Federal lifelines from the federal CARES Act are not only aiding small businesses and individuals in Arizona to survive the pandemic, they are helping schools navigate new challenges, as well.

In total, Arizona will collect $1.8 billion from the CARES Act. Of that, education is receiving an estimated $626 million. 

That relief has been “critical” for keeping students educated and safe as schools statewide cope with the financial realities of COVID-19, said Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman.

“Schools have incurred significant costs including providing necessary technology for distance learning, purchasing additional PPE, and implementing new mitigation measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” Hoffman said. 

No state budget cuts to education 

As other states are facing cuts in education because of the costs related to COVID-19, Arizona is not. One reason is Gov. Doug Ducey and the state Legislature’s previous work to budget for a $1 billion rainy day fund, which has proven critical for safeguarding education during the health crisis. 

Arizona’s booming economy prior to the pandemic outbreak is also a factor, local said. Add in donations, in-kind contributions and grants from businesses, municipalities and philanthropic organizations, and Arizona schools are better prepared than much of the nation to weather the pandemic.    

“A well-resourced rainy day fund, a prudent and carefully planned strategy for Arizona’s CARES Act allocation, and a regulatory and tax environment that encourages job creation have positioned Arizona well,” said Garrick Taylor, executive vice president for the Arizona �������� of Commerce and Industry. 

Biggest expense for education: transition to digital learning

When the pandemic struck in March, schools and colleges had to turn on a dime to provide remote learning for more than 1.5 million K-12 and college and university students.

That has proven to be a costly and exhausting endeavor for schools statewide, said Jake Logan, president and CEO of the Arizona Charter Schools Association. 

“Everything happened really fast when schools pivoted to that remote learning model to make sure learning was not disrupted,” he said. 

One major expense for charter and district schools has been ensuring that low-income students and students in rural and tribal areas have computers and an internet connection, Logan said. 

CARES Act funding and donations from the private and public sectors have helped those students stay connected, Logan said.  

“I’m really proud of the education community — and I include the governor and Superintendent Hoffman — because they have made students a priority and really worked hard to make sure learning wasn’t disrupted, considering the situation.” 

How Arizona is using CARES Act funds   

To date, approximately $1.4 billion of Arizona’s allocation of $1.8 billion in CARES Act funding has been obligated for a wide range of programs to assist residents, employees, businesses and schools. 

CARES Act programs directly benefiting schools include the Paycheck Protection Program, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund.

In all, Arizona is projected to receive more than $626 million in funding for K-12 district and charter schools, colleges and universities. A total of $370 million comes from the Education Relief Fund to support K-12 schools districts and charter schools struggling with the added costs.

Other vital sectors in Arizona benefiting from CARES Act include:  

• Cities, towns and counties: $441 million
• Public assistance: $150 million  
• State public health and safety: $397 million 
• Arizona Department of Health Services: $64.4 million

Financial challenges ahead 

While Arizona is better off than much of the nation, education will continue to face additional costs from COVID-19, Superintendent Hoffman said. 

Hoffman and 28 organizations including the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, Arizona Charter Schools Association, Arizona Education Association, Arizona Rural Schools Association and Arizona School Administrators Association have asked the state’s congressional delegation for continued support for schools. 

“In the face of a global pandemic Arizona schools and educators continue to be a beacon of hope for our communities. In addition to providing vital nutrition services, schools are working overtime to meet the academic, social, and emotional needs of students,” Superintendent Hoffman said. “Schools will need ongoing resources in order to provide the critical support families in Arizona rely on.”

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The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) saw mixed results for Arizona student achievement.

NAEP, a project of the National Center for Education Statistics, has given academic exams to representative samples of students in all 50 states since 2003. The exams cover fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading, and occasionally other academic subjects. NAEP released new results for 2019 on Oct. 30, and news proved bad nationally and mixed in Arizona.

Between 2017 and 2019, Arizona students had a statistically significant improvement in fourth-grade mathematics and a decline in eighth-grade reading, while fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math results remained statistically unchanged. These short-run results, on net, are nothing to celebrate nor to lament, especially when examining the trends in other states.

Taking a broader look over the last decade, Arizona stands as one of the few states showing progress over time.

The chart above tracks eighth-grade math and reading gains and losses from 2009 to 2019 for Free and Reduced Lunch-eligible students. As you can see, a majority of states saw declines in both math and reading for these students (lower left quadrant). Arizona stands among a minority of states with improvement in both eighth-grade math and reading.

Taking the lens back to the beginning of when NAEP began testing in all 50 states allows us to track Arizona’s rise across student subgroups. The figure below sequentially shows eighth-grade math scores for 2003 and then 2019 for Anglo students, then Hispanic students in 2003 and 2019, and then Black students in 2003 and 2019. Some states did not have a sufficiently large Hispanic or Black population to report scores and thus are not included.

In 2019, Arizona’s Anglo, Hispanic and Black students were all demonstrating a mastery of mathematics approximately equal to what their 2003 peers would have landed as ninth-graders. Because of these gains, Arizona’s Anglo students ranked 10^th, our Hispanic students ranked 20^th and our Black students ranked fourth on eighth-grade math, compared to their peers in other states.

Arizona was also one of only a handful of states to show academic progress for students with disabilities over the last decade. The figure below shows that, while Arizona students with disabilities made progress on eighth-grade math, the trend in a large majority of states showed declines in scores. The trend is the same for Arizona and nationally with regards to eighth-grade reading.

Arizona has a lot of work yet to do in order to build a world-class system of education.

We’ve faced huge challenges over the past decade. We will face new challenges in the decade that looms ahead. We do, however, have a decade of improvement at our backs.

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Jake Logan was named president and CEO of the Arizona Charter Schools Association in February. �������� sat down with Logan to discuss his passion for education, the importance of school choice and his priorities for this new role.​

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