Brad Buch
What is your education and relevant experience for this office?
After completing high school it was necessry to enter the work force initially in farming. I later advanced through the telecommunications industry over the past 20 years and have owned a small communcations business for several years. I am confident my personal life experiecnces will lend to my ability to represent LD7.
If you have children, do you/did you send them to public school? If so, did they graduate from a public school?
No Children
Do you feel you are an advocate for public education in Arizona? Use specific examples of what you will do or have done to demonstrate your level of support for public education in Arizona.
I am an advocate for quality education whether it be public, charter, private or home schooling.
Will you work to protect public education from any further budget cuts?
I will work to provide education with the proper funding requirements by reviewing how the current budget is disbursed today..
The system for funding public education in Arizona is a maze of laws, rules, regulations, funding sources, etc. Please share specifics on how you would simplify how we fund our public schools here in Arizona to make that funding source more efficient, effective and reliable?
We should fund our entire education system based on specific criteria. This includes a formula consisting of student achievement, specific school district overhead and classroom needs.
Should the education formula be based on seat time and average daily membership or on student academic progress and successful achievement of academic standards?
The education formula should be based on student academc achievement and successful achievement of academic standards.
Knowing that money does not cure all, how do you feel that Arizona ranks dead last in per pupil funding? Are you happy with the status quo or how will you work to change that? Can you share your plan on how Arizona can improve it's school funding to at least a competitive level? Be specific.
The funding is more than adequate. The method in which the dollars get to the classroom is one of the problems. Administrative costs and regulations directing where the funds go needs to be addressed. The teachers and students should be the least affected by budget cuts, not the first. School superintendents should not have the final say in budgeting. Teachers, parents and students should have some of the authority as well.
Do you think that class-size affects academic performance? How and at what size?
Teachers have a better sense of that than legislators. The subjects being taught should dictate the class size.
How do you feel about the unfunded mandate of the AIMS test (or a similar test) when teachers spend a large portion of their school year "teaching to the test"? Be specific.
Teachers should teach the subject matter. Teaching to a test is simply short changing the student on their education. Students would have more of an interest in learning when they are focused on subject matter.
Do you believe that the voters approving Prop 301 intended the 2% inflation factor to be applied to the entire M&O budget or just legislatively selected portions of the operating budget?
Approving any additional funding by taxpayers without any specifics of where that money is going is a mistake.
How do you plan to support districts with textbook adoptions with the decrease/limits on soft capital funding? Do you understand that many districts such as CCUSD operate with textbooks that are ten years old?
This is another case in point regarding the lack of prioritization in the public school system. Administrators must be held accountable as to how their budget is allocated.
The budget cuts have eliminated the funding for the Gifted Students Educational Program. With the passing of Prop 100 what legislative measures will you take to restore this funding to meet the many critical needs for our brightest minds and high acheivers in AZ?
The funds generated from proposition 100 should never have been allowed to go into the general fund. They can too easily be redirected to other needs. The gifted students educational program should be prioritized with each school districts requirements.
Where and what grade level classrooms have you observed in the last 12 months? What specifics can you share about class size and per pupil expenditure in those classrooms?
I have not had the opportunity to attend a class in the local area, but would look forward to making that arrangement in the near term.
Due to our district's low poverty, or "free and reduced lunch" level, do you understand the disparity that places CCUSD at a disadvantage for federal and grant application-based funding, and would you be willing to support legislation that would allow districts such as CCUSD in low-poverty areas to secure supplemental funding to reach curriculum or achievement standards that may be desired by the governing board? If so, what might those funding sources be? (please cite examples such as local prop tax, program fees, etc.)
If CCUSD doesn't have free and reduced lunch level needs, then they have no need for those specific federal grants. Existing budgets must be scrutinized for efficiency before any additional funding can be considered.
Do you support performance pay programs like Career Ladders and Prop 301 for teachers?
I would need more information to make a determination.
In constructing new schools, do you believe that bonding or direct general fund support is the most efficient and cost effective?
CCUSD has a current bond funded without a completed construction plan. That money is currently sitting there unable to be used. The poor decision making on the part of CCUSD has made bonding completely inefficient. Proper bonding is more efficient but not in this case.
Would you support a requirement that all new education policy initiatives proposed by the legislature contain a fiscal note and be required to include all necessary funding prior to adoption?
Legislators have no business initiating education policies that are not first proposed by educators. If this criteria was met, the funding should be provided.
Do you think the Constitutional requirement to fund a general and uniform public education system should take precedence over programs supporting private schools?
No. One form of schooling should not take precedence over another.
Please describe your level of support for school vouchers and private school tax credits, how should they be used (if at all), to whom should they be given/used for, and how would you change the current system in place? Be specific.
At this time I support vouchers and private school tax credits. In the future instead of tax credits I would like to see the per child per year allotment going directly to that school. This includes public, private, charter schools and home schooling.
Do you feel that the use of Vouchers and private school tax credits is appropriate considering the struggle that our public education system has recently faced and continues to face? Be specific.
The public school system needs to compete for students with the other types of schools. Only then will we have an opportunity to provide the highest quality of education possible.