Imagine Greater Tucson 2010-11 Phase I Community Conversation and Survey Statements Related to Administrative effectiveness in local public education

1	A well educated population makes for a more livable city. Smaller districts in metro area seem to be doing better at delivery of K-12 education. As a parent I never felt like I was part of a community of education with TUSD; just either beating my head against a wall, or gaming the system.
2	Although there is a great amount of Tucsonans that value education, most don't get involved and foster the changes necessary. Throwing money at a problem rarely solves anything. Changing the way teachers are valued and treated along with administration restructuring are needed.
3	An area is defined by the school district and its achievements.
4	Another deterrent for companies and people - our poor schools! I want to believe in public education and moved in order for my child to attend one of the excelling elementary schools - not impressed! She's now at a charter school and while Basis is a high achievement, very structured school it has it's priorities straight and isn't bogged down in more bureaucracy. I've considered running for the TUSD school board because I'm so frustrated with its mismanagement, but I realize I would just be in the middle of the politics and bureaucracy issues that would make me crazy!
5	As a teacher for TUSD, I see daily how limited resources and lack of community involvement negatively impact our children.
6	As people get older, get married, and start thinking about children they move further outside of the city (Vail or Marana) because the Tucson school districts aren't good enough.
7	As the largest school district, it makes the most impact and it is FAILING to educate the largest population in Tucson
8	Better education TUSD
9	Break up TUSD into smaller districts
10	Break up TUSD into smaller units.
11	Can't we somehow improve the quality of education at TUSD? Surrounding school districts have great reputations, yet TUSD is the largest and affects most students.
12	Creates huge issues for school districts
13	Disconnect between schools in a small district and some schools really hurting financially
14	District � good special education and attempt to meet every student's needs
15	Education districts and funding
16	Education is the future of Tucson. The already poorly funded public education system is getting bled dry by unproven charter schools that have little accountability. Disparities in quality of schools and school districts is also very troubling.
17	Education. Control of school district administration/money.
18	Education/ the size of TUSD
19	Fix TUSD central administration
20	Flowing Wells a great school district- good quality
21	Flowing Wells, Sunnyside, and Vail are all doing well - because they are small districts
22	For the most part, it's an embarrassment....particularly TUSD.
23	Funding is not well-used. TUSD is too big, not well-run; it is a laughing stock
24	Get education bureaucracy out of the way of achievement
25	Higher expectations for TUSD.
26	Huge size makes it administratively top-heavy and heavy-handed
27	I am alarmed at the poor level of education so many of our public school children are receiving. I don't feel I can even have a reasonable conversation with most high schoolers these days. Their grasp of language, life skills, reasoning ability and social responsibility is dismal in many schools in the TUSD, Amphi and Sunnyside districts.
28	I am an educator and have a great interest in the education issues that are taking place here such as Ethnic Studies. TUSD needs to be held accountable and perhaps when their funding is cut due to their own actions, they will have to make decisions based on what parents and the community expect instead of a political agenda for La Raza. Education in the Tucson area leaves much to be desired.
29	I like the Vail school district.
30	I live within TUSD. I have a lovely family neighborhood with a park and neighborhood pool. We have a mixed neighborhood with both young families and retirees. Of all the kids in my neighborhood, NONE of them go to our neighborhood school. Everyone is either open-enrolled, in a charter school or in a private school. My own daughter is open-enrolled 10 minutes away from our neighborhood. The quality of our schools needs to improve, or no young families are going to want to relocate here. Again, Oro Valley, and Vail have done much better jobs of creating communities with good planning and good schools.
31	I support TUSD's ethnic studies program
32	I think TUSD is too huge to be competitive with all the smaller charters and smaller, more flexible districts around.
33	I think TUSD is too large of a district and should be broken down so that it could be managed easier.
34	I think finncial and student support issues get hiddden in a large district. Smaller districts would be able to better serve the needs of their population.
35	I'm saddened and disappointed at the state's efforts to legislate SB 1070, shut down the TUSD Hispanic Studies Program and limit 14th Amendment citizenship rights.
36	If my daughter was under 18, I would not want to enroll her in TUSD. They seem more interested in havinf mutliple layers of administration than educating children.
37	It is way to large!
38	Less monolithic school district in Tucson - Get schools closer to the parents
39	Like to attend school board and city/county meetings, to speak on an issues when possible. Love meeting and working with people - and people seem receptive in most cases, even politicians (who even aren't running)
40	Lower income children go to worse schools (discrimination)
41	Most of the TUSD schools, and public parks, have been fitted with the newer style of playground equipment. This is the safer option, but due to heavy use & sun exposure the equipment, slides specifically, crack & become dangerous. I'd like to see these kept in better repair. The PTAs & PTOs should be encouraged to raise money, hopefully subsidised by the city or even a greant, to help get shade screens for each jungle gym on the property. This would help extend the life of the equipment. But also important would be the repair/replacement of the cracked or broken equipment.
42	My children aren't in school yet, but I hear such awful things about TUSD, in particular, that it worries me. Even though I personally believe education is what you make of it and parents have a huge responsibility to make the best of it, the bad press about Tucson (and Arizona) education is troublesome.
43	My children attended TUSD schools. My oldest was, thankfully, in part-time GATE programs through middle school. Because of the bullying he received at a white kid at the hands of hispanics I chose NOT to send him to Tucson High. Spending the money on Salpointe was the best thing I could have done. I only kept my youngest in TUSD because he was in fully-contained GATE through University High School. If I hadn't had GATE options my children would have been in private schools. The campuses are eroding. The lack of respect between the students is increasing. The quality of education is eroding. I had a principal tell me my son didn't need to learn to spell because we have 'spell-checker' software. Really? I was appalled. I made sure I was at the TUSD schools once a week so I could keep an eye on what was happening. Much waste. Too many bad teachers who were protected. Too many good teachers and staff who were over-worked. Too many parents who didn't care. The boards over the years hasn't done much to help the situation. I think TUSD needs a complete overhaul, including it's negotiations with the teachers union.
44	My wife and I moved to this area to start a family so that our children will be able to attend school in one of the best school districts. We want our kids to have the best education possible
45	Need to equalize education districts
46	Needs to be broken up into several pieces, to big to manage. Need to return to basic's of reading, writing and arithmetric.
47	Opportunities for Vail students � District goes out of its way to ask students �Why� and are encouraged to question.
48	Oro Valley Public Schools
49	Our graduation rates are atrocious. Our funding for education is too low. The beaurocracy of TUSD is ridiculous. Our youth are suffering from our legislative mistakes and our inability to identify creative solutions. We teach to the test instead of teaching them skills and abilities they will need post-graduation. It's a mess.
50	Protection of ethnic studies courses in TUSD
51	Quality of Education/ Poor school district administration
52	Quality of TUSD education (primary - HS)
53	Reform Tucson Unified School District
54	Restructuring of school districts
55	SB 1070 is terrible, the attack on TUSD ethnic studies pg is horrible
56	School district
57	School district (huge area) helps bring the community together
58	School districts are very important in choosing a home location
59	School districts can't do it alone
60	School districts could use more cooperation to plan for the future
61	Service industries are neccessary for support of the population but are not a good measure of economic growth and can be a liability as seen in the last economic downturn. Manufacturing products, research and technoligical innovation are stong measures of our economic condition and the city and county should go overboard to embrace these industries. However, no bright CEO is going to allow expansion into Tucson and have his employees settle for the third world education. Clearly this is another liability with this city. Why do most, if not all the doctors and professors at U of A and UMC have their children attend private schools or District 16? Education is important to them. Even Greg Byrne, in his short understanding of Tucson knew enough to stay away from TUSD.
62	Since I had only 3 choices, I will discuss our schools. We have gone from TUSD being one of the biggest and best districts, to a district with failing schools, theft, vandalism, decay of infrastructures...I could go on, but I think you know what I'm talking about.
63	Some of the school districts.
64	Sooo many school districts, each with administrators, transportation offices, etc. Cities and county compete for resources instead of cooperate for the community
65	Split up TUSD into smaller districts.
66	Split up Tucson Unified School District
67	State budgets are falling, we know... but isn't there a way to raise the expectations of parents and students in the TUSD? Vail seems to have a model that is working for them, are there lessons we can learn from them that would be applicable? Field trips to experience our environments and cultural spaces are cut, how will a kid know how fabulous Tucson is, if they never get to see it.
68	Stronger relationships and partnerships among businesses, community and TUSD
69	Support for education TUSD
70	Supt. of Ed picking on TUSD
71	T.U.S.D.
72	TUSD and some huge school districts should be broken into smaller districts to allow for more hands-on management and bureaucracy
73	TUSD doesn't know how to be good bureaucrats - not understanding the population they are serving - they don't understand how to use the data they have (they take teachers away from the primary needs area)
74	TUSD doesn't pass bonds
75	TUSD in particular seems unreliable in providing quality education. With my two kids, we sent one to private school and the other to a district with open-enrollment. I know this is partly a state funding issue, but other districts seem to do better than TUSD with the same funding.
76	TUSD is a mess � education needs to be a higher priority (this is a state / country-wide issue, not limited to Tucson / Pima County)
77	TUSD is on of the worst school districts and should be split up
78	TUSD is simply too large and completely mishandled. Bilingual studies have taken up far too much of the resources of TUSD for far too many years. Again, their plan is not working. I worked at the administrative offices of TUSD and was witness to the waste and duplication of work that takes place there. Discipline must be reinstated in our public schools. One only has to look to the success of private/parochial schools to see the value of discipline and proper management. Without exception these schools produce better results with much less money.
79	TUSD is to big!
80	TUSD is too big a school district. It is so large and requires so much district level administration that money is diverted from the classrooms.
81	TUSD is too big to adequately represent all of its constituents. It should be broken in to smaller districts with localized board leadership who have a better grasp of their district's needs and values.
82	TUSD is too large and not well managed. Excellent education attracts people and supplies good young adults into our community.
83	TUSD needs to be broken into several smaller districts that would be easier to manage and be more responsive to the areas that they serve. Larger has not proved to be either better or more effective
84	TUSD needs to be broken into smaller Districts. They have to many highly paid Executives and the money does not filter down to where it could benefit the children and the community. It is sad to see what programs they continue to take away from the children and use that money to hire more highly paid adminstration. The children should be the top priority and instead of continuing to increase taxes they need to use the money to improve the education of our children
85	TUSD, in my opinion, is a huge bloated mass that perpetuates its ineptness. We have lived here for over 40 years, and in spite of many good-hearted efforts to change TUSD, it remains a failure.
86	The 'excelling' Vail School District
87	The Vail school District is the best school district. Most of the schools are excelling and everyone there is nice
88	The ban of TUSD ethnic studies
89	The city of Tucson, including TUSD, is highly dysfunctional! As a result we are behind the curve in economic development, educational achievement standards, and overall progress when compared to other US cities/metro regions of our size. This is important to me because many aspects of our quality of life suffer as a result.
90	The current school district boundaries need to be redrawn to maximize resources. I'd cut TUSD down in size and distribute the fringes to other districts. I would also annex the unincorporated areas or encourage them to incorporate to minimize the tax burden placed on City residents.
91	The downsizing of large school districts to make them more managable; push dicision making down more into the schools rather than a school board micro managing.
92	The failure of TUSD to serve the children well
93	The local schools in general, and TUSD in particular, are way behind the curve. It's not just lack of money/support from the Legislature - the scandalous handling of information systems shows that there has been a history of incompetence at the top.
94	The school district(s) - propose cutting staff and then bringing back a portion
95	The vail school district we live in
96	This is critically important to me since I evaluate teachers (in the past - in another state) eliminating poor quality teachers and keeping high quality teachers based on a carefully laid out standard or acceptable performance. Where are the administrators hired to make these judgements?
97	Though I do not have children yet, I would like to raise a family in Tucson. Given the deplorable education system that we have in AZ, I would like to see Tucson take the lead in improving the education system. We have several amazing schools that should serve as the basis for developing better TUSD schools. If I had children here now, I would choose to home school them.
98	Though my family is in the early stages of raising children, we want them to have the best possible education. For that reason, we purposely moved to this area three years ago
99	Too many districts, poor instruction, low test scores. Difficult to get people to move here.
100	Too many schoolboards have eliminated librarians and teachers are trying to cover the school's library one day a week in order to keep it open. Every member of out city council should volunteer somewhere every week.
101	Too much bureacracy in TUSD. They only listen to each other.
102	Too much bureaucracy
103	Tucson Unifed School District
104	Tucson Unified School District is a disaster: it is too big (all that chatter about economies of scale are bunk); it has too many layers of administration; currently it is managed by a bureacracy that only cares about test scores, not about the kids and the future they represent.
105	Tucson has segregated itself partially because of bad schools or school districts. why can't we blow up TUSD and start over.
106	Tusd is a disaster... Should hAve been broken up long time ago. Approach to districts needs Revamping
107	Vail School District, Civano Community Schools
108	Vail USD is a great model to follow. TUSD, Sunnyside and others need strong leadership and direction. I'm not an education expert, but surely there is someone who can help in this area.
109	Vail school district
110	Value for education-TUSD superintendent is a good new choice
111	Value of teachers
112	We put up with mediocre effort from the TUSD. We can do better.
113	When I do functions or events, always have strong support of TUSD Admin and Mayor Walk up, as well as surrounding schools in our community.
114	When I was in school, we were 49th in the nation. I don't know where we are now, but I know that TUSD has given everyone in Rincon pink slips and I am not sure that is the best approach for helping our children get the best education.
115	While there are exemplary school districts in the region, the majority of public education is sub-par. For the community to excel, we must get serious about fixing the schools.
116	You need to build trust and community one person at a time and Government or leaders need to learn or study more the issues and deal with each other