Education Meter helps Arizona's progress

Christine Thompson, president and CEO of Expect More Arizona, wrote a commentary for The Seventy Four organization, a nonpartisan news site focused on education, in which she describes the on-going education challenges "in a state that ranks near the bottom in teacher pay, with thousands of vacant teaching positions, dwindling enrollment in teacher training programs... and while there are many positive programs in our schools and communities, we know we need to do more... to help Arizona make progress."

Along with the Center for the Future of Arizona, Expect More Arizona launched the Arizona Education Progress Meter in 2016 to serve as a nonpartisan, shared source of information that provides a guidepost for the future. "Centered on a set of eight key metrics and corresponding goals," Thompson wrote, "the data paint a clear picture of where we stand today, as well as what success should look like. Because, as we all know, what gets measured gets done."

"Data experts at Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University are gathering, analyzing, and validating data on an ongoing basis, so everyone can easily see how our schools are doing,"  Thompson wrote. "It’s now easy to see what success looks like, so we’ll know when we’ve arrived there. We have a long way to go, but meeting these goals will be a game-changer for Arizona."

READ: Commentary: Arizona is improving education for all the state’s students