Issue Position: Education and Jobs
Education is not a one size fits all system. I believe parents are best equipped in making the best choice for their child's education needs.
There clearly needs to be an overhaul of the state's current school finance formula. There also needs to be more accountability ensuring more taxpayer dollars follow our school children into the classroom.
As a product of a K-12 public district school education, I have worked most of my adult life on behalf of our school children. I volunteered in the inner city knowing young children came from broken homes and might need a young mentor to guide them on a better path. I helped work in a GED classroom helping both young and old high school drop outs pass the test giving them credentials to help obtain a better paying job, or a chance to receive a secondary education or attend a vocational training school.
It was my last semester senior year as an undergraduate that truly opened my heart and mind. I spent a semester in an inner city public high school in New York City where I realized the best asset of any school is a strong leader (a.k.a. the principal). Principals and teachers should be able to work together with parents on the best curriculum for their students.
Our children are our most undervalued resource. We need to ensure our investments are directly made to classrooms and teachers. As a founder and an actively engaged parent of my children's parent organization I helped ensure each teacher of the school received the necessary funds to ensure their students receive the best educational experience. All teachers should have access to the necessary funds for their classrooms to compete in our evolving global economy.
Teachers should be rewarded for their children's academic excellence. If students are excelling in their subject those teachers should receive additional compensation for their successes in their classroom. In a perfect world, I would like to align master teachers in each classroom so each child could learn to love an academic subject from an expert in biology, chemistry, English, math or art.
I am a strong advocate of STEM (Science, technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and STEAM (Science, technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) curriculum and schools. My own children attend a STEM-themed school. The curriculum and results are worthy of replication. As a parent and professional, our kids deserve higher standards and the parents and principals deserve control over their curriculum, not the federal government. I am a strong believer in high standards set by individual schools. I don't believe every child learns the same way.
The United States exports higher skilled jobs each year to other countries because our high school and college graduates don't have the skill-sets to fill these crucial jobs. I served on a school board. We need to grow our future pool of workers to ensure the U.S. maintains its global economic status in the marketplace right here in Arizona and encourage these students to stay here upon graduation from high school or college.
Not all children learn at the same speed or in the same style. I support incubators of success we have experienced in our Arizona charter and district schools and believe the highest performing schools should be replicated across the state. I have also advocated on behalf of public school students and each family's ability to find the school that best fits their children's learning needs within their district or via open enrollment.
I have spent the last several years ensuring low-income, special needs and foster care children receive the best education possible by finding a public or private school that understands their needs. These children now have better opportunities and many of these scholarship students go on to graduate high school and often on to college. As a Mom, I know the importance of a good education and I will be an ally of yours in this arena.
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