobs in our state, don't stay in the classroom when wages are chronically, abysmally low. And while an amazing teacher can give students the world with a piece of chalk, some paper and pencils, why wouldn't the community want to give the best teachers the best tools to create the best students?

An administrator taught me a perfect lesson one day with a dry erase marker and a white board. Charter schools were a brand-new innovation. He showed me his concept of abolishing tenure and paying first-year teachers twice what first-year, first-step teachers normally make. And the second year, even more. And the third year, teachers reached their maximum step, a lot of money. But teachers would have to earn that pay and their teaching spot every year with cutting-edge teaching methods and engaged students. Parents would be fighting to get their students in the door, even if it required substantial parental involvement. Every teaching spot would have hundreds of applicants. And administrative challenges? It would be hard to imagine many in that setting. To keep up, other schools would have to replicate the model. And it would raise the expectations of all schools, first locally, then regionally, and finally statewide. The only challenge to all of that? Funding.

Currently, Arizona sits at the far bottom of the chart, with state student funding dead last, or second-to-last, depending on whose chart you believe. Either way, not a superlative statistic -- not something you would brag about, or teach your students. Some of them might conclude their education isn't worth their communities' dollars.

But that situation finally received some attention Friday. Not from the governor. Not from the Legislature. Not even from the State Superintendent for Public Instruction. In this case, a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, Katherine Cooper. Cooper ruled that the state owes its public schools more than $300 million in Proposition 301 funding this year, and will hold hearings on whether five years of unpaid Proposition 301 funding is due and payable.

Judge Cooper isn't concerned about the state's argument that it doesn't have $300 million to spare. Pay up, she ordered. The voters approved this funding some five years ago, and state officials haven't responded. It would have been easier to handle if Arizona had dealt with it when the voters first approved it. It sounds a lot like a basic concept from any of those teachers' lesson plans: do today's homework today. If you let it pile up, it becomes a lot harder to manage.