Taking a Stand for Children

Today I met with Carl Zaragoza from Stand for Children - Arizona. I contacted Carl after he invited me to contact him during a Facebook discussion on running for school board. As I learn about education reform and explore my options on how to get involved, running for school board has crossed my mind, so I was anxious to learn more from Carl.

Immediately upon meeting Carl, you can tell he's a good guy. As I heard his story about teaching through Teach for America, and then running for and serving on the Creighton Elementary school board here in Phoenix, I could see the passion he has for serving his community--especially children. We settled in as I munched on my bagel and he began telling me about Stand for Children.

Right now, Stand for Children in Arizona is working on four major initiatives:

• An independent audit of the charter authorization process in Arizona through NACSA (the National Association of Charter School Authorizers).
• Unification of school districts
• A funding initiative that aims to not just "throw more money" at schools, but also to provide guidelines on how that money is spent and what is to be accomplished
• Revamping teacher evaluations, with 33-50% of the evaluation based on student outcomes (which is much, much more than standardized testing)

I'm still not sure I want to give running for school board a try, but I am interested in finding out more about what my local school board is doing (or not doing), so I plan to attend a meeting in August (when things are gearing up again). I used to give my friend, Irene Stewart in Seattle, a bad time for running for and serving on Seattle's school board--what a thankless job! But serving on a board really CAN make a difference in public education and every voter should attend at least one school board meeting to find out how well your board functions. It's YOUR tax money, so if the board isn't functioning well, your vote can change that.